Dear Friend of Cal Athletics:
As we head through the month of October, the campus community is fully immersed in the heart of the fall semester. In the classroom, students are engaged in their courses and focused on midterm exams. For our athletic teams, many are moving through their conference schedules and have championship rounds within sight, while others, particularly men’s and women’s basketball, are preparing for the start of their campaigns.
Within our department, we continue to work hard in support of our student-athletes and celebrating their achievements. This past week was particularly exceptional for all it had to offer.
We began with a reception hosted by Chancellor Christ and members of her cabinet at University House to kick off our annual National Championship Week , where we honored our women’s rowing program, which captured the 2018 NCAA team title, as well as the varsity 8 and varsity 4 races, and Kathleen Baker, winner of the NCAA championship in the 200-yard backstroke. It was truly a remarkable evening, and I know how much our student-athletes appreciate such significant recognition of their accomplishments by the University.
Senior rower Zoe Feist, speaking at our most recent department-wide staff meeting on what it meant to win the national title in the varsity 4, put it this way about her Cal experience: “I get to study at my dream school where my professors have Nobel Prizes and my friends have Olympic gold medals.” It does not get any better than that.
Last weekend, we also welcomed back thousands of alumni for Homecoming and I had the opportunity to meet many of them, including at the Friday night Homecoming Rally at the Greek Theatre and on my walk through campus leading up to the UCLA football game. Prior to kickoff, I had the pleasure of seeing a great alum, Burl Toler Jr., receive the Glenn Seaborg Award at the annual Sons of California football reunion. Burl embodies the award’s description – excellence in academics, leadership and attitude – and it was good to see so many football alumni present as we honored him.
For the second game in a row, we saw how the Cal family is bigger than sports through the inspiring stories of two of our own. First, we saw Robert Paylor, who sustained a serious spinal injury in the 2016 rugby national championship game, walk on the field. And last week, football recruit Chris Fatilua did the same following his own spinal injury from a summer swimming accident. In addition, we joined with representatives from USA Baseball in recognizing junior Andrew Vaughn, who won the Golden Spikes Award this past season as the best amateur baseball player in the country.
Overall, I feel we are making great progress to build our gameday atmosphere and make football games an opportunity to celebrate the entire campus. Free pregame concerts at Tailgate Town on Maxwell Family Field, team and academic department demonstrations around Memorial Stadium, and full student sections – we even had to open up additional seats to accommodate all of them for the Oregon and UCLA games – all contribute greatly to our gameday environment. While the outcome of the game did not measure up to our expectations, I truly believe that we are building an exceptional program under Coach Wilcox for now and for the long run. We know bumps in the road are inevitable, but we believe in our coaches, our staff, our student-athletes and the direction we are going.
In late September, I traveled to Washington, D.C., for the annual meeting of LEAD1, which represents the 130 universities that play in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and is led by former basketball player and Congressman Tom McMillen. We discussed a number of timely and relevant issues in collegiate athletics, including amateurism, the Rice Commission report on reforming men’s basketball and the resulting rule changes, sports betting, and the future of college sports. We met several members of Congress during our visit, and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue spoke about ways to use sports to bring people together and promote unity and equality.
Back on campus, we continue to actively find ways to better integrate our department within the Cal and the greater university community, which will help all of us work together as a team. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be the keynote speaker for the Student Affairs State of the Division, a unit that interacts with our student-athletes every day from housing to the Dean of Students office. I’ve also had the pleasure of attending a Builders of Berkeley event, the most recent Board of Trustees meeting, a town hall for Lair of the Bear campers at Alumni House, and Grid Club events in both San Francisco and Sacramento. A consistent theme at every stop is the passion people have for Cal and Cal Athletics and the desire to see us excel in all that we do.
We’ve had several successful fundraising efforts this fall that illustrate that very theme. A capacity crowd attended our biennial Aquatics Gala in September, and the event raised nearly $350,000 to support our world-class programs in swimming & diving and water polo. We also hosted the Napa Valley Tennis Classic, where Bill Harland received a Chancellor’s Citation for his long-time support of men’s tennis. Other recent events have included the annual Cal Benefit Cup for gymnastics, the lacrosse team’s alumnae banquet, and the men’s golf tournament that is traditionally its largest fundraiser of the year.
We have also recently received a report from Marts & Lundy, a fundraising consulting firm that analyzed the campus overall, as well as Cal Athletics specifically, and we are taking a good look at its recommendations. I feel fortunate to have come at a time when we’ve had an outside consultant review both the campus and our department’s fundraising strategies, which will be valuable in the near term and for the development of our vision and strategic plan for the long term.
Another source of input for our strategic plan will be the results of our Listening Days, which we completed over the summer. We are now reviewing all of the feedback from sports and administrative meetings and are beginning to create and implement action plans with a focus on areas we identified as challenges. This will drive where we put our resources and where we want to go as a department.
Our objective remains to be exceptional in all that we do and provide an extraordinary experience for our student-athletes – as students, as athletes and in the community – which mirrors the student mission for the entire campus and is a priority for our chancellor.
In so many areas, we are achieving at very high levels, and I believe all us of think we can be even better. We have work to do, and we can get there if we work together towards our common goal. I feel we are moving in the right direction. We cannot reach our goals without your help, and we want you to feel that you are a part of where we are going.
As always, thank you for your support, and Go Bears!
Jim Knowlton
Director of Athletics
As we head through the month of October, the campus community is fully immersed in the heart of the fall semester. In the classroom, students are engaged in their courses and focused on midterm exams. For our athletic teams, many are moving through their conference schedules and have championship rounds within sight, while others, particularly men’s and women’s basketball, are preparing for the start of their campaigns.
Within our department, we continue to work hard in support of our student-athletes and celebrating their achievements. This past week was particularly exceptional for all it had to offer.
We began with a reception hosted by Chancellor Christ and members of her cabinet at University House to kick off our annual National Championship Week , where we honored our women’s rowing program, which captured the 2018 NCAA team title, as well as the varsity 8 and varsity 4 races, and Kathleen Baker, winner of the NCAA championship in the 200-yard backstroke. It was truly a remarkable evening, and I know how much our student-athletes appreciate such significant recognition of their accomplishments by the University.
Senior rower Zoe Feist, speaking at our most recent department-wide staff meeting on what it meant to win the national title in the varsity 4, put it this way about her Cal experience: “I get to study at my dream school where my professors have Nobel Prizes and my friends have Olympic gold medals.” It does not get any better than that.
Last weekend, we also welcomed back thousands of alumni for Homecoming and I had the opportunity to meet many of them, including at the Friday night Homecoming Rally at the Greek Theatre and on my walk through campus leading up to the UCLA football game. Prior to kickoff, I had the pleasure of seeing a great alum, Burl Toler Jr., receive the Glenn Seaborg Award at the annual Sons of California football reunion. Burl embodies the award’s description – excellence in academics, leadership and attitude – and it was good to see so many football alumni present as we honored him.
For the second game in a row, we saw how the Cal family is bigger than sports through the inspiring stories of two of our own. First, we saw Robert Paylor, who sustained a serious spinal injury in the 2016 rugby national championship game, walk on the field. And last week, football recruit Chris Fatilua did the same following his own spinal injury from a summer swimming accident. In addition, we joined with representatives from USA Baseball in recognizing junior Andrew Vaughn, who won the Golden Spikes Award this past season as the best amateur baseball player in the country.
Overall, I feel we are making great progress to build our gameday atmosphere and make football games an opportunity to celebrate the entire campus. Free pregame concerts at Tailgate Town on Maxwell Family Field, team and academic department demonstrations around Memorial Stadium, and full student sections – we even had to open up additional seats to accommodate all of them for the Oregon and UCLA games – all contribute greatly to our gameday environment. While the outcome of the game did not measure up to our expectations, I truly believe that we are building an exceptional program under Coach Wilcox for now and for the long run. We know bumps in the road are inevitable, but we believe in our coaches, our staff, our student-athletes and the direction we are going.
In late September, I traveled to Washington, D.C., for the annual meeting of LEAD1, which represents the 130 universities that play in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and is led by former basketball player and Congressman Tom McMillen. We discussed a number of timely and relevant issues in collegiate athletics, including amateurism, the Rice Commission report on reforming men’s basketball and the resulting rule changes, sports betting, and the future of college sports. We met several members of Congress during our visit, and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue spoke about ways to use sports to bring people together and promote unity and equality.
Back on campus, we continue to actively find ways to better integrate our department within the Cal and the greater university community, which will help all of us work together as a team. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be the keynote speaker for the Student Affairs State of the Division, a unit that interacts with our student-athletes every day from housing to the Dean of Students office. I’ve also had the pleasure of attending a Builders of Berkeley event, the most recent Board of Trustees meeting, a town hall for Lair of the Bear campers at Alumni House, and Grid Club events in both San Francisco and Sacramento. A consistent theme at every stop is the passion people have for Cal and Cal Athletics and the desire to see us excel in all that we do.
We’ve had several successful fundraising efforts this fall that illustrate that very theme. A capacity crowd attended our biennial Aquatics Gala in September, and the event raised nearly $350,000 to support our world-class programs in swimming & diving and water polo. We also hosted the Napa Valley Tennis Classic, where Bill Harland received a Chancellor’s Citation for his long-time support of men’s tennis. Other recent events have included the annual Cal Benefit Cup for gymnastics, the lacrosse team’s alumnae banquet, and the men’s golf tournament that is traditionally its largest fundraiser of the year.
We have also recently received a report from Marts & Lundy, a fundraising consulting firm that analyzed the campus overall, as well as Cal Athletics specifically, and we are taking a good look at its recommendations. I feel fortunate to have come at a time when we’ve had an outside consultant review both the campus and our department’s fundraising strategies, which will be valuable in the near term and for the development of our vision and strategic plan for the long term.
Another source of input for our strategic plan will be the results of our Listening Days, which we completed over the summer. We are now reviewing all of the feedback from sports and administrative meetings and are beginning to create and implement action plans with a focus on areas we identified as challenges. This will drive where we put our resources and where we want to go as a department.
Our objective remains to be exceptional in all that we do and provide an extraordinary experience for our student-athletes – as students, as athletes and in the community – which mirrors the student mission for the entire campus and is a priority for our chancellor.
In so many areas, we are achieving at very high levels, and I believe all us of think we can be even better. We have work to do, and we can get there if we work together towards our common goal. I feel we are moving in the right direction. We cannot reach our goals without your help, and we want you to feel that you are a part of where we are going.
As always, thank you for your support, and Go Bears!
Jim Knowlton
Director of Athletics
