It's a Cal (and UC) thing, Jefe.

Ah. I actually looked at Cal too back at the time, but this was when California was so in debt and cutting budget that it would have taken about 6 or 7 years to accumulate all the required classes and out of state tuition for that many years hell no.

It's kind of scary how out of hand out-of-state tuition has gotten at UC. I don't think I could have gone there had i been finishing high school now.

Too bad Troy couldn't hang on to their huge lead against LSU, they would have been this year's Appalachian State.

Glad to see Stanford stomped, even if it was by USC. We get the privilege of keeping them out of bowl contention next Saturday.

This is a good a place to have my ignorance alleviated somewhat.

I never, ever, ever watch college football. I find American football generally stupefying, but with pro ball at least there are sensible things like leagues and playoffs to help me keep track of things. However, now the 11 year-old has become addicted to the stuff, so i need to keep up.

(actually, for the first time, this has led the tyke to be somewhat interested in my work, intrigued by the idea of academic league tables which kinds sorta form an analogy to the various league tables he looks at. so he keeps going through the paper looking at team scores and asking him "is this a good university? is this a good university?". I've had to tell him the three rules of thumb about American higher education, to wit: - 1) if a state has a "universty of X" and an "X state", the former is usually better, 2) with the exception of Stanford, no institution with a one-word in the title is worth a damn if it's not in the northeast, and 3) there is no good university with the word "eastern" in the title)

I digress. How does UC work with sports teams, exactly? I hear about UCLA, but I don't recall hearing about other campuses. Are they all Div I or are some lower down? And are they all called "bears" or do they have different nicknames? Actually, how does that work at other state systems? There's not one UT or SUNY team, is there?

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

QUOTE:
I digress. How does UC work with sports teams, exactly? I hear about UCLA, but I don't recall hearing about other campuses. Are they all Div I or are some lower down? And are they all called "bears" or do they have different nicknames? Actually, how does that work at other state systems? There's not one UT or SUNY team, is there?

Well, you obviously haven't been reading ursus' or linus' posts in here--Cal has a team, and they're also in the Pac-10. The only other UC with a football team is Davis, and they play in Division II (or whatever ridiculous name the NCAA has given Div. II now).

Only Cal and UCLA have ursine mascots--and don't believe that noise about UCLA being the "baby bears", Bruins just being another name for brown bears. UC San Diego are the Tritons, UC Santa Barbara the Gauchos, UC Irvine the Anteaters, UC Davis the Aggies (being a cow town), UC Santa Cruz the Banana Slugs (the shirt worn by John Travolta in Pulp Fiction), and UC Riverside and UC Merced I don't know.

In sports outside of football, most UCs have sports teams in Division I conferences. The Cal State system also has sports programs. Some of those teams are bigger in certain sports than their UC counterparts--Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach both have pretty good baseball teams. I think San Diego State and Fresno State are the only CSUs with football teams, however. College football just costs so much money, and in terms of budgets for public universities, it's really untenable for many schools.

There are other University of Texas teams, but the only one that I know of is UTEP (El Paso).

When you say "Cal", what institution are you referring to? (I skimmed the thread and wasn't sure if it was another way of saying "UCLA"). Is that California State? I thought that was in a separate system from the UCs.

Gee, Gramsci, I thought you knew this stuff.

"Cal" is the University of California, Berkeley.

BTW, UC Riverside are the Highlanders, while UC Merced (which is brand new) are the Bobcats, they the school does not appear to have competitive sports teams yet (they do have some intramural teams).

Some other Division I teams in addition to UTEP, include the University of Texas Arlington (Mavericks), University of Alabama Birmingham (Blazers), and the State University of New York at Buffalo (Bulls).

The system is insanely complicated, in part because the terminology is not consistent from state to state, and in part because there is no requirement that a given institution field Division I teams in every sport. The "States" are most often the descendants of "Normal" colleges that were originally designed to produce teachers for a rapidly expanding population (often in a two year program), as opposed to the "University of"s which were research universities. The "A&Ms" served a similar purpose with regard to engineers (the mechanical bit) and agricultural science (the "A").

I'd also take issue with your "one word" rule. The most obvious outlier is Duke, which is a perfectly respectable institution (and Durham ain't in the Northeast), but there are also a host of very good small liberal arts colleges (not universities) in the Midwest and California (Pomona, Oberlin, Carleton, Grinnell, etc.)

Let's just say the way I come to know stuff about the US higher ed system doesn't line up easily with college sports coverage.

I knew that bit about the states and the A&Ms. I even just read a book about the origin of the Lnad Grant colleges (another designation that doesn't line up easily with much else).

You're absoutely right about Duke, though. As I say, it's a rule of thumb, not a Law. I've not had to explain Oberlin and the like to the lad because they don't play football (also - they are indeed good schools but tend not to show up on my radar as often because of the lack of major research facilities).

And why is Berkeley called "Cal", and not - you know, "Berkeley"?

Cal is Cal because it was the first campus of the University of California (and generally remains the most selective in the system). There is, however, a tendancy for people to use "Berkeley" in academic settings (particularly within California), while "Cal" is reserved for sports.

Most of the Land Grant universities are now members of the Big Ten (which of course has 11 teams).

Does Benito have a favourite team yet? Can we influence his choice with some Golden Bear merchandise for Xmas?

Quite possibly. I haven't noticed any serious preference formation.

Though, do they have any kind of soccer program? He has become a bit fixated on the idea that he'll be playing NCAA soccer one day. His head is very big this week because of a cleen sheet on his debut for his new club at BMO field on Saturday.

Land-grant universities are funny. There's the ones everyone knows are land-grants, and the ones that are out of left field. Like MIT and Guam.

They are in the NCAA Tournament (and ranked 9th in the country).

Though when it comes to UC soccer history, Inca's boys in LA have the advantage over the Bears.

I'll look out for a shirt for him next time I'm in Berkeley.

Can someone explain the Land Grant university thing to me? It's something I've always heard, but never understood.

QUOTE:
The "States" are most often the descendants of "Normal" colleges that were originally designed to produce teachers for a rapidly expanding population (often in a two year program), as opposed to the "University of"s which were research universities.

UCLA's history is interesting in this regard. Residents of Los Angeles lobbied the state legislature to open a new Normal School in LA to train teachers, and the State Normal School at Los Angeles opened in 1882 (where downtown's Central Library is now). It later moved to another location, which is now LA City College. In 1918, the head of the school and Edward Dickson, the only UC regent from Southern California, lobbied to have the school become a second UC campus, and the Southern Branch of the University of California was born in 1919. It eventually grew too large, and in 1927 it moved to Westwood, and became the University of California at Los Angeles (the at was replaced with a comma in 1958). The Berkeley student council suggested the nickname of the Bruins. Berkeley resisted allowing UCLA to award doctorate degrees, but in 1936 they were overruled.

Gramsci--Berkeley admitted 21.5% of applicants, UCLA 22.7%, but UCLA's admitted applicants had a higher GPA (and slightly lower SAT). And indeed, UCLA has a great tradition in men's soccer. You could make an excellent starting XI for the US team using former UCLA players alone.

The quick answer is that the land grant colleges/universities were those designated by their states as being eligible to receive free land made available by the federal govermnent in the late 19th c. They didn't have to be new institutions (Rutgers was founded in the 18th c and was so designated by New Jersey).

As Gramsci's read the book, I'm sure he's got more detail.

I'm smiling at the (not completely impossible) idea of ursus minor and Benito Gramsci being classmates at Berkeley.

Am I allowed to cite Rice as another counter-example to the one word rule?

You most certainly are (and I am abashed at having forgotten them).

How is the Cuban/SEC stramash playing down your way?

Presumably you mean Texas? I'm not there any more (I've been in the Bay Area for 15 years now).

Northeastern is a very good school with 'eastern' in the name.

And what about Baylor? It's a decent one word name school not in the northeast.

Actually, there's also Tulane and the Loyolas (Chicago and New Orleans).

There's also Northwestern, Washington U. in St. Louis, and Emory (as...interesting as their history program has been).