Cal Family –

Our rugby team did it AGAIN! Our Golden Bears won their 35th all-time national championship - this time, defeating an impressive Navy team 36-22 in a hard-fought battle in the title match. We've now won 30 national crowns in XVs competition and another five in sevens play. Head coach Jack Clark has won a staggering 31 of those national championships. Coach Clark and his program are certainly the gold standard for intercollegiate rugby, and we are incredibly proud of their accomplishments!

As many of you have likely heard by now, we announced last month the creation of Strawberry Creek Studios – a groundbreaking and innovative approach to our external relations strategy. The athletic department has made a handful of significant changes in the past year or so -- hiring Ron Rivera as football general manager, making a head football coaching change, bringing all of our external operations units under one roof with the leadership of Beth Tafolla-Voetsch as Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director and bringing in former Nike executive Jason Hobar as our Chief Marketing Officer. The formation of Strawberry Creek Studios is the next important step in ensuring we are well-positioned to thrive in this dynamic new era of intercollegiate athletics. 

Strawberry Creek Studios will bring together our marketing, creative and communications teams to implement more modern and innovative storytelling techniques. The integrated unit will focus on revenue generation, enhancing the athletic department's strategic partnerships with sponsors and alumni, and help our student-athletes build their brands for potential NIL opportunities. Finally, it will place a significant emphasis on enhancing our gameday and fan experience, creating an entertainment experience on par with the professional leagues.  

Bringing Strawberry Creek Studios to life was not a cost-cutting move – while several positions in our department were eliminated, a comparable number of new positions have been created. Strawberry Creek Studios is not an outsourced entity –  it will be staffed solely by Cal Athletics employees. The decision to create this new unit came with mixed emotions, as we understand the profound effect a restructuring can have on the impacted employees and their families, but we are convinced that this is the right move for the long-term viability of Cal Athletics.

Back on the playing field, we also want to send a huge congratulations to sophomore Ziqin Zhou of our men's golf team, who won the individual ACC championship last month. Ziqin became our first men's golfer to win an individual conference title since Collin Morikawa won the Pac-12 crown in 2019.

Also last month, our women's water polo team came oh-so-close to winning its first-ever NCAA championship. After knocking off No. 1 and defending national champ Stanford in the semifinals, our Bears fell just short 10-9 to USC in the title match. The team has now been to the national title game in two of the past three seasons, and head coach Coralie Simmons remains the only female head coach to advance to the finals.

We couldn't be more grateful for the incredible turnout we had at our spring football game a few weeks ago. We had approximately 15,000 fans at California Memorial Stadium throughout the day and the energy and excitement was palpable – from the game itself to the fan engagements on Lisa & Douglas Goldman Plaza to the postgame concert featuring Rexx Life Raj and 1 Umbrella. It makes us eager to watch the team take the field for the 2026 season.

We hope you can join us on May 18th at 4 p.m. PT for an insider update on the current state of the department and how revenue sharing, NIL, and evolving strategies around student-athlete recruiting and retention are reshaping the college athletics landscape.. This Zoom webinar will provide insight into Cal's direction and answer your questions about how we plan to remain competitive and innovative in today's evolving environment. To register click here. 

Lastly, this is always an exciting time of year when we get to celebrate our graduating student-athletes at commencement and wish them the best as they move on to the next chapter of their lives. We can't wait to see what the future holds for each one of them!

Go Bears! 
 

Jenny & Jay