The University of California, Berkeley created an entire task force in an attempt to resolve an issue where a lot of people evidently don’t realize that the college athletic teams known as “Cal” are the teams of UC Berkeley. I didn’t realize this was an issue, but I get it. I think if you never looked into the school beyond what you’d learn from a baseline cultural diet and you didn’t live in California, it would be possible to know that Cal exists and also assume there is a school out there named Berkeley located in Berkeley, California. I also can see why the school wouldn’t want this to be the case. I get why the task force was created. Heck, I can even support the creation of this task force. Good move, Cal. Good task force.
What’s an issue here is the task force’s proposed solution to the issue: In addition to four other vague recommendations revolving more around integrating the brands, the task force recommends the school do the following: “Shift the athletics identity to Cal Berkeley in both name and logo.”
Most schools want their athletic brand to be as large as possible. This is why Texas goes by Texas and not by UT Austin, and why Ohio State makes such a fuss about being “the” Ohio State University. Even down at the mid-major level, there’s scuttlebutt about UTSA trying to convert its brand to San Antonio, becoming the city’s school rather than a school inside the city.
Cal? Err, UC Berkeley? They don’t want that. When they play sports, they don’t want to be California’s preeminent university. They want people to know that their athletes are students at that school in the East Bay with the nerds who smoke pot. This is not exactly a strong athletic brand. It’s not historic, like Cal, and it’s not impressive, like ‘California,’ and it’s very, very, very, very, VERY, very, very, very similar to a lot of mid-majors. UC Irvine. UC Davis. UC Santa Barbara. UC Riverside. Cal State Fullerton, to be honest. UCLA works because it’s become its own powerful brand, an acronym where no one considers what it stands for. UC Los Angeles? That sounds like a commuter school. A bunch of schools on the East Coast just went to a bunch of trouble to keep Cal from becoming an explicit mid-major. Now Cal’s task force swoops in and says, “We would like to be more of a mid-major, please.”
The task force includes, in its report, research showing that students and staff and alumni all prefer the school refer to itself with the word Berkeley more than the word Cal, with UC Berkeley winning a plurality of votes across all demographics. What the task force doesn’t appear to have asked, though, is whether people want this with sports. A school that cared about sports would have seen this problem and said, I know the trick, we will ask Nike to make us some cool alternate uniforms that say Berkeley and feature an unbathed 19-year-old smoking a joint in a tree. A school that does not remember it has sports would suggest following the example of the Banana Slugs over on the coast.
Aaron Rodgers Prepares to Shock the World
Aaron Rodgers told the world today that his Achilles recovery is going to shock it, and it does not appear that this will actually be the case. What would be shocking would be if Aaron Rodgers found the best Achilles rehabber in the world, went to that rehabber, and followed that rehabber’s advice perfectly while ignoring any and all input from Aubrey Marcus and Joe Rogan. What Aaron Rodgers is going to do is unlikely to actually surprise anybody. Because Aaron Rodgers is winking at the concept of coming back historically early from a brutal injury. Would it be cool? Oh, definitely. But pursuing that early return would require unconventional rehab, and that is exactly what we would expect from Aaron Rodgers.
Oh Yeah, the Rugby World Cup
The Rugby World Cup’s going on! I have this realization every three or four days, and I do nothing with it. See you in three or four days, rugby thoughts.
Juwan Howard’s Heart, Arterio Morris’s Plea, Georgetown’s Schedule Release
College basketball developments today:
- Juwan Howard had what sounds to have been a pretty serious heart surgery today, but he’s expected to be back with the team in a month or so, and it sounds like it wasn’t an emergency. Glad it went well. I am afraid I have been mean enough to enough people online that I have to specify that I am always happy to hear of successful heart surgeries.
- Arterio Morris pleaded no contest to his assault misdemeanor charge from last summer stemming from an incident with a reported ex-girlfriend, meaning the case won’t go to trial.
- Georgetown copied the Titans’ schedule release, asking people on the street to name the teams in each Big East opponent’s logo, but they tried really hard to keep the video to a minute for social media purposes and the result is that you have to pause it a lot. Here it is. You have to pause it (Tim Robinson voice) *a lot.*
F1: Lizard-Killers
Oh, you like F1? Guess you like racecars running over monitor lizards in Turn 9.
Practice today was delayed at Singapore because a bunch of reptiles were on the racetrack, but then they just started practice again anyway and someone reportedly ran one over. I’m not actually all that upset about this—there is only so much I can be upset about, and I spent a lot of that on a basketball tournament proposal earlier this week—but I feel like there are some of you out there who have space in your hearts for rage, and if you do, maybe spend a little bit defending the lizards from the lamest automobile-racing series around.
Everton Is Finally America’s Team
About ten years ago, a lot of Americans became Everton fans because Tim Howard was good and Tim Howard was American and Tim Howard played for Everton, and while Everton was pretty good and one of the better-financed English soccer teams, they were not part of the Big Six, making Everton fanhood something of a cheat code, giving fans a chance to win without looking like bigtime bandwagon passengers. In a hilarious twist, Everton then proceeded to get extraordinarily bad at soccer by its own standards.
Anyway, Everton got bought by an American private equity firm today. One out of Miami. I hope this results in Sean Dyche visiting Miami. I would love to see what Sean Dyche would do in Miami. He would try to find a pub.
