Sherwin-Williams Is a Proud Sponsor of Cal Bear Athletics
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at the Claremont GO BEARS! Don’t miss Post Games at the Paragon, your Cal Basketball Season home base. 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley, CA 94705 www.claremont-hotel.com CONtENTS ON THE COVER Leaders in the Dorms 8 Rower Madison Kerst, a sophomore coxswain on the men’s rowing team, and Cindy Tran, a fifth-year student and former national champion swimmer, are tackling the challenges of leading in the residence halls, giving them a rare blend of combining what they have learned in the athletic arena with intimate and daily interaction with members of the student body outside of their student-athlete circle. SPRING 2015 SPORTS Career Change on 880 10 QUARTERLY It’s not very often an afternoon drive on Interstate 880 involves a conversation with Endowment Campaign Seeks the driver in the next lane that transforms to Fund Men’s Golf in Perpetuity 20 your career. For Al Acosta, that encounter The threat of sport cuts at California in opened the door to what has blossomed 2010-11 served a wakeup call to many into more than a decade of success as a members of the Golden Bears community. rowing coach. Now back at his alma mater, For those who supported men’s golf, howev- Acosta is in his first season directing Cal’s er, it had a familiar ring. Reinstated in 1982, women’s crew program. the sport is now at the next crucial juncture in its history, a $12 million endowment cam- Back from Adversity 14 paign that can make it financially sustain- Daulton Jefferies has experienced quite an able in perpetuity. odyssey on his way to becoming Cal’s Friday night starter, one that was nearly derailed A Call Out of the Blue 28 by an accident on the baseball field more Dora Antal was at a training camp with the than a decade ago. But through his deter- Hungarian National Team in 2012 when mined effort, he has not let the setback get she saw a missed call from Berkeley on her in the way of his becoming a successful stu- phone. She was so excited that she natural- dent-athlete at the University of California. ly decided not to call back. Why was that? She was just a little flustered because, after Meaningful Impact 18 getting offers from other top American uni- Tour Cal’s athletics facilities and it won’t versities, the one that would fulfill a dream take long to realize that the Golden Bear had finally called. programs have realized an important part of their mission as intercollegiate sports. A Tale of Two Jontes 30 Whether it be lacrosse and softball’s work When track & field team captain Jonte with the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation or Grant stepped on the Cal campus, he was the men’s and women’s swimming & div- like many other freshmen – young, eager to ing teams’ partnership with Team IMPACT, learn and compete, but also a bit immature. Cal student-athletes are endeavoring on His journey from fresh-faced newcomer to projects bigger than themselves and their the leader he now is didn’t come easy. Us- sport. ing himself as an example, Grant’s person- al growth story is something that he hopes DEPARTMENTS can help his younger teammates. Letter from the Director of Athletics.....................................2 Athletic Development.......................................................... 22 Sideline Report ...................................................................4 Academic Achievement ....................................................... 34 Where Are They Now? ........................................................16 Home Events Calendar ........................................................ 36 SPRING 2015 1 LETTERfrom Director of Athletics Mike Williams SPORTS QUARTERLY Dear Friend of Cal Athletics: ISSUE 51 – SPRING 2015 s we near the end of our spring semester, the time is here to congratulate our stu- dent-athletes who are scheduled to graduate in May. It is also time for us to celebrate ATHLETI C ADMINISTRATION the incredible postseason success of our winter sports teams and the direction our DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS: A Mike Williams spring teams are heading. We are extremely proud of our student-athletes competitive and academic achievement as well as the outstanding work they continue to do in the community DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS/COO: throughout the year. Solly Fulp SENIOR ASSOCIATE AD/ Success was the order of the day for a number of our pro- INTERCOLLEGIATE SERVICES: grams. Under the guidance of head coach Teri McKeever, our Foti Mellis women’s swimming & diving team won another national cham- SENIOR ASSOCIATE AD/CFO: pionship (fourth in the last seven years) and Pac-12 title, and David Secor featured a host of All-Americans and individual conference and ASSOCIATE ATHLETIC DIRECTORS: Ryan Cobb, Jay John, Wes Mallette, Chris national champions. Teri was named National Coach of the Year Pezman, Ashwin Puri, Jenny Simon-O’Neill and Missy Franklin took home National Swimmer of the Yearhon- ors along with capturing the Honda Sports Award for swimming & EDITORIAL STAFF 349 Haas Pavilion diving. On the men’s side, head coach David Durden led our men’s Berkeley, CA 94720 swimming & diving team to a second-place finish at the NCAA EDITOR: Championships and sophomore Ryan Murphy took home Pac-12 Herb Benenson and NCAA Swimmer of the Year honors. Excelling both in the class- CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: room and in the pool, we are extremely proud of both squads. Scott Ball, Dean Caparaz, Doug Drabik, Miquel Jacobs, Anton Malko, Wes Mallette, Our women’s basketball team made it to the round of 32 in the NCAA women’s tournament, Kyle McRae, Tim Miguel, Jonathan Okanes, Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray earned All-American honors, and Reshanda took home the Mara Rudolph, Jordan Stepp Pac-12 Player of the Year award. Women’s gymnastics had a great season, too. The team DESIGN: hosted NCAA regionals, and we all enjoyed watching a rising star shine as sensation Toni-Ann Evan Kerr Williams earned Pac-12 Freshman of the Year accolades. In addition, our men’s gymnastics PHOTOGRAPHY: John Todd (GoldenBearSports.com), Michael program had another strong year with a fifth-place showing at the NCAA meet in April. Pimentel, Michael Burns, Richard Ersted, Moving into the spring, our women’s tennis, men’s and women’s crew, and women’s water Nathan Phillips, Haley Archambault, Tim Binning, Don Feria, Norbert von der Groeben, polo teams have all earned top five rankings nationally. Our baseball and softball programs Evan Kerr, Skip Stubbs, Casey Valentine have been outstanding on the diamond, as well, and continue to stack up weekly individual among others conference and national honors for their performances. ATHLETIC DEVELOPMENT OFFICE On the recruiting trail, our men’s basketball team signed a couple of highly coveted 195 Haas Pavilion Berkeley, CA 94720 national prospects, including Ivan Rabb (ranked as high as the number six overall recruit (510) 642-2427 in the country) from Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland. Our football program had a [email protected] great spring practice and also pulled together a strong recruiting class that features three ATHLETIC TICKET OFFICE high school All-Americans and nine four-star student-athletes among the 24 student-athletes (800) GO BEARS announced on National Signing Day back in February. For daily updates on Cal Athletics, including schedules, press releases and player profiles, Sadly, on March 29, we lost an incredibly talented and respect- visit the department’s official website at ed young man with the tragic passing of 19 year-old Eloi Vasquez. CalBears.com. Eloi was a beloved member of our men’s soccer program and will ON THE COVER always hold a special place in our hearts. You should know the Student-athletes Madison Kerst (men’s crew) tremendous outpouring of support from around the country and and Cindy Tran (women’s swimming) are also from our Cal Family meant the world to his family. serving as resident assistants this semester. Photo by John Todd. As always, thank you for your support. It empowers and en- ables us to strive for what is expected of us at the nation’s top public university, and we are excited about the continued prog- ress we are making and the direction we are headed. Thank you, Cal Family. General Manager: Mike Kohler Go Bears! (510) 643-4825 [email protected] The Cal Sports Quarterly is published four times per year by the University of California Mike Williams Athletic Department. Director of Athletics 2 CAL SPORTS QUARTERLY ©2014 UC Regents and CHRCO. UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Oakland are now partnered to take kids’ health care further. Together, we can provide care to more kids than any other children’s hospital in the Bay Area, with more than 800 pediatric specialists working across Northern California. Two hospitals, one mission: pioneering care for all Bay Area kids. Visit ucsf-cho.org to learn more. UCSF-451 Cal Sports 8.5x11 Heart-A3.indd 1 10/21/14 11:06 AM Client: UCSF Benioff Children Hosp Print Specifications Approvals OK W/C Job Number: 451 Live: 8 x 10.5” Creative Director: DeeAnn Budney Ad ID: Trim: 8.5 x 11” Director of Services: Job Title: Cal Sports Bleed: 8.75 x 11.25” Art Director: Tanya Spanier Copywriter: Jeff Adam File Name: UCSF-451 Cal Sports 8.5x11 Heart-A3 Resolution: File Format: Adobe InDesign CS6 Account Manager: Emily Palmer Inks: 4 Color Assistant Account Exe: Mike Euphrat Project Manager: Marcus Chairez 724 Pine Street, Vendor: Notes: San Francisco, CA 94108 Materials In: Studio: Jose F. Justo (415) 255-3000 Materials Due: Round 1 Output at 100% Saved: 10/21/14 Released: SIDELINE REPORT Junior Rachel Bootsma (above) celebrates winning the 100-yard BIG SPLASH: backstroke, while Cal’s 200 free QUARTERLY Bears Capture 4th NCAA relay (right) is all smiles after taking first place in its race.