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Golden Nuggets: Aaron Rodgers Dominates on Celebrity Jeopardy

NFL MVP and Golden Bear Aaron Rodgers cleans out on Celebrity Jeopardy, supporting the MACC Fund and childhood cancer research.

By cldpc
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Baseball

Two former Golden Bear baseball standouts and current members of the Oakland A's - Marcus Semien and Mark Canha - and Cal Athletics will be hosting a pregame chalk talk Saturday, May 16, prior to the USC-Cal baseball game at Evans Diamond.

Softball

For the second time in three seasons, Cal Softball travels to Ann Arbor to open NCAA Tournament Regional Play. Cal faces Pittsburgh tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. PT.

Cal Softball won 11 conference accolades on Wednesday, matching a program record.

Track & Field

The California Golden Bears Track & Field team will be competing this weekend at the Pac-12 Championships on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 at Drake Stadium in Los Angeles, California.

Men's Golf

Cal Men's Golf enters the 2015 NCAA Lubbock Regional, hosted by Texas Tech at The Rawls Golf Club, as the fifth seed. Regional play starts today and will end on Saturday, May 16.

Inside the Lair: Walter and I

by Kyle McRae, Cal Athletic Communications

BERKELEY - There are so many phrases that could describe the relationship between Steve Desimone and Walter Chun. A few that come to mind are father and son, big brother and little brother, the Odd Couple, Pete and Repeat, and Partners In Crime. But the best is probably "Walter and I", a common phrase used by Desimone whenever talking about anything related to Cal golf.

"If you want a great story this is it," said Desimone, now in his 36th season as head coach. "I can't tell you how much fun we've had, how many laughs we've shared. We've had unbelievably great times. I don't know if there's ever been anything like this in college golf."

"Not sure how much he's had to do with it," Desimone added with his signature sense of humor. "But I guess I've got to give him some credit."

Men's Tennis

California's Andre Goransson and Tyler Browne collected ITA honors this week, as the tennis governing body named them as regional award winners. Goransson claimed the ITA Northwest Regional Player to Watch honor, while Browne was named the ITA Northwest Regional Assistant Coach of the Year.

Women's Tennis

Riding a 10-match winning streak, third-seeded and third-ranked California faces a familiar foe in the NCAA Championship round of 16 in Waco, Texas, as the Golden Bears (22-3) battle 14th-seeded and 14th-ranked Stanford (17-5) at 12 p.m. CT Friday at the Hurd Tennis Center.

Cal Women's Tennis added to its postseason accolades with ITA regional honors. Head coach Amanda Augustus, assistant coach Zack Warren, senior Zsofi Susanyi and freshman Karla Popovic all earned accolades.

Oski Awards

BERKELEY - The "Sexy Sax Man" came back.

Most people know him as Derek White, a former Cal track and field athlete. A lucky few - 850 student-athletes or so - know him also by his musical moniker, which he broke out once again at last week's annual Oski Awards.

White and his girlfriend Alicia Asturias, a former women's gymnastics standout, combined for a soulful rendition of Blackstreet's 1996 hit, "No Diggity." They were just two of the hundreds of student-athletes who put on a display at last Wednesday's part-Oscars, part-ESPYs end-of-year student-athlete celebration and talent show.

Organized by the Golden Bear Advisory Committee, the event recognizes the athletic accomplishments and community involvement of Cal student-athletes.

Facilities News

Maxwell Family Field Renovations Complete

BERKELEY - The University of California, Berkeley, today announced that the renovations to the Maxwell Family Field are complete and the campus' multi-use facility located just north of California Memorial Stadium has reopened officially for practice and competition.

Jennifer Maxwell ('88), co-founder of Power Bar, is responsible for funding the renovations and resurfacing the field. Thanks to a generous gift from Maxwell, the newly renovated multi-use facility which sits atop the Stadium Parking Structure, will provide practice and/or competition usage for Cal's varsity women's lacrosse team, the University of California Marching Band, intramural sports, Cal football, club sports, and other extracurricular activities. Specific programming for each entity will commence shortly after the field reopens.

Up early and heading to Charlotte for the #CharlotteProSeries. Should be a great meet! #mySpeedo

Posted by Natalie Coughlin on Thursday, May 14, 2015

Major League Baseball

The Oakland Athletics will be having a Cal Night promotion on Tuesday, Sept. 1, when they take on the Anaheim Angels. Attendees will receive a Blue and Gold A's cap.

FanGraphs: The Best and Worst of Marcus Semien

A cursory examination of the WAR leaderboards for shortstops in 2015 shows a few surprising developments. At the very top, we have the nice blend of defensive and offensive aptitude in Zack Cozart, and the mainly defensive-minded duo of Brandon Crawford (who has surprised at the plate this year) and Andrelton Simmons. Then, where we might expect a name like Ian Desmond or Troy Tulowitzki, we instead have Marcus Semien.

It's only May, so we're still dealing with the usual parts of the game that suffer from small sample size issues when it comes to player comparison and valuation, like BABIP and defensive metrics. Still, there's something about Semien being toward the top of the boards that warrants our attention: not only is the A's shortstop there because of his offense, he's there despite his defense.

...

Then there's the other part of his game. If we look at the shortstop leaderboards, we'll see Semien just behind Zack Cozart in wRC+, at 145. He's sporting an ISO of .204, and, even though he's still not walking as much as anyone would like (his walk rate has actually decreased from 8.2% last year to 6.1% this year), his slugging is currently making up for it. Simply put, he's crushing the ball this year.

Quarterbacks

Goff would be seeking to join fellow Golden Bear Aaron Rodgers in the NFL, and even perhaps on Celebrity Jeopardy:

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