History will be made tomorrow at 10 am as the UC Davis Aggies will have their first ever Equestrian Team contest with the Delaware State #7 team in the in the nation. Go Ags!

Well the absolute best place for tailgating would be the dairy cattle facility directly across from the stadium. It is the dirty brown space to the east of the stadium in the drone video. Now for me, I don’t mind a drink or two with my bovine friends, though I do prefer horses to drink with as they seem to be more “classy” and better looking. However, I am reminded that horses have not provided any nutritional assets to us humans as do the cows. They also poop a lot and eat a lot. They also make my family buy a lot of stuff for our horsey niece. But, I am reminded that our indeared mascot, Gunrock, is a horse so we must bow to his honor. So no to the dairy facility. Sorry my dear cows.

I did find an 7-8 year old article in cal-magazine which interviewed rugby coach Clark about cal rugby when it was under siege due to UC Berkeley’s massive athletic debt. In the interview were some surprising facts regarding cal-rugby:
No scholarships
Full time paid coach
#3 in merchandise sales
#5 in concessions sales
#3-4 in paid attendance
5 million endowment
Men’s rugby is not an NCAA sport
Woman’s rugby IS an NCAA sport
Cal football was going to take away witter field rugby and put in a turf practice field
Cal rugby has an incredibly powerful alumni base.
Now this is an old article and I have no idea if it is still accurate.

I just love watching the gals do their thing so well. Just enjoy it while it lasts because it doesn’t last.

Does Berkeley/st Mary’s give scholarships for rugby?

How can this be when we really only lost one starter from last year? Maybe Chima was the key, but we played well without him.

Exceptional ball movement offense by the Aggies. The girls are starting to mold into a real contending team.

Great recent article in FiveThirtyEight analyzing why offensive performance is far more predictable of success in football than defensive performance; and why the best NFL teams draft good offensive players before the best defensive players. It explains why the recent high scoring in NFL games is happening. Now, this is an article for football geeks who know their metrics and advanced algebra (not me) and its also about the NFL, but it could apply to DI football as well. One defensive stat that surprised me was that hits on the QB (not sacks) are highly predictive of a winning season. Might be one reason Hawk does seem to concentrate on getting the best offensive players. Anyway, good read.

Now the Big West TV commentators are calling them the “Eaton Twins” as they should. They were terrific tonight both on the floor together for most of the game.

Do FCB teams offer only full scholarships also? I guess I am not on top of this issue. Sorry. And what is “cost of attendance”?

SLO it will depend on the offer. It is surly not a full. So 1/2- 1/3 maybe. Boulder is a nice town, but the university is not that good, not that academics are all that high on a prospects list. SLO is every bit as good. If you offer a full and playing time you may get him. Colo may just put on the end of the bench for 3 years.

Humboldt players? It would seem they might have a few guys who could play at the next level. After all, they did beat us few years back and they had a OL drafted last year. Hawk’s backyard too. Just a thought . . . .

The Enterprise answered some of my questions about this awesome event. The bagpipers were courtesy of the California Professional Firefighters Bagpipers and the Sacramento Firefighter Bagpipe band. They were great. Other sources tell me that UC Davis actually provided most of the support for this occasion, especially the audio and video for the event and the Pavilion staff to the quick turnaround from the basketball game and the fast set up for the event. On a different note, if anyone of you have any bit of Scottish blood in you and like bagpipes go to youtube and look under bagpipes for: Black Watch Regiment Homecoming Perth 2018. These troopers are just back from Afghanistan, still in desert camo and marching thru the streets of Perth to joyous crowds with the Black Watch Pipers leading the way. This is probably the best Scottish fighting unit in history. Goosebumps time!!!

So many of my friends and family have watched this ceremony, some over and over again. It was such an impressive show of love, affection and pride for Officer Corona. 8000+ people attended this event and were awed by the entire event; from the bagpipes to Billie Ray Cyrus it was as emotional an event that I have ever been witness to. I think that the most memorable part was the part at the end where Natalie is on the radio calling in with her call signs and final watch call. I was pretty good with the emotional part up to then but I lost it with this final audio. Many tears. I would like to know who put this great event together because they deserve huge praise for doing this so well. And, where did the bagpipers come from? Again I am very proud that our university hosted this impressive event.

Well, last year we got it all. This year not so much. It’s kinda like when the first of your kids graduates and she was your favorite. The next kids just don’t have the same thing. I know a lot of you know this stuff. Imagine how a college coach has to go thru this every year. But I will say one thing: they get paid for it none of us ever did.

This was an incredible and impressive heart felt ceremony. I am so proud that our university was able to put this together and help with this event for the Corona family. Natalie will be in our hearts forever.

BlueGoldAggie has a good point. But we have this very unusual love-hate relationship with the Sac media. The Sac Bee hates us and will only do stories on UC Davis when they absolutely have to- then they “like us” for a bit; but its really only stories about interesting individual players that they cannot ignore. Like China; Doss, etc. the only way I see doing this is if we manage to become a “Bay Area” school. That would mean a very hard slog for our AD, but I think the SFChronical would be on board for this. AD Blue maybe could do this.

I’m with DrMike on this. The geography is just flat against us and we can do nothing about that. Sadly, it is all about TV revenue now and the West Coast cannot be moved to a different time zone to change that.

I would think that Chancellor May will take these folks to the woodshed to prevent any demonstration on Friday.
Also, the event has been moved to the Pavilion for an estimated crowd of 6000 and which could very well be a lot bigger. Too big for the ARC. Good move by the admin.

I had to laugh at all the hoopla about the Clemson football team getting served burgers at the White House. As a footnote to this story is the fact that the Clemson team actually has an “Executive Performance Chef”! She sets all the team meals and is quite the strict nutritionist. Now I don’t know if any FCS teams have such a person or even a training table, but we certainly do not. You would think that with our reputation in food and nutrition science that UC Davis would b e in the forefront in making sure our players eat a correct and nutritionally proper diet. I recall many years ago eating at the old Cafe Italia when all of a sudden the UCD basketball team filed into the room. Their meal: pizza. Not something an executive chef would probably recommend as a pregame meal IMHO.