UC Merced is an interesting study. Their gym is a joke for the size of the campus - again not necessarily because their athletics team commands a facility of size but because any campus designed for 10,000 students should have the ability to host an event (not necessarily athletic) with more than a couple hundred attendees. UC Merced is approaching parity with Eastern Washington and Montana in size, though is unlikely to ever have that kind of sports following. My two cents is that it was the wrong location because there is not much to make it a destination, nor is it really that close to the valley population centers. The perception is that it is the repository for people not accepted to the other campuses, a distinction I'm sure Riverside was pleased to shed.

A huge problem with really all state property is that it gets built with one-time bond money but then has insufficient funding for maintenance and operations so the facilities degrade until really expensive renovations are needed. Turns out that paint, carpet cleaning, and toilet paper aren't sexy sells in Sacramento. Case and point is that the Rec Pool at Davis had to be completely bulldozed and replaced because ordinary routine maintenance was deferred so long that it became unrepairable. An odd take from a university so concerned about the environment they don't allow candy in the stadium (due to plastic waste), when in real terms the construction and demolition of structures typically has a greater carbon footprint than the lifetime operation. UC Merced is trying a new concept where the campus facilities are a public-private partnership and they have contracted a private firm to build, operate, and maintain the facilities for the next 35 years. I guess we will have to wait and see the results, but I am by default skeptical of schemes that promise more for less while also delivering profits for investors.

I'll put my reply to the OT board so we don't get toooo far off the topic of the football roster here!

You're probably right. I went to games religiously in the 90s and 2000s and remember some of those tense nights at both Sac and Poly. I haven't been in person much in the last 10 years so I suppose my perception is frozen in time, which is probably early onset of me becoming an old fart.

I guess I'm alone in wrinkling my nose about a Davis man putting on green. I'm not sure how the Covid eligibility relief works... he has graduated from UCD, but Sac's roster lists him as a Sr transfer. So does he have to take classes at all, does he take some non-degree seeking undergrad classes, or is he going to be taking graduate courses? His profile says he wants to be a PE teacher (and coach), so in my mind, if he is legitimately pursuing a teaching credential or master's degree through Sac State then it's weird but checks out. If he's not there for a legitimate academic purpose, it would be a shame that some other student is being denied a seat. Also curious when players or coaches transfer to opponent teams, is there any sort of gentleman's accord about divulging internal team info or is that considered fair game?

I’m not going to say it’s the primary driver, but I’m sure somebody in student affairs will put this on their annual review as a commitment to equity. Self defense classes will skew female, swim lessons will skew toward people who grew up without access to pools (read socioeconomic disadvantaged). Want to increase program representation of women and pell grant recipients? Add programs like this and delete programs that may overrepresent the other end of the spectrum. And by all means I’m not against swim lessons or self defense, but to remove or substitute amenities that people have been paying towards without notice, input or justification, its like when a tech company changes the terms of service to your disadvantage on a product you’ve already purchased.

indeed times are changing, in many ways for the better, though not always. Promise I’m not a ranting old man and I don’t mean to sidetrack this conversation about PE to include band politics (though happy to discuss elsewhere!). My point is that good public leaders are transparent because the people’s business shouldn’t be a secret from the people. George Pardee, the governor that signed UCD into existence, famously removed the door from his office and refused secret meetings. He might be a good role model for these troubled times.

MU was recently renovated. Took space from games area to expand bookstore so they could lease space to Amazon. The bookstore used to be owned by ASUCD, but the administration took it (and the profits) over in the 80s. Not a ton of transparency for where the profits from $80 sweatshirts go.

For kdvs situation see savekdvs.org . The newspaper had to move off campus as well.

There is a new VC of student affairs. I don’t know much about him. I believe this PE thing was set in motion with Galindo before him.

Fair point, I didn’t know Emil Mrak or Stanley Freeborn personally. Maybe they were terrors, I don’t know. But people from those eras tended to be career folks and had big visions for excellence. I met Vanderhoef and really liked him. Katehi was a jerk in real life. I haven’t met May personally but I agree he seems likeable. But at the same time, I haven’t seen him take out the trash, and the buck does stop with the boss.

sure the band stuff was personal to me, but there have been other things. Years ago they tried to bulldoze the domes without warning. Bonfire was eliminated. MU Games Center a ghost of its former self. Different chancellor but a lot of the same Vice chancellors. More recently all the stuff with Freeborn Hall and now they are trying to can KDVS.

As far as I understand, PE was a condition of the student referendum that allowed D1 athletics. Clicking some of the links, it looks like funding is being diverted to other “wellness” initiatives - hiring more psychologists and offering free swim lessons, CPR, and self defense classes (but not for academic credit). It’s fine if needs have changed and those other things make more sense for today’s students. But make it a public conversation with enough time to consider all sides. My take is that when you do things in secret, it usually means you think people will be more angry if they know the supporting facts in your decision than they will by just a straight blindsiding. Which is fine in private business but not cool when you’re doing the people’s work.

On this particular decision, I’m not sure we know the why. Could have been any of the reasons you mentioned or something else. Either way I think people have a right to know the facts and be present for the process.

My observation is that UCD no longer attracts the Freeborn and Mrak types who are dedicated to long term service and vision. Instead we get people who are always interviewing for the next job instead of doing their current one or people who recognize they’ve peaked and are looking to ride out a career of mediocrity on easy street. Both types try to sweep the unpopular decisions under the rug rather than address them head on, albeit for different reasons. I should say that athletics has appeared well run over the past few years compared to most parts of the university.

Good. I hate to say it but I encourage as many people as possible to sue UCD for as many reasons as possible for huge damages. The reality is that massive settlements are the only way to get the attention of the legislature that wholesale firings are needed from middle management up. I don’t have passion around PE per se but I have passion around the idea that a public university should be run fully in the sunshine without sudden or back room decisions. Over and over again this crop of administrators makes secret policy decisions and then implements without warning to effectively castrate any discourse or protest effort as too late. Fundamentally, students, taxpayers, faculty, etc should have a direct voice at the table beyond the distant premise of electing a governor who appoints regents. A few years ago, dining services held several public forums and took a year to consider whether to use fresh or packaged guacamole in campus food outlets. Why is it that stupid things like that can be considered out in the open but more meaningful things are done in secret?

good background. My understanding is that inning pitch limit was new for COVID, but not automatic. Had to be invoked and some teams manipulated it in ways that disappointed fans (like bases loaded no outs). Which the outcome doesn’t matter, so let the fans see the runs. But ending games early is not new, at least in Grapefruit League. If I remember right I think it just ended at the 7th inning stretch if home team was up by 3. Wasn’t uncommon for visiting team to throw the game if traffic was getting bad.

I think any sport with no time limits to it is destined for failure in the long run. — 69aggie

As evidenced by MLB spring training, where innings can end after 20 pitches regardless of outs, and the game can end several innings early if the home team is ahead. Never seen professional athletes in such a hurry to not play.

I would think the ESPNU games will have better quality than +. When I originally read the release I thought it meant two ESPNU games per school, but rereading I think it means two for the conference. Odds probably against us getting one of those slots. If the production quality for + is all on the school, it doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t invest at least in the low hanging fruit. Like having a stable internet connection and muting hot mics when Scott thinks he’s off air. I suppose nothing is cheaper than the Davis High School AV Club, but in terms of hired production, renting time from a well equipped remote engineer can be a cost cutter over deploying lesser equipment to the site. This is how they do North American coverage for titillators like Romania vs Lithuania women’s soccer.

if that’s the case, hopefully we take the opportunity to avoid embarrassing ourselves to a wider audience. If it is too costly to get proper production tractor trailers out, ESPN does have technology where they can do the engineering and production remote from their Orlando control rooms with limited onsite equipment. Can be more cost efficient if Rocko is reading.

Net positive or negative depends on your starting position. If you already have both services, it's probably a positive to improve production quality and technical reliability. Also gets at least the ESPNU games on several thousand sports bar screens across the country. Maybe not the "main" screen, but still exposure. Personally, I already have ESPN+ as part of a Disney bundle. But I do not have cable and do not want it for $60-100/mo because there would be so little I watch. So the ESPNU games present a problem for me. I guess I could go to a watering hole or listen to radio.

The ESPN universe can be confusing in the way it extracts cash from your wallet -

• ESPN+ is a strictly streaming service available a la carte for about $6/mo or as part of various Disney+ / Hulu bundles or as a gimmick from some mobile phone providers. It does have an app available for smart TVs and mobile devices. It includes some "original content" (read: obscure games that don't warrant a spot on a cable channel) and some replay games. It does NOT include live content from ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU cable channels without having a valid cable subscription as well.
  
• ESPNU is a cable channel. To watch it, you must subscribe to a cable package that includes it. This could be from a legacy cable provider like Spectrum or Comcast or it could be through a streaming cable provider like Hulu+LiveTV or Sling (~$65/mo). If you subscribe to a cable package that includes ESPNU, then you can link that license to your ESPN app to watch it there, if say, you wanted to stream it on a tablet or phone instead of your TV. Note that having a cable subscription that includes ESPN channels does not automatically include access to ESPN+ streaming-only content, you still have to pay the $6/mo for that.

Bottom line is that the games will be paywalled, behind two DIFFERENT pay walls, depending on whether it is an ESPN+ or ESPNU game. Presumably the ESPNU games will have production quality suitable for national cable. Hard to say if the ESPN+ games will have better cameras and graphics but it should be a more stable platform than Pluto - assuming that the constant buffering was Pluto's fault and not the result of a really unstable uplink from the stadium. Don't know what this means for free replays on BigSkyTV, but I would think that if Disney is charging $6 to stream the replay, they wouldn't want it free somewhere else.

This thread took a plot twist. Are Fresno’s finest dancers really a recruitment tool? I guess some people are into meth mouth?

I know little about baseball or which players are relevant, but looking through the rosters it looks like baseball at both schools is kind of a regional recruiter, most of Irvine's players come from LA, San Diego, and Orange Counties. Most of ours come from Sac valley or Bay Area. Is baseball just objectively better or more popular among Southern California high schools? Or is there something different about baseball culture in Northern California that makes the students less attractive to universities? To some degree, success attracts success but is any school in the Big West really a feeder to a pro career? I thought pro ball mostly plucked the guys with legitimate potential right out of high school. Remembering way back to high school for me, both school and club baseball were always in trouble for indiscretions with alcohol, tobacco, or young ladies. I recall on one occasion they locked the coach in a portolet, tipped it over, and left him. Needless to say, not college-bound men. No idea if that culture was unique to my high school or more widespread.

This happened in 2018. In mid-2020 they rolled out their new shark mascot named "Elbie." Athletics is going by Beach Athletics (Dirtbags for baseball). Students and alumni can still refer to themselves as 49ers. Neither teams nor individuals should be referred to as sharks. Elbie is just the mascot... kind of like how Gunrock is our mascot, but we refer to ourselves as the Aggies not the mustangs. That said, the shark costume looks like it came from a Chinese knock-off of a Seaworld park and per the university's official communication, Elbie is speechless, has no family, and identifies as gender non-binary, preferring they/them pronouns.

The statue in question was planned to move to the alumni center opening in 2022, but was removed early last summer and put in storage due to threats of vandalism because some see it as anti-Native American.

Sure! Here is the UC interactive dashboard on admissions. If you go up a level in the infocenter, there are other dashboards on a variety of topics. I took another look and I did misspeak - currently about 28,000 undergrad international (12% of total), of which 18,000 are from PRC. About 15,000 grad international (26%), of which 7,000 are from PRC. Still a mass expansion of international from 2000 (2% and 16%) with the bulk during 2009-2015. Domestic out-of-state also doubled.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance

I don't think we disagree in premise. But my point is it's maybe not so easy to define what the "top 8%" is if the standardized tests are crooked and grades aren't so standardized from school to school. Indeed I have seen what you describe, students get recruited beyond their preparation and go down in flames. I should say I don't believe intellect is guided by race but preparation is often guided by economics. We would likely be better off as a society if we intervened much earlier in life on the socio-economic things rather than wait for big disparities to develop and then try to apply some even-the-odds overlay to admissions and hiring.