Dear Friend of Cal Athletics:
As we move through the final days of August, we can feel the campus coming to life with a sense of energy and anticipation for what the year will bring. Last week, the University welcomed its incoming students – with an assist from our football and volleyball teams who were out at the residence halls on move-in day helping students with luggage and providing moral support – and classes for the fall semester began on Wednesday.
Many of our teams began practicing for their fall seasons at the beginning of the month, and we’ve even had our first season get underway, as our women’s soccer team opened its year on Aug. 17 with a 3-0 win over Utah Valley. Go Bears!
To help bring our newest Golden Bears into our Cal Athletics family, we hosted the inaugural Cal Athletics Parent Open House for parents and guardians of new and transfer student-athletes, followed by a new student-athlete orientation. These Bears also participated in the campus-wide Golden Bear Orientation for all 9,000 new Cal students. We hosted several GBO events at Haas Pavilion, and the students spent one evening inside California Memorial Stadium where they formed a giant 150 as part of the University’s 150th year celebration.
This past Tuesday, we held the annual Big C Welcome Back Barbecue for all 850 student-athletes, their coaches and our staff. We were honored to have Chancellor Christ address the crowd in Haas Pavilion, and after some introductions, a celebration of last year’s achievements and an outline of expectations for this year, we moved over to Evans Diamond to enjoy lunch, renew acquaintances and begin new friendships. Thank you to the Big C Society for sponsoring such a great event!
We’ve also had our first all-staff and head coaches meetings of the year, get-togethers we plan to hold every month to not only provide critical information, but even more importantly to help build a greater sense of community within our department.
Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to engage with University staff and faculty in a Campus Conversation , the first of a semester-long series of public talks with UC Berkeley administrators. It was a valuable experience to hear directly from our campus community and answers questions they had about our department and our future. A big thank you to all the campus members who came out and asked questions!
I’m also excited to see that Patrick Laird’s Summer Reading Challenge continues to grow, with 4,000 students now signed up. To help promote it, Patrick has been making the rounds with interviews on reading, talking with Coach Wilcox, Chancellor Christ, author Michael Lewis and even me. If you haven’t seen them, take a look. You’ll get some great insight from one of our outstanding student-athletes.
I’ve written about my Listening Days in each of my previous notes, and I can now say that they are complete having met with all 30 of our teams and 15 administrative units. Over the past three months, I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet with about 700 of our alumni and supporters, as well as many of our student-athletes, and have begun meeting with faculty and members of the Chancellor’s cabinet. I can say without a doubt that I’ve received great feedback at every step of the way and can see and hear the passion for the University and Cal Athletics.
While we’ve been focused on our efforts in Berkeley, many of our student-athletes and alumni kept busy through the summer months. Perhaps the highlight came in the pool when swimmer Kathleen Baker set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke at U.S. nationals. Baker and eight other Golden Bears qualified to represent the United States at the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo, and they came home with 11 medals, with alum Ryan Murphy named Swimmer of the Meet. Our women’s team head coach Teri McKeever and men’s team assistant Chase Kreitler were also on the Team USA staff.
In addition, men’s and women’s rowers combined for 13 medals in competitions around the globe, including World Rowing Cups and the Under-23 World Championships, while softball alum Valerie Arioto helped the United States to a world championship. A total of 35 Cal alumni were on NFL rosters at the start of the preseason with another four on NFL coaching staffs. These Golden Bears certainly represent their school well.
As we turn our focus to the start of our own fall seasons, it is important to explain our #EarnIt campaign , which will be our marketing and social media slogan for the upcoming year. As you can read on the website, we believe that the ethos of #EarnIt is something that has guided Cal over the past 150 years. Nothing is assumed and everything is questioned. In the end, you come out stronger because it wasn’t handed to you. The same applies to athletics – building a championship-level program isn’t easy. It requires dedication. Let’s #EarnIt together.
We’ve been hard at work spreading the message, and the results have been fantastic. Every metric for football tickets sales is up significantly over last year, perhaps no more so than with our students. As of the middle of this week, we had sold about 4,500 student tickets for the football season – up from 2,300 at the same point last year!
Much of the credit, of course, goes to our student-athletes, Coach Wilcox and his staff for the momentum they are creating within the football program. Our fan experience and sales and marketing teams have also been out in the community and all over campus promoting the Bears. They’ve come together with a plan to offer a number of new and improved features that will greet fans at football games this fall, such as three free pregame concerts at Tailgate Town on Maxwell Family Field, a bobblehead of The Play given away at the Big Game, and a free item every game for students, from t-shirts to scarves to socks. An expanded Blue & Gold Zone, team demonstrations and social media walls will be part of the action, as well. Remember, there’s still time to join us in Memorial Stadium with season, mini-plan and group tickets available through CalBears.com/tickets.
And in addition to football, you can find athletic events all over campus this fall , including men’s and women’s soccer, men’s water polo, volleyball and field hockey. I encourage you to come out and support any of these teams full of enthusiastic and high-achieving student-athletes. I know they would appreciate it, and you may even find a new favorite sport to add to your own Cal experience.
I hope to see you in Berkeley this year. Your support is critical to our mission and you are a valuable member of our Cal family.
Go Bears!
Jim Knowlton
Director of Athletics
As we move through the final days of August, we can feel the campus coming to life with a sense of energy and anticipation for what the year will bring. Last week, the University welcomed its incoming students – with an assist from our football and volleyball teams who were out at the residence halls on move-in day helping students with luggage and providing moral support – and classes for the fall semester began on Wednesday.
Many of our teams began practicing for their fall seasons at the beginning of the month, and we’ve even had our first season get underway, as our women’s soccer team opened its year on Aug. 17 with a 3-0 win over Utah Valley. Go Bears!
To help bring our newest Golden Bears into our Cal Athletics family, we hosted the inaugural Cal Athletics Parent Open House for parents and guardians of new and transfer student-athletes, followed by a new student-athlete orientation. These Bears also participated in the campus-wide Golden Bear Orientation for all 9,000 new Cal students. We hosted several GBO events at Haas Pavilion, and the students spent one evening inside California Memorial Stadium where they formed a giant 150 as part of the University’s 150th year celebration.
This past Tuesday, we held the annual Big C Welcome Back Barbecue for all 850 student-athletes, their coaches and our staff. We were honored to have Chancellor Christ address the crowd in Haas Pavilion, and after some introductions, a celebration of last year’s achievements and an outline of expectations for this year, we moved over to Evans Diamond to enjoy lunch, renew acquaintances and begin new friendships. Thank you to the Big C Society for sponsoring such a great event!
We’ve also had our first all-staff and head coaches meetings of the year, get-togethers we plan to hold every month to not only provide critical information, but even more importantly to help build a greater sense of community within our department.
Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to engage with University staff and faculty in a Campus Conversation , the first of a semester-long series of public talks with UC Berkeley administrators. It was a valuable experience to hear directly from our campus community and answers questions they had about our department and our future. A big thank you to all the campus members who came out and asked questions!
I’m also excited to see that Patrick Laird’s Summer Reading Challenge continues to grow, with 4,000 students now signed up. To help promote it, Patrick has been making the rounds with interviews on reading, talking with Coach Wilcox, Chancellor Christ, author Michael Lewis and even me. If you haven’t seen them, take a look. You’ll get some great insight from one of our outstanding student-athletes.
I’ve written about my Listening Days in each of my previous notes, and I can now say that they are complete having met with all 30 of our teams and 15 administrative units. Over the past three months, I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet with about 700 of our alumni and supporters, as well as many of our student-athletes, and have begun meeting with faculty and members of the Chancellor’s cabinet. I can say without a doubt that I’ve received great feedback at every step of the way and can see and hear the passion for the University and Cal Athletics.
While we’ve been focused on our efforts in Berkeley, many of our student-athletes and alumni kept busy through the summer months. Perhaps the highlight came in the pool when swimmer Kathleen Baker set a world record in the 100-meter backstroke at U.S. nationals. Baker and eight other Golden Bears qualified to represent the United States at the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo, and they came home with 11 medals, with alum Ryan Murphy named Swimmer of the Meet. Our women’s team head coach Teri McKeever and men’s team assistant Chase Kreitler were also on the Team USA staff.
In addition, men’s and women’s rowers combined for 13 medals in competitions around the globe, including World Rowing Cups and the Under-23 World Championships, while softball alum Valerie Arioto helped the United States to a world championship. A total of 35 Cal alumni were on NFL rosters at the start of the preseason with another four on NFL coaching staffs. These Golden Bears certainly represent their school well.
As we turn our focus to the start of our own fall seasons, it is important to explain our #EarnIt campaign , which will be our marketing and social media slogan for the upcoming year. As you can read on the website, we believe that the ethos of #EarnIt is something that has guided Cal over the past 150 years. Nothing is assumed and everything is questioned. In the end, you come out stronger because it wasn’t handed to you. The same applies to athletics – building a championship-level program isn’t easy. It requires dedication. Let’s #EarnIt together.
We’ve been hard at work spreading the message, and the results have been fantastic. Every metric for football tickets sales is up significantly over last year, perhaps no more so than with our students. As of the middle of this week, we had sold about 4,500 student tickets for the football season – up from 2,300 at the same point last year!
Much of the credit, of course, goes to our student-athletes, Coach Wilcox and his staff for the momentum they are creating within the football program. Our fan experience and sales and marketing teams have also been out in the community and all over campus promoting the Bears. They’ve come together with a plan to offer a number of new and improved features that will greet fans at football games this fall, such as three free pregame concerts at Tailgate Town on Maxwell Family Field, a bobblehead of The Play given away at the Big Game, and a free item every game for students, from t-shirts to scarves to socks. An expanded Blue & Gold Zone, team demonstrations and social media walls will be part of the action, as well. Remember, there’s still time to join us in Memorial Stadium with season, mini-plan and group tickets available through CalBears.com/tickets.
And in addition to football, you can find athletic events all over campus this fall , including men’s and women’s soccer, men’s water polo, volleyball and field hockey. I encourage you to come out and support any of these teams full of enthusiastic and high-achieving student-athletes. I know they would appreciate it, and you may even find a new favorite sport to add to your own Cal experience.
I hope to see you in Berkeley this year. Your support is critical to our mission and you are a valuable member of our Cal family.
Go Bears!
Jim Knowlton
Director of Athletics
