To Honor A Career

Before I move on to the business portion of this post, I must first extend heartfelt congratulations to my two fall sports for fine 2011 seasons.

Although the players might still feel some immediate disappointment following a one-goal loss at UC San Diego in Sunday's Western Water Polo Association title game, the men's water polo team deserves some props. The Aggies were selected third in the conference's preseason poll, yet they unseated four-time defending champions Loyola Marymount to advance to the championship game for the third time in five years. Furthermore, UC Davis won 22 games to tie the school record set four years ago. All in all, that's a season to be proud of.

The women's volleyball team ended its season on a high note, sweeping Pacific in three sets on Saturday. The victory was a proper sendoff for the program's two seniors, who combined for .567 hitting for the night. One senior, team co-captain Betsy Sedlak, even scored the winning point in each of the three sets. Although the Aggies suffered some losses they probably wish they could have back, they still enjoyed an outstanding year: 21 wins (the most since 1996) and five weeks of votes toward the AVCA Top 25 poll. I'll never stop singing the praises of head coach Jamie Holmes for the way she has transformed this program, and the 2011 year serves as another example of its turnaround.

Incidentally, if anyone wonders why I left the Causeway Classic football game midway through the fourth quarter, that's why. I listened to Colton Silveria's 66-yard run and Sean Kelley's game-sealing field goal while on Highway 50, grabbed the news of the water polo win as I arrived at my house in Davis, then worked the volleyball match that night. A good Saturday, I'd say.

So to seniors Luke Collins, Katie Denny, Walter Eggert, Ryan Hagens, Kevin Peat, Aaron Salit and Betsy Sedlak, congratulations both on your Aggie careers and for your great final seasons.

* * * * *

As always, I use the week of the Thanksgiving holiday to send out a reminder to the athletics staff and coaches that the nomination deadline for the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame is November 30. Of course, that email casts a relatively narrow net -- anyone is able and encouraged to submit nominations for the CAAHOF awards program.

First, here are a few links to have handy: 

The roster of CAAHOF enshrinees. Check out who has gone in during induction ceremonies past. Get an idea of the high bar required for induction, then think of others who you believe have cleared it.

The CAAHOF/Aggie Legacy selection criteria. You probably know the gist of the award; this link will provide the specifics. Some of the requirements can be a tad quirky, so I'll do my best to pick out some of the more confusing ones later in this blog post.

The CAAHOF nomination form. Fill out this form when submitting someone for the Student-Athlete, the Non-Participant (e.g. coaches, staff, administrators) or Special Recognition Awards (volunteer service to UC Davis athletics).

The Aggie Legacy Award nomination form. Use this form for submitting an individual for UC Davis athletics' newest honor. It's fairly similar to the CAAHOF form, only it focuses on the postcollegiate honors. The "main" Hall of Fame honors what a candidate did as an Aggie, with little bearing on what he/she has done since.

Year-by-year athletics recaps. I built this simple page of links a few years ago to help someone do a quick research project, but I've kept it since. These are the year-in-review reports that I create each June (then update as awards come in). If you're not sure exactly what your candidate accomplished, this is a fantastic resource. It lists major awards (e.g. All-America, conference MVP, Player of the Week) plus school records (game, season or career) and key milestones and achievements. The list goes back to 1999-2000, which was my first full year as a full-time sports information director. If you need information for a student-athlete who participated prior to 1999, either consult that sport's media guides or shoot me an email -- I can often point you in the right direction if I don't have such info immediately handy.

And here are a few key points to know, mostly because they have been common sources of confusion in years past:

A student-athlete being submitted for the 2011-12 induction class must have completed in his/her final contest on or before November 30, 2006. The five-year rule is fairly standard for sports-related halls of fame. Thus, the seniors from the 2005-06 school year or the 2006 fall season are the newly eligible athletes.

A candidate for the Non-Participant who is no longer employed by the university is eligible immediately. Yes, the standard five-year rule applies to those still working for UC Davis in another capacity. But if a coach or administrator retires and separates (human resources jargon) from the university, he or she can be submitted right then and there. This is probably the most misunderstood rule of any.

A candidate need not have graduated from UC Davis to earn induction. While we of course would like all of our student-athletes to have earned their degrees, this is not a dealbreaker for CAAHOF induction so long as the student-athlete made meaningful progress toward a degree while enrolled at UC Davis. The purpose of this rule is to allow consideration for student-athletes who were certainly on their way to their degrees before unusual circumstances interrupted their education.

A CAAHOF nomination is good for a two-year period. This relatively new policy has streamlined the nomination process both for those submitting candidates and for the selection committee. To require fans to resubmit a candidate year after year seemed tedious, especially since the nominee's pertinent info does not change. On the other hand, for the committee to see the same name pop up for six straight years becomes equally laborious: a candidate who was far from the cut in 2004 is not likely to become a prime candidate five years later unless new information comes to light. Thus, a two-year rule provided a happy medium.

In short, it works like this: a nomination submitted by Nov. 30, 2011 puts a candidate up for consideration for the 2011-12 class. If the candidate doesn't make the cut, he/she is automatically resubmitted for the 2012-13 class. No further action is necessary by the original nominator. If the candidate does not earn induction in 2013, he/she must be resubmitted (i.e. the nominator fills out the form again) by November 30, 2013. Best yet, it encourages the nominator to round up some additional support that might help strengthen the candidate's case to the selection committee.

Anyway, the purpose of my email to the staff and coaches is to remind them that the November 30 deadline is coming up. I extend the invitation to anyone in Aggie Nation who wishes to honor a former UC Davis student-athlete, coach or contributor for their role in shaping our history.

In a way, the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony is the ultimate Senior Night.

-Mark Honbo, an assistant with the UC Davis athletics communications office, assures the Aggie faithful that his admiration for Stanford All-American and Naismith award winner Jennifer Azzi will not in any way affect the stat-keeping at Tuesday night's women's basketball game vs. USF. After all, he is first and foremost a Jennifer Gross fan.

We're In! Now What?

The UC Davis men's soccer team has officially punched its ticket to the postseason.

That's right, we're in. For the first time since 2008, the Aggies are playing in the Big West Tournament. The winner of that tournament earns the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.

The top four teams were officially sealed after UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara each squeaked out wins on Tuesday night. Headed to the Big West postseason will be UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside.

So we know who's in. But who plays who and where and when and... let's try and break this down.

The first-place team will play the fourth-place team while No. 2 plays No. 3 next Wednesday. The higher-seeded teams will host the games. The winners play each other next Saturday with the highest-seeded team from THAT matchup hosting again.

Problem is, we don't quite know how the teams are seeded.

Here's what we do know:

1. Teams get 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie.

2. UC Irvine is currently in first place with 19 points and their regular season is over.

3. UC Davis is in second with 16 points and play UC Riverside on Saturday in Riverside.

4. UC Santa Barbara moved into third place after their win on Tuesday and they still have a game on Friday.

5. UC Riverside clinched the last spot with 14 points. They play the Aggies on Saturday. See above.

So now we present - to the best of my ability - the scenarios:

Scenario 1: A UC Davis win on Saturday - regardless of what UCSB does in their game on Friday - would give the Aggies 19 points (it's 3 points for a win) and they would share the Big West regular season title with UC Irvine.  However, because UC Davis beat UC Irvine head-to-head in a pretty thrilling overtime game on Oct. 19, UC Davis would be the No. 1 seed, would play the No. 4 seed (which would probably be UC Riverside), and would host the first-round game next week.

Still with me?

Scenario 2: A UC Davis tie and a UC Santa Barbara loss would keep the Aggies as the No. 2 seed. The Aggies would host the first-round game and would play the No. 3 seed. At that point, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara would be tied in points, but UC Riverside would be the No. 3 seed because they beat the Gauchos in both matches this year. So Aggies vs. Highlanders in Davis.

A UC Davis tie and a UCSB win, however, would push the Gauchos into the No. 2 spot and we'd be third. Aggies vs. Gauchos in Santa Barbara.

Last one... I think.

Scenario 3: UC Davis loses. An Aggie loss and a UCSB loss would give UCR 17 points and bump UC Davis down to third. But an Aggie loss and a UC Santa Barbara win or tie would result in UC Davis ending up as the No. 4 seed. Aggies would play UC Irvine in Irvine.

Phew.

It would be really exciting if UC Davis got to host the first-round game next Wednesday. And it would be an absolute blast to host the tournament championship if the soccer gods align it all that way.

But here's what it would also mean for UC Davis Athletics Communications.

If men's soccer ends up hosting the Big West Conference Tournament championship game on Saturday, Nov. 12 it would join men's water polo, football and women's volleyball on the list of home events for that day.

Normally there's four of us in the office. Normally. That weekend it happens that both men's and women's basketball will be out of town. The men will open their season at the Basketball Traveler's Tournament in San Diego while the women's team heads to the Pacific Northwest for their 2011-12 opening games.

Our esteemed leader Mike Robles will be on the road with Coach Les and our Aggie men's basketball team.

I have the privilege of joining the women's basketball team in Seattle as the Aggies start their quest back to the NCAA Tournament.

I am also the men's soccer media contact.

Needless to say, that's a scenario that we don't have a point system for.

- Amanda Piechowski is wondering if anyone knows how to get in touch with those scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep a few years ago. 

The Agony of Defeat and the Thrill of Victory

Hearing the legendary voice of Jim McKay say "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" during the opening montage of ABC's "Wide World of Sports" was an indelible part of my growing up. I don't recall the various scenes that made up the "thrill of victory" part but man-oh-man I can still see Vinko Bokataj - yes, that guy had a name - crash his way down the ski jump to define "the agony of defeat" for a generation of Americans. 

Over the span of about four hours on Sunday I experienced both parts of McKay's words, albeit in reverse. Because of scheduling, two of the teams I work with in this office were scheduled to play back-to-back - women's field hockey at 11 a.m. and women's soccer at 1 p.m. I planned on working field hockey before catching the end of soccer which was admirably covered for me by Amanda Piechowski. 

The great part of this profession is seeing hundreds of games and knowing that any one of them has the chance to be anything but routine. Sometimes you get an upset, sometimes you get a buzzer-beater finish, and sometimes there's an unbelievable highlight. But sometimes it just doesn't go your way.

Sunday, the Aggie women's field hockey team was providing me one of those major upsets. For 69 minutes and 2 seconds it stifled fourteenth-ranked Cal. Thanks to a pair of first-half goals by Emily Mecke, UC Davis enjoyed a 2-0 lead over the Golden Bears. And then they protected it. Each time Cal got an opportunity, they were turned away and it seemed like seniors Kristen Lopez and Sarah Schneider were going to get the best send-off ever.

The Aggie faithful was clearly enjoying it as well. The closer victory seemed, the louder the cheering got. The players seemed to be undaunted by the moment. But in the span of 28 seconds - all in the final minute of regulation - Cal took all of it away by doing what seemed impossible just a few seconds earlier, scoring two goals to tie a game it would eventually win in overtime.

I've seen so many games through the years that it's difficult to get emotionally invested in all of them but I couldn't help but share the Aggies' disappointment afterwards. I felt - I think we all felt - something magical was happening and for nearly 70 minutes it was. Yes, the ending was not what everyone wanted but the disappointment was caused because of the journey to get there. It was UC Davis that put Cal so far back on its heels that desperate times called for desperate measures and the Bears miraculously found a way.

The Aggie field hockey team, which regained varsity status in 2009, has already had some milestone moments; notably getting votes for the national top 20 poll this year despite having more losses than wins. It's a testament to a tough schedule and their competitiveness with that slate of games. Chalk up Sunday to a milestone moment. Yes, it wasn't a win. It can't always be about a win. But it can be about displaying heart and on Sunday that was on full display.

As I walked off the field, computer and printer in arms, leave it to an UC Davis player to thank me for my efforts on Sunday. The Aggies were the ones that needed to be thanked.

Not too far away at Aggie Soccer Field, the women's soccer team was battling UC Santa Barbara in a key Big West match. UC Davis was picked to finish seventh in the conference but has been racking up wins like I rack up calories. Four straight entering Saturday (wins, not calories unless you're counting in the thousands). 

UCSB had lost five of its last six and was at the bottom of the standings but the Gauchos were giving the Aggies - tied for second as of today - all they could handle. UC Davis needed the win. UCSB needed something good to happen. The Aggies got both.

With the match scoreless after more than 80 minutes, overtime seemed the likely destination. Then again defeat could've been just a strange, unpredictable bounce away as well. But, as head coach Maryclaire Robinson said afterwards, patience and discipline won out when Kiele Argente lofted a beautiful ball from the far right corner along the goal line.

From my vantage point atop the cooler holding sodas and water for the staff and officials, I could see Ashley Edwards perfectly positioned near the far post. The ball traveled to Edwards like she was pulling it toward her with a string. It arrived just like it was supposed to and she headed into the goal, setting off an Aggie celebration on the sidelines and in the stands where, yes, members of the field hockey team had come by to cheer.

Rachel Kahn, one of nine seniors playing their last regular-season home game, put the icing on the cake a few minutes later with a goal of her own. UC Davis then finished off the Gauchos, picked up three points in the standings and continued its surprising march through the Big West. (Folks, this team is 11-4-1 and if it ends up hosting a Big West Tournament game next week, you need to find a way to get out to Aggie Soccer Field.)

It was one day and "the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat" each part of it. Two games and two hard-fought efforts that deserved the same result. But sometimes it's not always about the result, it's about the journey.

- Mike Robles is Assistant Athletics Director for Athletics Communications and while he does not have an extensive field hockey background, believes the penalty corner is one of the most exciting plays in sports. And a soccer ball lofted from the corner that's headed in by an Aggies is pretty exciting too.

News, Notes and a New Bandwagoner

Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals.  

Not only did the Cards advance to the World Series and take the first game from the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, but - thanks to one Daniel Descalso - they've also got themselves a brand new fan: yours truly.

It's only my third year on the Athletics Communications staff here at UC Davis, so I didn't actually get to see Descalso play in an Aggie uniform. But I've heard the stories and I've seen the record books and, probably the biggest influence of all, I work with the current UC Davis baseball team.

To hear these guys talk about "Scals" and what he's accomplished as he moved through the ranks and into the pros is nothing short of listening to me talking about Lea Michele's latest performance on "Glee". That is, he's a bona fide celebrity in their eyes. You can hear the admiration and, most of all, the pride in their voices whenever they talk about him.  He was exactly where they are right now only four or five short years ago and now he's in the biggest show of all. How's that for some motivation?

See for yourself just how excited the team is for Descalso. 

Go get 'em Danny!

Signed,

Your Newest Fan

Speaking of winners, UC Davis men's soccer is currently tied for first place in the Big West Conference after taking down UC Irvine - who was ranked seventh in the country - by a 2-1 score last night in yes, you guessed it, overtime.

Last night was the ninth time this season that the Aggies have played in overtime.  That's over twice as many as any other team in the Big West.  And with four games left, if UC Davis can go to extra time only two more times, they'll tie an NCAA Division I record.  In 2003, Saint Louis played 11 overtime games in a single season and in 2009 San Diego State matched that with 11 OT matches of their own.

Right now the Aggies are 6-6-2 overall and 4-3-2 in overtime games.

If you haven't checked out the squad yet, come out on Saturday as Cal Poly comes to visit. It's the Battle of the Golden Horseshoe: Futbol Edition.  Just make sure you budget a little extra time to hang out at Aggie Soccer Field. In all fairness, we did warn you ahead of time about the overtime.

- Amanda Piechowski, Assistant Director of Athletics Communications, won't even hold it against the Cardinals or Descalso that Glee has been postponed for three weeks because of the World Series being shown on FOX. 

Two Aggies And A Trophy

Not one, but two Aggie grads have made the 2011 World Series, which begins Wednesday night.

The photo at left features Cardinals quantitative analyst Sig Mejdal and rookie infielder Daniel Descalso, hoisting the National League Championship Series trophy in Milwaukee.

By now, any Aggie fan who follows this blog (or doesn't, for that matter) knows about Descalso. In fact, you might know that Game 1 of the St. Louis-Texas series coincides with Descalso's 25th birthday, and you may even know that the 2007 ABCA All-West Region pick appeared on the KNBR radio show Murph and Mac Wednesday morning.

Unless you read my UC Davis Magazine piece a year ago, fewer of you are familiar with Sig Mejdal. However, you should be: the hit Bennett Miller movie Moneyball opened strong last month, so the adaptation of the fine Michael Lewis book has reopened the eyes of baseball fans to these behind-the-scenes mathematical masterminds. In essence, Mejdal is a real-life version of Jonah Hill's Peter Brand character (who, in turn, was based on the actual A's assistant GM Paul DePodesta). He creates computerized models to help predict how well a baseball prospect's previous performance will translate to major league success.

But while both the fictional Brand and real DePodesta honed their respective analytical skills at Ivy League schools, Mejdal combined his life-long love of baseball with an education received in the shadow of our university's iconic water towers. He graduated from UC Davis in 1989 with a degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering.

In fact, Mejdal cites Lewis' bestseller for inspiring him to leave his beloved NASA research to enter the baseball industry: "It was definitely Moneyball. I was involved with the research but I had no idea that the A's were using it up north from me. It never entered my mind that teams were interested in this or using this until Moneyball," said Mejdal in his interview for the UC Davis Magazine story.

As a front-office staffer whose work has more to do with future Cardinals than present ones, Mejdal does not typically travel with the team. However, he made sure not to miss Game 5 of the NLDS series in Philadelphia, and he surely wasn't about to skip out on Game 6 at Miller Park.

When Descalso ended up on the Cardinals' wish list (he ended up going to St. Louis in the third round of the 2007 draft), Mejdal says he took some good-natured needling from his colleagues. "I was excited to get a UC Davis guy but I have to remain objective at all times," he said. "Some of the scouts were kidding me, saying 'you love him because you're from Davis, right?'"

Descalso's Aggie roots may not have appeared on Mejdal's spreadsheets, but it certainly showed up in this photo (which Mejdal sent to me this morning) As both a UC Davis grad and a baseball fan, I'm glad they got to share this moment.

A Nice Scoop.

First of all, thanks to Aggie superfan John Patella for letting me know I missed this moment -- a show of slick fielding in front of the man whose name is synonymous with slick fielding.

In the past few days, I've been asked a few times if Daniel Descalso -- should he enter a game during this fall classic -- will become the first Aggie to play in the World Series. The easy answer is yes: before last September, only Steve Brown laid claim to being a former UC Davis player in the bigs. Brown, who pitched for the Angels in the early 1980s, never took the mound in the postseason.

As for other major professional sports championships*, we've had some representation over the years, mostly in football. Rich Martini (1980 Raiders), Kevin Daft (1999 Titans) and Elliot Vallejo (2008 Cardinals) all played for teams that made the Super Bowl, with Martini's Raiders claiming the Lombardi Trophy with a 27-10 win over the Eagles. Right now, a part of me roots for the Denver Broncos, for whom Daniel Fells has started every game at tight end this year.

Extend football to a few of its popular variants, and we find quarterbacks Mark Grieb and Khari Jones. Grieb's San Jose SaberCats team has made four ArenaBowls during his career. The former UC Davis genetics major earned Offensive Player of the Game in 2004, then captured the overall game MVP nod three years later.

Head north of the border to find Khari Jones, now the QBs coach for the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats. (Yes, this is the same Tiger-Cats squad for which Bakari Grant has caught 27 passes for 347 yards thus far.) In 2001, Jones earned the league's Most Outstanding Player, leading Winnipeg to the Grey Cup. The Blue Bombers lost to Calgary in a massive upset, but the man once known for his gold-painted shoes helped rally Winnipeg to two second-half TDs after a rough first two quarters.

If you include what the rest of the world calls football, Quincy Amarikwa was traded to the Colorado Rapids in 2010, the year they won the MLS Cup. Amarikwa didn't play in the title game, although he did make one postseason appearance.

But enough of the football and futbol greats, this post is about baseball. As a Red Sox fan, I should not be rooting for the Cardinals. Older diehards of the Nation still wear the scars of Slaughter's Mad Dash or Gibson spoiling of the Impossible Dream, and no amount of replays of Foulke's flip to Mientkiewicz will exorcise those demons. I refuse to be that bull-headed, but I also acknowledge that Red Sox fans can be a stubborn lot, which explains why they can still tolerate repeated plays of "Sweet Caroline" after all these years.

In the end, I'm all about the grand ol' game. It's October, it's the World Series, and I'll cross my fingers to see Daniel take the field for the Birds this week.

-Mark Honbo, assistant athletics communications director, apologizes to any Aggies he might have missed in recalling UC Davis alumni who have competed in their league's biggest show.

*I do mean "professional" here. Several former UC Davis student-athletes have figured in collegiate championships at other schools, perhaps most notably Dante Dettamanti, who led Stanford to eight NCAA water polo titles. And if you extend this list to include the Olympic Games, you have all manners of Aggie athletes, ranging from our first Olympian (rugby player Babe Slater) to our most recent (bobsledder Emily Azevedo), plus three multiple gold medalists who attended UC Davis after achieving Olympic glory (track & field's Peter Snell, swimmers Cathy Carr and Debbie Meyer).

Furthermore, it's worth using this space to give a few quick honorable mentions to such NFL figures as John Herrera (Raiders exec), Jerry Attaway (49ers strength coach) and Myrel Moore (Broncos assistant coach) who all played significant roles in their respective teams' Super Bowl appearances over the decades.

Homecoming

First of all, women's volleyball (18-3, 4-2) has moved into a three-way tie for first place in the Big West Conference race, thanks to Cal Poly's five-set victory over UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday night.

So the Gauchos, the Long Beach State and your Aggies share a crowded perch atop the Big West mountain. And with UC Davis competing in at the Walter Pyramid tonight, one team will emerge as the lone leader by this evening. Fans not heading to the 562 area code can (and should) follow the Aggie-49er volleyball action on CBS GameTracker. Match time is 7 p.m.

* * * * *

Two of my sports have opted to use the Homecoming Week to bring their respective alumni back to campus. The women's lacrosse team hosts its Alumnae game tonight (Friday) under the lights of Aggie Stadium, while men's water polo will hold their version the following morning out at Schaal Aquatics Center. In both cases, the games provide a chance to celebrate recent accomplishments: women's lacrosse will hold a mini-ceremony honoring its NCAA statistical title (the Aggies led the nation in draw controls last spring), while men's water polo has brought back the nucleus of its 22-7 team from four years ago. That 2007 team was the last UC Davis men's water polo squad to reach the national top 10 until this year. In either case, former student-athletes may still attend their respective events by contacting the head coach.

Or if you want to watch past Aggies meet up with present ones, admission is free for both games. Quite often, I find it entertaining to see who still has some game. Now that I'm reaching the back end of my thirties, I take pride in seeing one of my contemporaries keeping up with the current whippersnappers.

* * * * *

A handful of nominations for the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame have arrived in my mailbox during the last month or so. Although I am not at liberty to divulge who they are,  it's worth taking a moment to remind Aggie fans how the process works and to offer a few resources with which to fill out nominations.

For starters, you can find the roster of past CAAHOF inductees, plus links to the online nomination form and selection critera at the official site here:
http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/hallfame/ucda-hallfame.html

Secondly, when an individual is submitted in any category, the nomination is good for a two-year span. So a nominee submitted this fall will earn consideration for the 2011-12 induction class. If he/she does not earn induction in June, the nominee is automatically resubmitted for the 2012-13 nomination pool. No further action is necessary, unless someone wishes to provide more supporting materials. If that nominee does not earn induction in 2012-13, he/she must be renominated by the fall of 2013 to return to the pool of candidates.

In the Student-Athlete category, a nominee must be at least five years removed from his/her last collegiate competition, using the Nov. 30 nomination deadline as the precise border (i.e. for this year's pool a UC Davis student-athlete must have last competed as an Aggie on or before Nov. 30, 2006). The seniors from the 2005-06 athletics year or the 2006 fall sports are the newly eligible candidates.

For the Non-Participant category (e.g. coaches, administrators or other support roles), the eligibility window varies. If an individual leaves employment from UC Davis, he/she is eligible immediately. If an individual still works for the university in any capacity, he/she must wait five years until being honored for whatever capacity warrants Hall of Fame consideration.

Admittedly, this is a confusing piece of policy. I'll give some hypothetical examples to (hopefully) clarify how it works, and I'll do so in the language used by many of the rulebooks I consult for my job:

(1) Mr. Abbott serves as a head coach for 12 years. After the 2014-15 season, he retires from coaching to assume a post as an associate A.D. for UC Davis athletics. Still a university employee, Abbott may not be nominated for his coaching career until 2020. (2) After two years in this associate A.D. role, Abbott then decides to leave for a job in the private sector in 2017. No longer employed by the university, Abbott is immediately eligible for Hall of Fame consideration.

(3) Mrs. Bennett serves as an athletics administrator for 24 years, then retires from the university after the 2012-13 school year. Bennett is eligible for nomination immediately beginning with the Nov. 2013 deadline. (4) In 2014, after a year of retirement, Bennett is rehired to serve as a consultant for the UC Davis university relations office. Now an employee again, the five-year rule takes effect, and Bennett must wait until 2018 before she may be honored for her athletics career.

(5) Ms. Campbell coaches at UC Davis for eight years, leading her program to the NCAA title in 2015. In the summer after winning this championship, she is hired as the head coach in the same sport at UCLA. Even though she is still in the profession at another UC school, Campbell is eligible for CAAHOF consideration immediately, as she is no longer a UC Davis employee.

(6) Mr. Downing coaches a team at UC Davis for 20 years. Then in 2015, he assumes the role as a head coach in a different Aggie sport for 10 more years before retiring for good in 2025. Downing may be considered for the Hall of Fame beginning in 2020, but only for his coaching achievements in the first sport. Effective 2026, however, Downing may be considered for his coaching career in both sports.

If you're still confused, just shoot me a line and I'll let you know if a potential non-participant is on or off the table. Or just submit the name anyway. If the person is eligible, he/she goes into the pool. If not, we'll let you know.

As many already have heard, UC Davis also has a new honor called the Aggie Legacy Award. To put things briefly, this honors Aggie student-athletes not for their sports-related achivements during college (that's what the CAAHOF is for) but for what they've done since college. While most of our student-athletes go on to other fields, some remain in the athletics arena and a few go on to national prestige in those areas. Until the Legacy Award, our department had no formal way of honoring these individuals.

Or, to put it more succinctly, we never got to officially brag about who some of our former Aggies are.

In my opinion, the inaugural winner was about as good as we could have asked for: Boise State football coach Chris Petersen. Not only has he led his Bronco team to amazing success, but he has done so with a reminder that he once roamed Toomey Field: his UC Davis roots are often mentioned during national television broadcasts or in major news outlets.

More importantly, Coach Pete has set a high bar for the expectations we envisioned for the award when the idea was floated years ago. There are other Aggies whose national profile is comparable to Petersen; I hope our fans will take a few minutes to submit those names and make their cases for our celebrated UC Davis alums.

Finally, a few nominators have indicated (either in words or by the lack of information in their forms) that they don't know some of the awards or achievements an individual had at UC Davis. My short answer: do the best you can. Truthfully, my office can usually fill in most of the blanks. However, there are some large gaps in our records -- particularly for athletes who competed in the 1980s -- so relying on the athletics communications staff is a gamble. If you don't fill out that section, and we don't have records for that person, you will have effectively submitted a blank nomination that has little chance of earning induction.

To help fill out nominations for those who competed in the last decade or so, I'll point you to the Year-by-Year Athletics Recaps page on the website. This provides PDF versions of the year-in-review documents since 1999 (the year I returned to the then-Sports Information office). No, these reports don't show everything an individual has done, nor does it list every student-athlete from any given year. But the types of honors and achievements that warrant inclusion in those reports generally coincide with the level of accomplishment one needs to enter the Hall.

Anyway, it's Homecoming Week... 'tis the time of year to welcome back our past Aggies. We have two alumni games, the Pajamarino event at the train station tonight, and the football game against UTSA on Saturday.

And while we greet our alumni this weekend, I hope a few of you will take some time to honor them as well.

-Mark Honbo, athletics communications director, will miss the Pajamarino event due to a photo assignment. However, he hopes to see a few people at the new Our House spot at 808 Second Street in downtown Davis.