Well said. Your situation is unfortunately not unique. The development (fundraising) staff both on the academic side and with althletics is not very strong.

campus fundraising seems to be doing okay:

https://giving.ucdavis.edu/impacts-giving/campaign-success

My wife and I have always been very pleased with the acknowledgment we have received from the university for our donations to the UC Davis School of Medicine and Aggie Athletics. We've received hand written thank you notes from Jim Les and Jen Gross and phone calls from an assistant football coach. We also receive regular emails from Rocko DeLuca as Team Aggie members.

"Drop football" ....what?! I'd argue the football program is stronger at his moment than its ever been. The talent level on the field and revenue off it have got to be at all-time highs.
The Athletic Department made about $5 million to $6 million last year. I'd say this is mostly from football. Football is very important to the university athletics program.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2022/7/8/uc-davis-athletics-enjoys-record-breaking-success-in-2021-22#:~:text=During%20the%202021%2D22%20fiscal%20year%2C%20the%20Aggies,boasted%20a%20total%20fundraising%20pledge%20of%20$14%2C268%2C914.

This is from our friends over at HERO sports....Davis has a monster athletics budget, and also a ton of sports (in an extremely expensive state)

https://herosports.com/fcs-schools-highest-2022-23-revenue-bzbz/

dropping football might be a little extreme unless the Big Sky and any remaining FCS fell apart without the resources for FBS.

@DrMike no doubt the phone calls work on someone or they wouldn’t make them. My point is that many recent grads aren’t in a position to be donors yet while they are doing grad school, buying a house, starting a family. But if there was an effort to engage people and ask for contributions of time or skill, there may be a whole untapped market of monetary donors who start to have that capacity as they get established in their careers. Idk what their donor acquisition cost is, but it’s almost always cheaper to keep a customer than find a new one.

I used to fly back for Picnic Day and homecoming most years. But the last conversation I had with a UCD employee was on Picnic Day a few years ago getting hustled out the MU by some jackwagon in a blue polo saying the public restrooms are not for Picnic Day and I will need to use the overflowing portolet outside. So basically, give us money but you’re not worth 1.2 gallons of water and a couple feet of toilet paper, now take your dump outside like an animal. Kind of insulting. Now certainly you can buy respect, with the right donation, you’ll be invited to the club room, the coach will pretend to recognize you, and you’ll be served Sodexo’s finest selection of industrial cheese paired with an $8 bottle of wine disguised by a cloth napkin. Meh, I think I’ll just watch on ESPN and buy my own cheese. My point being that while the P5 schools invest heavily in the high rollers, they do actually try harder to show respect to fans of all levels. Never know who the next high roller might be. If you’re not an insider, the career staff at UCD, not specific to athletics necessarily, are often hostile to the public.

I don't think it's wrong to ask for money or to try to make it easier for those to give it. There's nothing wrong with asking for help. This is one of the best public universities in the country that just so happens to have a small, but historic football program, trying to stay one of the best public universities in the country. Yes, there have been some major donors over the years, but it's not built on private school legacy billionaires. I'm sure the school has tried and keeps trying to find them.

If one doesn't feel thanked enough for their donation, and it leads to burned bridges, that's too bad. And not everyone's always ready or in a place to give. It's hard to please everyone, but hopefully the majority feel like their contributions made a difference. Outside of my full-time job and being a dad, I'm on the board of numerous groups, raising money for students and the community ($20k this year!), never expecting thanks for this volunteer work, or expecting to meet the people who've benefited... in one of the groups, Rotary, we say, "Service Above Self." Helping the cause is reason enough.

Agreed. Whether or not UCD football stays FCS or moves up, it is a positive sport/experience to enjoy and rally around. I posted an article earlier about the trend of students enrolling at schools on the south for enjoyable weekends to include football. Georgia Tech was the main photo (rambling wreck rolling into the field with students in the background cheering). I watched the Colorado game - stadium packed, students having a great time. Now Aggie football is, of course, not at that level of enthusiasm with either most students or alums, but dropping football just seems like a Debbie-downer approach.

No sport pays for itself. For decades, Aggie football has brought the campus acclaim, not UCLA level, but not peanuts either. An acquaintance once told me, "I know Davis for agriculture, viticulture, and great small college football."

When Rolf Benirschke was lauded on Monday Night Football by Howard Cosell, and Aggie football was covered yearly in the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated, few had such criticisms.

Schools without football often have an even worse gender imbalance. Where are the State and Federal programs to increase male enrollment?

When was UC Davis in the Chronicle? They generally cover(ed) Cal, Stanford, SJSU, and the WCC teams.

At least 1980s. Top columnist Glenn Dickey was big on Sochor and pushed him for the Cal and Stanford jobs. Riding BART into the City, lots of eyes on Herb Caen and GD.

Davis usually got a couple paragraphs each week in “The Sporting Green”.

was before my time circa late 90s and 00's.

I’m a 70s/80s kid and sporting green fan. While I don’t recall many Davis references I would not be shocked that we had coverage. SF is a small town (it really is) and the Chronicle likely appreciated Coach Sochors SF roots (Washington HS…rival of Lincoln- a plug for my dad’s Alma mater) and playing time at SF State. The Gators had a great program back in the day led by coaches Verducci and Rowan. Lots of pride here… to think Andy Reid, Mike Holmgrem were part of the coaching tree is impressive.

https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/hawaii-full-mountain-west-member-2026?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=BrettMcMurphy

Sources: Hawaii to Become Full Mountain West Member in 2026

Kudos to them for getting a deal without travel subsidies.

from a basketball perspective, I think this is great. Back to 10 teams, without the scheduling considerations made for for teams traveling to Hawaii, will mean a more compact conference schedule. No more mid December conference openers (or worse, conference openers during winter break).

So does this seal Sac's fate as being left out of the MWC, as the conference has reached the required amount of football teams?

MWC doesn't look half-bad considering the absolute carnage over the past few months:

Air Force
Hawaii
Nevada
New Mexico
San Jose State
UNLV
UTEP
Wyoming

I think the answer is ‘no’. I think they’d like at least one more for football scheduling reasons. They’d, of course, like 12 so they can have a playoff but that’s not likely

Damn near reconstitution of the WAC

Oh good, Davis can stop flying there for basketball, etc.

Not good for me, an Aggie in Hawaii who won't get to see them play in Hawai`i after this season.

Who knows, Toke, the Aggies could schedule Hawai'i as one of their non-conference games. I'm sure the trip to Hawai'i is something the players like to see on the schedule.

From 1993-1999 the old WAC was this:

Air Force
Hawaii
Brigham Young
Utah
Boise State
New Mexico
San Diego State
UNLV
UTEP
Wyoming
(San Jose State and UNLV were added in 1997)

So, yeah, it's close.

Anyone else a bit confused why we were served concept photos a few weeks ago, and then saw no push from Davis towards realignment (especially after texas state seemed disinterested)? Even more so with Hawaii leaving for the MW?

"concept photos" is a loose term :D
I've given some thoughts on this previously....
https://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/comment/58400
https://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/comment/59322

a few weeks later and as much realignment news from other programs and conferences comes out, and not one mention of davis has been talked about, I really do find that whole stadium rendering thing embarrassing, considering I had family members who literally have never been to davis see that tweet and message me about it. Also disappointing considering what I consider to be a pretty big increase in social media content surrounding athletics and engagement from fans, but sigh, we continue to get weird tweets from the athletics department and seemingly no offense when it comes to pushing for a move. I feel that a big issue with Davis fans, at least from what I understand as a student and talking to people, is that as the college football landscape changes, most people I know who are casual fans simply feel disenchanted by the literal names and stadiums of schools we play, and also see the FCS playoffs as worse than a bowl game (no matter what I think) because they don't see worth in fighting for a championship that literally could be against a team with less than 10k students. Family friends also (as dumb as it may sound), like the davis stadium but find it underwhelming.

like the davis stadium but find it underwhelming. — Jdur

Maybe they never had the chance to experience the old-world charm of Toomey Field?

https://ballparks.smugmug.com/University-of-California-Davis-Toomey-FIeld-Davis-California

(thanks to @bob busser out there in internet-land for the cool site)

No one cares about the student enrollment in bowl games. Haven’t heard anyone not wanting their school to play Notre Dame because they don’t have 10,000 undergrads.

What I was trying to say was that many people I know already struggle with knowing many of the g5 FBS teams, and know even less FCS teams (even ones that make the playoffs sometimes), leaving them struggling to get very excited about the competition by simply seeing ads or social media posts. I would be inclined to believe that the average fan would be more excited to watch a Davis vs unr conference game, or davis vs the likes of san diego state or texas tech bowl game than playing Drake or UT Martin.

Are you telling me your friends and family didn't call you immediately afrer Davis beat Utah Tech?!? (Heavy on the sarcasm.)