so tomato would actually have a cool tie in to Aggie Stadium — prior to the 1950s tomatoes had to be handpicked and didn’t travel well. The agriculture mechanics department helped develop mechanical harvesters and UCD plant scientists had to develop tomatoes with thicker skins that could withstand mechanical harvesting and trucking, known as the “square tomato”, which is what we rely on today to have tomato products year around. At the time, Hutchison Dr was lined with tomato fields and the researchers threw the tomatoes at the road to select the ones that didn’t splat as bad. Maybe could have a modern tomato toss outside the stadium. It would be pretty close to the actual spot.

about $17.5m in bonds were issued with a 30 year amortization. So presuming no changes have been made, theoretically paid off in 2037.

They don’t exactly mention if they gave him truck (in which case he may owe taxes as income) or if this is more of a lend/lease as long you play here arrangement. I won’t wish him ill or well. I will just wish for him to earn what he deserves and deserve what he earns.

A tacky ad. But that is kind of Wazzu brand. If you imagined the old PAC12 having a BBQ, everyone else would be grilling ribs and briskets in the backyard while WSU and ASU were blaring country music and shotgunning Natty Ices in the driveway. So I guess the truck tracks.

The double-font logo first appeared around 1993. I don’t know the specific history but prior to that time the university seal or the Block CA were used across campus. It timed with 3 things - several other UC campuses were also developing wordmarks, an overall trend among universities to separate academic and athletic wordmarks/logos, and word processing becoming commonplace over typewriters for communication. The font has actually been updated slightly a couple times since.

The C-Horse logo was designed in 1999 by a committee of about 30 working with a big shot New York branding company. In 1998, Men’s Basketball won the D2 national championship and to the chagrin of many a “Cal-Davis” banner was hoisted by the NCAA. It was determined that the brand was too inconsistent given that even the NCAA got it wrong. Each team was kind of doing its own thing with some sort of CA or script Davis and a mishmash of attempts at mascots and logos, mostly cows and water towers. Gunrock hadn’t been a thing since the 1920s but was resurrected into a costumable mascot as part of the unified brand. There was tension though, as rowing and the Band-uh were committed to the Block CA and baseball I believe to the Lemon CA.

I don’t know the history of all the logos, but I do know the band wore mostly hand-me-down uniforms from Cal through the 1970s so the “A” was added by hand to the Cal “C”. Wouldn’t surprise me if athletics was also getting some secondhand equipment in the era.

A simple logo in a square or circle format is needed to work right on social media handles and score bugs. Complicated or rectangular logos get too small. I’m ok with the Lemon CA in this case but I am more partial to the Block CA. An alternate that would be too complex for most uses but would make some great vintage merch is the Block CA with the horse and wheat. Before that there was an interlocking CA where the C formed the cross of the A which I also like the look of. I’m a traditionalist. I like the blue tops, gold bottom and gold helmet with script Davis. I guess alternate looks are needed for recruiting but I sort of feel that if you already have the boss level attire, no need to look further. I wouldn’t be opposed to leaning more into “Davis” and “Cal Aggie”, although it can get confusing when one or more players on the field have the last name Davis.

I wonder fast this can actually get though the legal system. After a certain point, to prevail may be little more than a Pyrrhic victory.

an argument someone made - I don’t know if it has merit but sounds plausible - is that the NCAA’s conundrum may not really about football, where no contest is pretty rare. The problem may be if used as precedent to apply to other sports where no contest might happen more often. I agree it is still unfair that it counts toward eligibility but not for stats. I wonder if one possible remedy being considered is just to make the stats count rather than change eligibility.

as an employer, for my entry level positions it’s like a Venn diagram of attitude, capability, and skills. In theory, UC is selecting those right in the middle. But it may not matter for Gen Z - recent HR cases, one of my interns habitually pooping in the company fitness center shower and another who identifies as a cat and won’t stop meowing at coworkers. The ability difference between CSU/UC is like the last of my worries.

I think we tend to devalue degrees from other schools too much. — Riveraggie

It’s funny, for the last few years I have been the people manager for about 400 employees, and maybe about 50 college kids per semester. I found that the prestige of university made no difference in performance. The best predictors of workplace success were those who had lived away from home in a dorm for at least a year and those who had experience in a crappy campus food service job.

I appreciated coach’s honesty that the program was trying to help find Wrighster and Rasor a place to get snaps. The comment about Caden though “him and his team of people and his agent decided it was better for him to move on” - not sure who his “team” is but it didn’t sound flattering. There’s fiduciary guidance and there’s non-fiduciary grifting. I think the current setup allows the latter to masquerade as the former. I wouldn’t be surprised if 10 years from now we see a crop of cashed out crashed out dudes who earned too much too fast and blew all of it with help from greedy family members and agents.

kind of funny when I saw 1-1 conference record in a conference of 2. Technically co-champions?

that says plenty.

I'll be honest I knew he was gone months ago after talking with his mom), — Sailorgabe

Are you at liberty to share context of this statement?

I’m not disagreeing with you. I think it was a move to hedge against enrollment decline. And from what I understand, generally in small private universities athletics scholarships are a finance mechanism to move money between pockets and generate revenue on paper for dorms, dining halls, etc.

I read the athletes.org CBA framework. Having supervised several hundred represented employees, which I know is not quite the same, but my experience is that money is often the easier negotiation because both sides already know the valuation. Often the real PITA stuff has to do with work rules, which a lot of people greatly underestimate.

yeah, remember when the goal posts were just scholarship count and attendance? Those seem pedestrian now.

Regarding Mercer, I believe they added football to attract enrollment. Birth rates dropped in the 2008 financial crisis and Gen Z males are becoming increasingly apathetic toward college so some universities have decided sinking money in athletics is in fiduciary interest to attract students in what may turn to a buyers market. They don’t need a large fan base to fulfill their goal. University of South Alabama went from 0 to FBS in like 5 years. But it had the blank check support of the city, state, and a conference. Basically they actually did what Sac has wet dreams about. But they did it just before it got crazy expensive.

realistically, the bottom 1/3 of FBS belongs in FCS and the bottom 1/3 of FCS belongs in D2. Some of those football teams may have been dragged up by an asymmetrically better basketball team and the rest were chasing relevance. There’s a limit to the number of teams who are going to be national household names and the top 40 or so teams are extremely invested in making sure the door is shut and bolted behind them. The biggest shame is that the FCS and even D2 titles have such little relevance when they are arguably more honest football and seeding than FBS. MWC has historical tie ins to Bucked Up LA Bowl, Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, Sheraton Hawaii Bowl, Idaho Potato Bowl, and Isleta New Mexico Bowl with pool appearances in others. Dare anyone to look at the day of the week and time those are. I totally get the strategy - in terms of size, academic prowess and contribution to society, Davis belongs in the same sentence with the likes of Michigan, not Eastern Washington - and athletics are perhaps the best way to build a brand name with the 70% of America that doesn’t have academic inclinations. But the road takes a lot of time, money, and probably mortgaged morals. Not to mention the Pacific time zone will always struggle with Central and Eastern time viewers and much of the country has an aversion to anything with California in the name (despite rabidly consuming products made there). So yeah, I think you’re right that greener grass appears closer than it is.

there is a distinction between parents providing advice, wisdom, and access to facts so their kid can reach an informed personal decision and parents who are yanking the marionette strings to grift off their kid. The latter is as shameful as Joe Jackson.

the cautionary tale is that the #10 or 20 TV market generally may not be the #10 or 20 market for football interest when you factor demographics.

the irony is they are graduating into a work world hesitating to hire college educated knowledge workers because shareholders think the same chatGPT they used to cheat might just be able to replace them. It is a difficult time for people trying to get on the corporate ladder.

athletes were not historically villains or victims. The villains were power conferences and cable tv monopolies in their probably unconstitutional overvaluation. The victims were cable subscribers and all the non-athlete students subsidizing the excess. Now the athletes have joined the SEC and Comcast in the circlejerk. They were never exploited in real terms, maybe just in comparison to what the conferences were getting. But yeah, the athletes joined the villain problem.