Cal Family –

Greetings from Haas Pavilion!

What a whirlwind it has been lately here in Berkeley! This has been an incredible summer as we officially became members of the ACC and we also celebrated our Golden Bears incredible performances in Paris at the Summer Olympics.

As many of you know, we became full members of the ACC officially on August 2. The fall season has started with our soccer teams getting underway, and all of our fall sports are preparing for their first nonconference contests. In just a few short weeks, we will take part in our first ACC competition ever when our men's soccer team visits North Carolina State on Sept. 6.

I have watched our football practices during training camp, and I am incredibly impressed not only by our talent level, but our depth. Our coaches and student-athletes are putting in the work to prepare for the upcoming season, and I can't wait to see us take the field on Aug. 31 against UC Davis at California Memorial Stadium. Justin Wilcox and our coaching staff have done a masterful job infusing new talent with our returners, which is so vital during this new era of intercollegiate athletics. We have the 14^th-ranked transfer class in the country, and our coaches are doing a wonderful job creating the culture necessary to embrace the newcomers and assimilate them with our current Golden Bears.

The football team spent a couple of days this week practicing in the Sacramento area to acclimate to hot weather conditions, and is now back in Berkeley to put the final touches on training camp and begin ramping up preparations for Davis. I hope you can join us for our season opener and beyond for what should be an exciting season! We need you to ensure that California Memorial Stadium provides a home field advantage for our Bears. We have many exciting promotions and new fan experience elements planned, including a new on-field hype man in Franco Finn - you may be familiar with his work doing Golden State Warriors games!

We also plan on honoring our 2024 Olympians on Oct. 5 for our first-ever ACC home football game against Miami, and are bringing back our popular drone show for that game as well. Let's rally to support Justin and our team!

The success Coach Wilcox and all of our coaches are having in the transfer portal and recruiting overall couldn't be possible without the support of the California Legends Collective, which continues to support our student-athletes in their NIL endeavors. The collective has definitively made an impact on our ability to recruit high-level athletes who are the right fit for Cal, and we couldn't be more appreciative of the role they play in helping to build our rosters. We are also grateful for the role many of you have played supporting the collective. More than ever before, your support can make a transformational difference. In concert with the Cal Legends Collective, our Cal Athletics Fund is also key to supporting the operations of our department. It certainly takes a village to provide the world-class experience we always seek for our student-athletes and your support is crucial. 

We are also eagerly anticipating our rematch against Auburn in week two of the football season! If you are traveling to Auburn and want to tailgate with fellow Golden Bears, grab a ticket to the Official Cal Athletics Tailgate. Located just a short walk from the stadium, the event starts three hours before kickoff. Join us for food, beverages, and Cal fanfare before the game! 

I was so delighted to see the performance of our whopping 59 Olympians in Paris, the most athletes and coaches we have ever sent to a single Olympics. The 23 medals our Golden Bears brought home also tied our all-time record. The breadth of our success across so many different sports was especially gratifying, and I was so proud to watch our athletes capture the country's imagination with some of our performances in the pool, on the track and beyond!

I'm thrilled to welcome Michael Wilson back to Cal as our new head men's golf coach. Michael was on our men's golf team from 2002-06 and helped us win the NCAA championship in 2004. He's already hit the ground running and I can't wait to see our team out on the links soon!

It was a thrill earlier this month to spend time with Cal legends Jason Kidd and Jaylen Brown, who were in town to announce the launch of Oakland Xchange - an initiative that seeks to bridge the racial wealth gap and empower underrepresented communities to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. As I'm sure most of you know, the two faced off against one another in the recent NBA Finals, with Jason as the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks and Jaylen as the NBA Finals MVP for the Boston Celtics. It brings us such pride to see the two of them working together for a common purpose in our surrounding community.

Since we welcomed Rich Lyons as our new chancellor on July 1, he is already moving at a breakneck speed as the leader of our campus. Chancellor Lyons has been at multiple Cal Athletics events – meeting our alums and fans, and supporting the value that Athletics brings to the university! I'm so grateful for the amount of support he has already shown for our department, and I am excited about the future with Chancellor Lyons at the helm.

See you at an event soon – Go Bears!
 


 
Jim