WE'RE RICH!

BERKELEY - With $10.5 million raised during the 2007-08 fiscal year, Cal Athletics has set a new record for contributions to its annual fund, Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour announced Friday.

"This is a tribute to our donors and loyal supporters, who through their generosity, helped create conditions for success for our student-athletes," Barbour said. "The financial commitment that we have received from the Cal family over the past 12 months has been overwhelming and unprecedented."

Ok, everybody form a single file line.  It's first come, first serve.......Suckers!

I can't remember if I previously linked to this, but, if not, here is a Q+A with New Zealand Olympic swimmer Lauren Boyle.  So much better than Zealand Olympic swimmer Lauren Boyle.

CalBears.com: How challenging is it to be in school, compete at Cal and train for the Olympics?

Boyle: "Well training for the Olympics is training for the NCAA; it is training towards many goals, including the Olympics. Being a student-athlete puts some other demands on us, like we have to spend a lot of time studying and that can sometimes affect practicing, being stressed, out or you have an exam and cannot attend practice.

"It has been really hard for me this semester because the NCAA meet was the week before New Zealand's Olympic trials. So I flew straight from the NCAAs, which was in Columbus, Ohio, to Auckland, New Zealand. I didn't get to come back to Berkeley. Then I had to compete the day after I arrived in New Zealand. So I was really tired and really jet-lagged, and that was really tiring."

On Friday, the Tightwad Hill people settled their lawsuit with Cal.  I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why a)Cal football fans would sue and b)what exactly they were suing on/hoping to get.  But perhaps somebody can elucidate me as to a) and b).

The parties have agreed to an informal process that commits the University to confer with and to consider input from the group regarding design options for the east seating structure in order to avoid, to the extent feasible, obstruction of views of the field from Tightwad Hill.

Daily Cal article on the Tightwad Hill lawsuit. 

"From my perspective, it looked like they were pretty much building the coffin for Tightwad Hill," said Dan Sicular, chairman of Save Tightwad Hill's central committee.

I love the concept of Tightwad Hill as much as the next guy.  Even though they are actively with-holding monies that could help athletics, they are a)a cool thing to have and b)exposing Cal football to new groups of people.  But is it wrong of me to think that it is a bit self-serving to try to stop the upgrade of the stadium/facilities all for their own views?  Well, I guess it won't matter, insomuch as they've settled.

Wilner interviews Monty.

Recruiting. Cal doesn’t have a senior on the 2008-09 roster, which means Montgomery has no scholarships available for the November signing period. Except he does — or he will.

He didn’t get into detail, but my sense from his cryptic comments was that at least one or two rising juniors might not be around for 2009-10 (for whatever reason).

Montgomery also talked candidly about Cal’s potential problems up front in trying to replace DeVon Hardin and Ryan Anderson:

"I don’t know that the previous staff anticipated Ryan leaving, so they didn’t recruit any big men," Montgomery said. "We have a little bit of an issue there. …

"We’re not as big as we’d hoped."

Remember when that girl was accidently gunned down right by the campus?  They just sentenced the suspect there.  There were several football players on the scene of the incident, apparently.  It does not list who was there.

Judge Vernon Nakahara ordered that Hollis, of Hayward, spend 24 years in prison for mistakenly killing Meleia Willis-Starbuck, 19, as she argued with several UC-Berkeley football players during the early morning hours of July 17, 2005.

Jax signs. 

Wide receiver DeSean Jackson, the Eagles' second of two second-round picks in April's NFL Draft, agreed to terms on a four-year deal Sunday, ensuring he will be under contract in time for training camp, which begins July 21 when rookies and selected veterans are scheduled to report.

via cmsimg.delawareonline.com

Boller could be back as the starter, but he has to fight off 2 other QBs, including Ravens QB of the Future, Joe "Unibrow" Flacco.

Well, I think that is good for today.  Dump away.  GO BEARS!

Edit:  I just got the following message from Gordon Wozniak, in regards to the email message I sent to the entire City Council.  Go Him!

I agree with you that an appeal will be a waste of the City's monies and
only further delay the project. I don't believe that the Council will appeal, 
since we seem to have lost on all counts. However, you can never tell 
what the Berkeley City Council will do.
 
Gordon