I think Dunning has the right take (as per usual). How exactly is one supposed to make the Bee happy? They want both a hardline approach on hazing/harassment and also to never have a case crop up? Those seem contradictory. The reality is that no collection of 30,000 humans is going to have perfect behavior. Schools that appear to have no cases aren't somehow perfect at prevention, they simply don't address them.

It's curious that the Bee tries to question why the baseball parent wanted anonymity and who they are afraid of at UCD as if there was some curtain of fear and silence. I doubt the parent is so much afraid of administrators as much as they are of activists and reporters who will accuse anyone who is not supportive of accusations as a "victim blamer" or worse and can lead to doxing.

I doubt that this will result in any tectonic shifts for UCD or even the Big West or Big Sky at large. Might see some players hawking Muscle Milk or appearing in local car ads. Nationally, I doubt this changes much in the minor sports but I think P5 football and basketball will change for the worse. On one hand, individuals own their NIL (well unless you've sold or signed your rights away) and non-athletes have always been able to to monetize it at will, though most people's has no monetary value. On the other hand, the only reason athletes' NIL has value is because of their association to (or maybe more accurately, employment by) the team. It is fairly common in the corporate world for employers to say you can't use your employment status to drive the value of your NIL. There are already cases of 17 year-olds who have yet to touch the field being offered millions of dollars and I'm thinking that may not be healthy if we are sticking with the myth that athletics are a side gig of a primarily educational endeavor. The likely scenario I see developing is that the P5 schools have NIL agents and bundlers that basically offer cash bonuses as part of the recruitment arms race, furthering the delta between the have and have-not programs. The argument in favor of this kind of stuff has been led by NFL and NBA players who acknowledge that a lot of athletes receive free tuition, room, and board but they don't think it's reasonable for athletes to have a campus job, which leaves them short of clubbing money. Of course, non-athletic scholarships rarely cover room and board and there are lots of students who don't really have time for a campus job that have to get one anyway. I'm sure that giving 17 year-olds a million dollars of clubbing money won't lead to any problems.

The young lady in question rented a cabin with friends over a school break (some of whom were in band, others not), proceeded to get drunk and hop in a hot tub naked, and allegedly hands wandered. Didn't say anything for a year, then runs for section leader and isn't elected. Confides in a professional activist at a campus resource center who helps her try to frame the hot tub as an official band thing. The staff director you are thinking of wasn't involved in the most recent controversy, but he had his own 10 years previous. He was filing a hostile workplace suit against his female boss (she was a jerk) and wasn't getting anywhere. For traction, his lawyer fabricated the naked van story. At the time, the university acknowledged they knew it was false. In both cases, people not getting their way made fraudulent or exaggerated hazing/harassment claims for personal gain and mostly got away with it because you can't tell a "trauma survivor" that they are lying. Now, I'm not saying the hazing claims against baseball are false. I'm simply saying if it remains that nobody knows what the claim is about, it may well be that there's not much meat to it other than someone pissed about something else decided to lob a revenge grenade. I know the powers that be want us to believe all accusations by default because they claim nobody would ever lie, but I've seen it botched one too many times that I personally stick with innocent until proven guilty by credible facts.

The plot points will likely be different, but the fundamental basis of the band controversy was a student went into full revenge mode after failing to win election to a leadership role. Really none of the allegations involved the band per se, they mostly centered on people's private activities off band time (which is a grey area as to how much jurisdiction the university should or does have). Those themes don't necessarily seem out of reach here.

Prior to making the news, the student and alumni band groups were constructively involved with the administration and were actually close to resolution on everything. The problem of course was that the people who went public weren't actually victims, they were revenge activists who rejected the premise of a measured and collaborative investigation and demanded scorched earth. The university initially hesitated so the activists launched an expanded PR assault implicating that the university wasn't taking things seriously, which left the administration swinging from the back leg. If the university learned anything, it was that activists will rake you for seeking fact before action and that taking robust action before actually obtaining facts might help keep a lid on the screamers, leaving political space for walkback of a possible overreaction at a later date.

The university has to investigate based on the perceptions of the people making the complaints — Goags20172

So true. And keep in mind that the person making the complaint could be a 3rd party. Say for example a freshman happened to mention to his residence hall advisor that the freshmen had to go load the equipment truck - theoretically maybe none of the freshman participants were offended by this tradition, but the RA is a "mandatory reporter" and feels it meets the criteria of something he has to run up the flagpole. Hazing and harassment are such serious topics, I am not sure the response is terribly different between minor and major transgressions. Sort of like stores that prosecute shoplifting a stick of gum the same as stealing 10 TVs.

So far the police have said they aren't involved and the only leak has been a relative of a player saying nobody knows what's going on. If we don't get a leak soon, it might actually be true that few know what's up. Usually when something is widespread and long-lived, there will be a disgruntled former affiliate willing to spill.

The something out of nothing I was referring to was the fact that the Bee had no relevant information to report so they went and got the opinions of some uninvolved individuals and tried to draw some sort of connection to unrelated events over the last 10 years. Should have been on the opinion page since it was mostly clickbait conjecture rather than journalism.

As to whether the allegations are indeed systemic, serious, and credible we may never know. We are likely to only get a one-sided telling when it eventually comes out. If in fact there was dangerous behavior going on, let me be clear that I do not condone it. But I have become distrustful of the university’s ability to run factual investigations because the education compliance industry is so incentivized to overreact and convict under their doctrine of “guilty until proven innocent and even then still guilty for good measure.” Indeed I have seen the university suspend people and programs over allegations that were minor and factually dubious.

F**k the Bee. Not even suitable to line a birdcage. Really reaching to make something out of nothing.

indeed I too feel bad for any collateral damage participants. New recruits have clearly done nothing wrong. We don’t know yet how many current participants are implicated, but could be a lot of innocent people there too. As for transferring, one- you’re probably not in great demand coming off a 40 loss season, two- how many schools are going to interested at least before the investigation is complete? When the details come out, it better be something severe that justifies all of those impacts to others. If it turns out to be unsubstantiated nonsense or something involving a couple of people that could have been handled over email, then the uninvolved parties will have a real right to be pissed.

As for what happens to the program, these are the options that were laid out in the band controversy and are probably the ones being considered here-
1. Probation, 2. Remove problem participants but otherwise status quo, 3. Reboot under new leadership, 4. One to four year hiatus to reset participant pool, 5. Cancellation. The university under May is into the “front porch ideology” that things like athletics can be a bridge to communities that wouldn’t otherwise interact with the university. In the case of the band, they opted to reboot instead of cancel because the lifetime positive contribution was too great. Does baseball have a relevant place on the front porch? That’s the real question. With the right leadership and financial investments, a W-L record or problem individuals can be solved. To wave the flag of surrender and say baseball is unfixable would seem kind of cowardly without having other strategic reasons. If it were cancelled or replaced, the current events might be a catalyst but I think the ultimate reason would be based on front porch relevance.

I’m not sure if Title IX cares if men’s sports are underrepresented. Pretty sure it’s a one way street the other way. But if baseball were to be replaced with something else, all the normal considerations would apply about facilities, opponents, etc. But I think they would look for a sport that is popular in the San Joaquin valley since the university in general wants to increase enrollment from that area. Not sure if truck pulls or destruction derby count as collegiate sports.

Things processed under guidance of Title IX can be very broad to encompass anything tangentially related to sex, gender, sexuality in education, not just participation levels. Something as benign as a “that’s what she said” joke told in the living room of your own home could be processed as harassment under title IX if the wrong person heard it.

Presuming that everyone on the team knows what led to this, somebody will leak the gist of it soon. It is also possible that some or most of the team does not know any more than we do. The main categories that have to be hush-hush are Title IX, education matters, or medical matters. Based on notes about safety and counseling, my speculation might be on the first one. Usually when it's ethics-related (like finances, recruiting, sportsmanship), or other bad behavior (like theft, vandalism, alcohol, hazing), the allegations aren't secret.

If the investigation around the band is any precedent, it took about 4 months. My speculation is that somebody was unsatisfied with how a complaint on one of this year's lighting rod topics (could be legitimate or nonsense) was being handled and was getting ready to go public. In this way, the University is managing the narrative to make themselves look proactive, rather than allowing accusations to run wild in the Bee and then react from the back foot. Whether the investigation is completed in-house or with an outside firm, it is important to recognize that evidence, truth, and justice are not really the goal. The real goal will be ordering parties from most to least likely to win damages or spread bad PR and identifying the least risky fall guy if needed. Sometimes this aligns with truth and justice. But not always.

Woof. Hate to see this kind of thing. Hopefully there will be a fair and fact-based investigation of the innocent-until-proven-guilty variety and any legitimate problems can be solved.

I was kind of curious about how bad the budget was this year. I can't find anything specific to athletics, but as a whole, the campus took a hit of about $200M. But it appears they have found ways to plug that, at least in the near term, by moving money around. The saving graces were that, to the surprise of many I think, the state budget and endowments did better than expected. There were several campus units that had to take out loans from reserves to cover their losses - specifically the Bookstore, TAPS, and Student Housing (personally I would have been fine had they laid off all the parking meter maids). For what it's worth, Athletics wasn't on the bailout request list so I wouldn't personally predict any program cuts based on money. But I have no inside knowledge.

It's like if you were you were trying to lose weight but all you did was cut out your daily bowl of ice cream. You might lose a lb. — Goags20172

Ha, I know that struggle. The doctor has been telling me to quit ice cream and soda for years. Neither of which is going to happen, lol.

Are you looking at Biggs' FCS record only? I think his lifetime was closer to 0.62, but heavily influenced by the run in the 90s. But here's another one for the list - Coach Gary Stewart (just the mention turns stomachs on the Hamilton Court thread) - 0.373. If there is any pattern, it seems the threshold of acceptability to past ADs has been a 0.4 minimum, with a sustained record below that resulting in staff changes. 2020-21 was a weird year, so I don't know if coaches will get a pass, but it wasn't good. To your point though, in the lifetime of current recruits, only 2 winning seasons, and neither recent. Chicken and egg problem where it's hard to recruit winners when you aren't a winning team and even harder to sell the "you can be part of the turnaround" pitch when everything in the program is static. I didn't realize how long Vaughn had been around... played 89-92 and became an assistant coach at UCD in 1993. That's actually kind of unusual by today's standards I think to not have had any interludes with other programs. If we believe the coach is the issue, is it the coach's skill (a la Gould), or the coach's culture (CGS) that is the problem? Perhaps the hard question is whether it's really the coach or some other x-factor that would hamper any coach.

@Goags20172 There was an opinion article in the Washington Post today about baseball rules. Basic assertion was that MLB games are getting longer with more time between plays, more strikeouts, and scoring becoming reliant on home runs due to back office stat coaching and pitches getting faster. The author suggests a correlation with dropping MLB attendance and that moving the mound, defining where infielders can stand, or a play clock between pitches might make the game more exciting to casual fans by bolstering offense activity. I'm curious your thoughts on those type of changes. And not that all pro rules filter down to collegiate and youth levels, but if something like a play clock did, how would that affect the game? I know there is a lot of attention at the youth levels of injuries to pitcher's shoulders. Would a play clock make those injuries worse or cause a seismic shift to some (safer?) winning strategy other than throwing at the speed of sound?

well then I suppose there are no easy answers. Organized crime is also involved the ice cream bar, tide pod, and diaper businesses, so I guess we can’t have anything nice. At any rate, if they’re going to have a cannabis major, hopefully they got a food science department too. Could make for a fun bake sale.

I’ve heard the same. I’m not an expert on the business but I’d assume the illegitimate operations will pop up as fast they are swatted until sanctioned commercial growers become efficient enough to beat them on price, quality, and consistency.

heh, the "Finn" in AggieFinn makes sense then. Here I had been assuming (for no reason in particular) that you might be into fishing.

I doubt that a proposed cannabis major would promote irresponsible use of weed any more than the beer and wine professors at Davis would suggest you get hammered on Natural Ice and Franzia every Thursday thru Sunday. Since weed demand isn’t going away, it seems reasonable to invest in at least shrinking its environmental impact.

I've never been to the SJ Giants facility so can't say much about it. Went to one game many years ago at (then) Raley Field. I remember it being pleasant for an evening game - a fun family atmosphere, good sightlines, and a decent BBQ on the berm. But I recall the "redcoats" they had running security and operations were obnoxious. They were also a problem for a few years at Toomey Field when Greg W hired them to replace students as ushers. I do think the placement of the stadium is odd. I guess it frames Tower Bridge from the press box, but it really kind of wastes the fact that it is waterfront property. A riverfront plaza would have made sense and maybe even a lagoon so the yacht crowd could sail to games. It followed an old trope that building a stadium in an impoverished or industrial area would revitalize the area and magically change the fortunes of nearby residents without displacing them. 20 years in and still waiting on those results. Build stadiums that host night games in neighborhoods where you would want to walk around at night. It appears Sutter Health recently bought the naming rights for an undisclosed sum probably in the $15-20M range as part of a national trend of hospitals and health systems getting involved in the sports business. Being a "non-profit" health system, I might have felt better about those millions going to lower medical bills or enhance patient care in a more direct way.