Winter is coming. Well, not actually winter, but the end of summer break is quickly approaching, with its ominous threat of class looming in the distance. Not to worry — here are some friendly reminders (and some more here!) of why the end of summer and the start of school are far from the worst things that could happen to you.

1. August and September bring the summer heat — finally. Although May, June and July constitute most of our break from school and are therefore deemed “summer,” the beautiful weather that really should accompany summertime typically makes its appearance in Berkeley beginning in mid-August and lasts through October. While there are certainly warm parts to these earlier months, we’ve all noticed by now that the weather isn’t very sunny majority of the time. But come school time, the gorgeous and highly anticipated sun shall return.

2. School isn’t starting just yet. We understand that the start of August seems to bring with it the cloud of school and the air of urgency of the end of summer. Well, school doesn’t actually start until the very end of August, so there’s plenty of time left to fit in all those summer plans that haven’t quite become reality yet. It can be especially fun if you plan on coming back to Berkeley early and have missed all your favorite places.

3. New classes mean new opportunities. Going back to school doesn’t have to be all bad; it can also bring with it an array of new additions to your life. The start of the semester brings all new classes with some new professors and the possibilities of new friends. Class doesn’t have to be looked at as something that is taking away from the fun aspects of life; rather, they can be seen as something that can add fun opportunities as well.

4. Football! While we understand that not everyone loves football (or really even understands what’s going on), the Cal home games are pretty awesome. Whether it’s the collective excitement at the beginning of every game that results in enthusiastic cheers or the stellar halftime shows put on by the marching band, the games create a sense of school spirit and collective enjoyment that can be extremely hard to come by in a school with more than 35,000 students.

5. Midterms don’t start for a few weeks. Even once school has started again, the time to buckle down and cram before midterms doesn’t surface for at least a few weeks. The start of school can still be filled with exploration and social time after class and on the weekends. Take advantage of the slightly lighter schedule while it lasts.

So while school is drawing near and the end of summer can be seen on the horizon, it does not mean that bad things lie ahead. There is still plenty of summer to be filled and excitement of the new school year to anticipate. And, personally, we can’t wait to have a little more sun around these parts again.

Image Source: ~Wei~ under Creative Commons

Contact Mackenzie Bedford at mbedford@dailycal.org.

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Just like you and your sibling, UC Berkeley and UCLA have an interesting relationship. This particular UC campus definitely took after its big-sister school. But what can be more awkward than this relationship between sibling schools? Conversations with a sibling who attends the sibling school. Here at the Clog, we highlighted some awkward similarities you may discover when talking about college life with a sibling who is a UCLA Bruin:

That awkward moment when…

1. You talk about how much you love reading The Daily Californian. Then your Bruin sibling admits that he or she loves reading —you’ve guessed it! — The Daily Bruin.

2. You love blue and gold. Then you discover your Bruin sibling also loves blue and gold — baby blue, that is.

3. You’re singing “Sons of California.” Then from a distance, you hear your Bruin sibling sing “Sons of Westwood.”

4. You talk about CREAM. Then discover that Diddy Riese is the exact same thing.

5. Someone yells “Go Bruins!” Then you discover that this explicitly excludes you, unlike when someone yells “Go Bears!”

6. Your sibling gets mad when you say that UC Berkeley has more Nobel laureates. Even though you’ve never met one.

7. You get mad at your sibling because UCLA has more TV commercials. But hey, it was just Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dribbling a basketball with people chasing him.

8. You accidentally say that UC Berkeley is the No. 1 public university. And your Bruin sibling says nothing.

9. You hate red. Then you find out that your Bruin sibling also hates red.

Regardless of rankings, we are all part of one united UC system and, for some, part of one big family. Though now all Cal vs. UCLA sporting events will be a tad awkward, ice cream cookie sandwiches or nearly identical mascots shouldn’t get between family.

What are some awkward college conversations you’ve had with a sibling that attends a different UC school? Share with us in the comments!

Image Source: hans s under Creative Commons 

Contact Karen Kwaning at kkwaning@dailycal.org.

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— Ivan Smason, 

University of New Mexico postdoctoral scholar 

The post Letter: May 27 – June 3 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Jacob Wilson/Staff

At the end of last year, the UC Office of the President came under fire for an effort to put a new face on the historic logo of the University of California. It did not succeed. Now, the Cal Athletic Department has introduced a coherent and new face for the sports teams on the Berkeley campus.

I sense this effort will be successful not only because of the consistency of the designs, but also because there is enough proximity to tradition that most Cal fans will accept it. By utilizing a selection of former Cal athletes and recognizable names, Nike sought to give the project a sense of legitimate input. Along with the success of a number of current Cal teams, a new football stadium and coach, this new branding effort is part of a larger marketing effort by Cal Athletics.

But what was missing for me was not design but rather something more fundamental — the role of Cal student leaders and those students tied to Cal tradition. Athletics used a major corporate entity to produce this new look. But what role did Cal students who are the day-to-day stewards of Cal tradition play in this process? What role did student leadership on the campus have in the decision-making process?

The Cal athletic program was created by students in the 19th century and managed by them until 1960, taking us to eight Rose Bowls, national championships in crew, baseball, basketball and football. The student government chose our colors, and in 1895 it chose our mascot — the Golden Bear from the image on the state flag as Cal was the only UC campus.

Today, all the trophies won by the ASUC’s athletics program are proudly displayed by the current program in Haas Pavilion, and soon others will be displayed at Memorial Stadium.  But unfortunately, at Memorial Stadium, these items are far from the heart of campus where students can see them regularly and far from where students have easy access on gamedays.  Perhaps they should be displayed at the renovated student union like the Stanford Axe will be when it returns?

But the great irony of all the success of the athletic program is that it is supposed to be a student program. And the reason that the students were persuaded to turn over the athletic programs at Berkeley and UCLA to the university was to avoid the ills of money and television that were sweeping college athletics in the 1950s.

I would have hoped that before we chose to abandon the historic “C” of the University of California — one whose image was built overlooking the campus by students in a driving rainstorm early in the last century and remains an icon on the hillside, on every uniform of the marching band and on the hats of the baseball team — students would have been consulted. If they had been consulted, Nike would have known that at every major timeout in Cal games where the band is present, they play the “Big C March” whose words honor our historic symbol: “On our rugged eastern foothills, stands our symbol clear and bold, the Big C means to strive and fight, and win for Blue and Gold … ”

But sadly, I doubt few if any in the athletic department know the words. I would have hoped that the historic Bear adopted by the students in 1895 and on logo apparel sold at the Cal Student Store would have been included in the new branding, rather than a new, stylized bear. I would have hoped that a student athletic program would have come to the official representatives of the students and presented its proposals and discussed it with them before making decisions on Cal tradition.

I will assume that student-athletes were consulted, but they only represent themselves and are not the official student representatives of the Berkeley campus. After all, the color and tradition of athletics is all about what general students bring to the stadium in support of student-athletes; just ask Cal coaches Mike Montgomery or Lindsay Gottlieb. Without the student marching band, Rally Committee, the dance team, cheer team, yell leaders and Oski, not to mention student fans, and the music created 100 years ago by student competitions (including the “Big C March”), and all the enthusiasm they generate, Cal Athletics could well be just another corporate entity vying for market share in the Bay Area.

Let’s hope that as the nation watches the increasing flow of money into college athletics and the problems that attend it in what are considered respectable programs, Cal will be more thoughtful about the path it takes. At the Rally Committee banquet I attended recently, athletics could have learned about that Cal spirit and tradition, if anyone from the department had attended.

I will be sponsoring the “Cal Traditions” DeCal class this coming fall.  Athletics is welcome to audit. Let’s keep a careful eye open, or before you know it, someone on campus unconnected with Cal tradition will decide that we are no longer the University of California or Cal and will advance a marketing scheme to make us “Berkeley” for the sake of branding (see the “Berkeley Identity” style — identity.berkeley.edu/guidelines). Just another disconnect in an administrative landscape populated by fewer and fewer people connected to “The Spirit of Cal.”

Nadesan Permaul is a former president of the Cal Alumni Association and a former director of the ASUC Auxiliary.

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Michael Tao/File

Men’s Basketball

Eleven seconds away from beating the No. 21 team in the country on Dec. 9, the Cal men’s basketball team appeared poised to crack the top 25 and stake its claim as an early contender for the Pac-12 championship crown.

But Quintrell Thomas grabbed an offensive rebound and scored with one second remaining to give UNLV the stunning 76-75 victory, pushing the Bears deep into a funk from which they have yet to escape.
The loss was the second of three in a row following a 6-0 start to the season.

After beating up on UCSB and Prairie View A&M, Cal (11-7, 3-3 in the Pac-12) lost four of six before beating Utah Thursday night.

Defeats at the hands of Creighton and UCLA are understandable. Even the loss to Washington — though certainly not the means by which Cal lost— is excusable to some degree. But falling to Harvard at home on Dec. 29? That is unacceptable.

So what has gone wrong for the Bears?

Allen Crabbe, who led the country in scoring early in the season, has seen his shot attempts decrease against Pac-12 defenses focused on shutting him down. And even when he is open, the junior is often hesitant to shoot.

“He passes on shots that we think he should take,” said Cal coach Mike Montgomery on Tuesday. “We’ve stressed trying to get others involved … I’d rather him take more good shots than people who are not going to make shots take shots.”

As Crabbe’s scoring has gone down, no other player has stepped up consistently on the offensive end.

Starting big men David Kravish and Richard Solomon have strung together solid stretches but have yet to put it all together for a full 40 minutes. Tyrone Wallace has been a pleasant surprise, but the freshman is shooting 34 percent from the field. Justin Cobbs, who began the season nearly matching Crabbe in the scoring column, is in the midst of a five-game shooting slump.

And that’s about it. Cal’s bench scoring is almost nonexistent, and Crabbe and Cobbs are counted on to play nearly the entire game — every game.

“I feel like everybody’s been contributing all we can,” Kravish said, “just making some mental mistakes. Once we get past those or eliminate those, you’ll see us start putting it together.”

The Utah win could be a fresh start for Montgomery’s club, but the victory could also be short-lived — the Bears play Colorado next, a team that beat them two out of three times last season.

—Jonathan Kuperberg

Women’s Basketball

For the past two decades, all Pac-12 teams dreaming of the conference title traveled to Maples Pavilion to slay perennial goliath, Stanford. Very few came out with a victory.

The Cal women’s basketball team lost to the Cardinal at Haas Pavilion, 62-53, on Jan. 8, after letting the halftime lead slip away in the first bout. Five days later, the Bears (15-2, 5-1 in the Pac-12) traveled to Maples for redemption.

Unlike the Jan. 8 tilt that was marred by the Bears’ ice-cold perimeter shooting, Cal shot lights out at Maples. Led by backup guard Mikayla Lyles’ four 3-pointers, the Bears rallied to a 67-55 win, snapping the Cardinal’s 81-game winning streak at Maples against Pac-12 teams.

The upset sparked an arms race for the top of the Pac-12 between No. 6 Stanford (16-2, 5-1) and No. 7 Cal. With a nearly identical record, the Bay Area rivals have been neck-and-neck in the chase so far.

The weekend right after the win over the Cardinal, the Bears won two close games against USC and then-No. 14 UCLA at Berkeley. While the 70-65 victory over the Bruins had a larger significance in the Pac-12 race, the overtime victory against the Trojans was arguably the most exciting game of the season.

For the majority of the game, Cal trailed behind the recently surging USC squad, who was 4-1 in conference play. Down by five with three minutes left, it took a historical performance from forward Gennifer Brandon, who tallied 23 points and 26 rebounds, to will the Bears into overtime and, eventually, pull out the win.

The Jan. 17 match against the Trojans wasn’t the only nail-biting contest of the winter break. On Jan. 6 at Boulder, Colo., the Bears had to rely on their stingy defense and rebounding advantage to squeeze out a 53-49 victory against No. 20 Colorado.

Like the USC game and the first Stanford game, Cal had trouble creating points against the Buffaloes. However, despite a fickle shooting touch, the Bears tallied a 8-1 record over winter break.
It was the result of a hard-nosed defense, gritty determination and a sprinkle of winter magic.

—Seung Y. Lee

Football

Let’s be honest — you haven’t thought about Cal football in months.

Following the 3-9 debacle that was the 2012 season, it’s hard to blame anyone for tuning out the Bears’ offseason happenings. After all, the college football offseason generally just produces a bunch of recruiting news and staff turnover.

With the Sonny Dykes regime installing its basic foundations, however, the happenings have been a bit more frequent.

The biggest news of the past month was cornerback Steve Williams’ departure to the NFL. Williams, an undersized defensive back who has displayed talent in both coverage and open-field tackling, led Cal with three interceptions and 10 pass breakups.

If Stefan McClure returns in 2013 fully recovered from his knee injury, the Bears shouldn’t see too much of a dropoff in talent.

Williams will likely either be a late-round pick or undrafted come April.

Williams’ departure was an unexpected and disappointing surprise.

Dykes is likely hoping his hire of relatively unknown Zach Yenser as the offensive line coach won’t produce similar sentiment.

Yenser is so anonymous that a resume can’t even be found on Google. Yenser graduated from Troy in 2007 and since then has worked under new Cal offensive coordinator Tony Franklin at both Troy and Louisiana Tech.

He also played under Franklin during his playing days at Troy. Some have remarked that Franklin’s blocking schemes would be difficult for someone without familiarity of the schemes to understand and implement; hiring someone who has both executed the plans on the field and on the sideline ameliorates that issue.

On the defensive side of the ball, Andy Buh was hired out of Wisconsin as the defensive coordinator. Buh and newly named defensive line coach Barry Sacks previously worked together at Nevada.

—Michael Rosen

Contact Daily Cal sports at sports@dailycal.org.

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Tony Zhou/File

It’s the last hurrah for football beat writers Connor Byrne, Jonathan Kuperberg and Michael Rosen. Assistant sports editor Seung Y. Lee joins them in the press box for play-by-play, analysis and snark during Cal’s final home game of the 2012 season against No. 2 Oregon.

Linebacker Chris McCain and the Cal defense look to slow down the nation’s most prolific offense, while tight end Richard Rodgers could be an x-factor amid a depleted receiving corps. With the Bears currently sitting at 3-7, Jeff Tedford’s hot seat is approaching boiling — is it possible that this could be his last home game as head coach?

Kickoff at Memorial Stadium is 7:30 p.m.

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The Bears traveled to Utah this weekend to take on the Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium in the hopes of stepping closer to bowl eligibility. On paper, a Cal win seemed highly likely, but the Bears had a heartbreaking loss against Utah with a final score of 49-27. Cal must now win its remaining three games to qualify for the postseason.

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Gracie Malley/Senior Staff

Follow along as Daily Cal football beat writer Jonathan Kuperberg gives play-by-play and analysis of the Cal-Utah game live from Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah. Still needing three more wins to become bowl eligible, the Bears’ postseason hopes are on the line against the Utes. But with this Cal team, anything can happen. Kickoff is set for 6:45 p.m. Pacific time.

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Stanford beat Cal 21-7 on Saturday October 20. Watch a video with highlights from the game and post game interviews.

The post Stanford vs. Cal football 2012 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The 115th Big Game marked the 30th anniversary of The Play. The game resulted in a 21-3 Cal loss at home. Stanford retains possession of the Axe until next year.

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