45.1 F
Davis

Davis, California

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

All AG-Cess

I’ll be honest. When I asked you guys to send me questions to answer with this space, there were certain kinds of queries I was expecting to get.

Injury updates, lineup changes, maybe some sort of instant analysisall good questions. Time-sensitive. Newsworthy. Random, run-of-the-mill-type facts worth knowing.

This first question, however, throws the old mill into the rear view mirror at speeds unknown to most humans. I don’t even need to set this question up. Just read it:

 

Ask Adam: ASUCD Senate candidacy?

Hi Adam,

So ASUCD elections started on Wednesday. Ever thought about running for senate? Would your platform goals all be about sports? (I hope so!) Adam in 2009, baby!

Thanks,

Chadwick Gunrock

 

Chadwick,

Nice question. Questionable alias. Come on, kidif you’re crazy enough to ask about my ASUCD Senate candidacy, you’re bananas enough to come up with a cooler fake name.

That said, your question was the best of the week by far, so kudos to you.

Have I ever thought about running for senate? No. Will I ever think about running for senate? No. Will I pretend to think about running for senate for the sake of answering your question? Absolutely.

Here’s my platform (i.e. the first three thoughts to pop into my head). Unsurprisingly, it’s all UC Davis athletics-related.

1. Lights, camera, soccerand baseball: It’s a Saturday afternoon in late September. The temperature reads 105 degrees, but you have every reason to believe it’s 10 degrees hotter, so you’re content with waving the white flag and sitting in your air-conditioned apartment all day.

Meanwhile, your nationally ranked UC Davis men’s soccer team is competing at Aggie Soccer Stadium before the few hundred souls who decided to brave the summer elements.

This team deserves well more than, say, 300 or 400 people to show up to its gamesit deserves thousands, just like Big West Conference archrival UC Santa Barbara draws to each of its home contests. Aggie Soccer Stadium is packed come playoff time, but the early-season heat is a major deterrent to fans during the regular season.

By putting light towers up at the stadium, the team would get the following it deserves on a consistent basis. The towers would allow the team to play its games at nightlike UCSB and most other West Coast collegiate soccer powersgenerating greater fan support and giving the Aggies a better, healthier atmosphere in which to compete.

The same story holds true for the UC Davis baseball team, which is forced to play its home games at Dobbins Stadium during the afternoon during the summer heat due to a lack of lighting.

The Big West is a power baseball conference. The Aggies earned a right to compete under the lights last year by advancing through a heated Big West schedule to earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament. More to come on UC Davis baseball in Monday’s column.

2. Name game: Hey, you know what would help us get light towers at Aggie Soccer Stadium and Dobbins Stadium? Ten million dollars.

Now, rumors have been abound for the past couple years that Budweiser offered to throw $10 million UC Davisway for the naming rights to new Aggie Stadium. Seeing as UC Davis is a dry campus, having a facility named Budweiser Stadium kind of goes against that ideal.

The first step in putting a non-booze related name on Aggie Stadium is to lower the price tag. Sure, $10 million would be great, but I’d rather have $5 million than nothing.

Worst-case scenario: If $10 million means beer on campus, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

3. Sandyisms: California Aggie-endorsed senate candidate Trevor Taylor is lobbying the administration to better promote ASUCD’s legal services, specifically looking at the 15 minutes of free legal advice each UC Davis student is allotted per quarter.

In order to be best prepared for these 15 minutes, I’d lobby for students to get 15 minutes of vocabulary advice with UC Davis women’s basketball coach Sandy Simpson.

Having a conversation with Simpson is like talking to a dictionary with a sense of humor.

I’ll be sitting in a press conference asking Simpson questions. He’ll respond with someSandyism” – a response that makes perfect sense to him, but can leave the rest of those in the room scratching their heads.

If you combine 15 minutes of vocabulary advice with 15 minutes of legal advice, odds are you’ll be better educatedor you’ll be better at faking it, at least.

Thanks for the question, Chadwick. Work on the alias.

Onto some thoughts on wrestling and cycling:

 

Worth the wait

It took stints at four colleges in a period of four years, but Charles Hinriksson finally got his shot at being a Division I wrestler.

A senior from River Forest, Ill., Hinriksson competed in his first collegiate dual on Senior Night in a 32-15 Pacific-10 Conference win over Cal Poly on Sunday.

Hinriksson wrestled at 174 poundsthree weight classes above his listed 149-pound division. The undersized Hinriksson sprained his left knee early in the dual. He then sprained it a second time, leading to a torn ACL, cutting his lone UC Davis appearance short far sooner than anyone would have hoped.

“It was like David vs. Goliath except I forgot my slingshot,Hinriksson said.

A year at tiny Menlo College. A semester at Wisconsin, where he didn’t make the wrestling team. A stint at Triton Junior College in River Grove, Ill. A two-year wait at UC Davis for a chance to suit up for the Aggies in a varsity dual.

All that for a few minutes on the mat and a torn ACL.

And you know what? If he could do it all over again, he would.

“Yeah, it was worth it,Hinriksson said.It was fun.

Fun? Yes. Inspirational? Without question. Thanks for the memories, Chuck.

 

Cold as ice

Believe it or not, there are many, many differences between seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong and the average person.

One of these differences became rather evident during Sunday’s opening stage of the Tour of California, which began in Central Park in Davis.

The weather was awful; I’ll let Armstrong tell you how bad it was out there himself.

“Holy hell. That was terrible,Armstrong said on his Twitter feed following the race.Maybe one of the toughest days I’ve had on a bike, purely based on the conditions. I’m still freezing.

Fans had a tough day, toobut they weren’t riding bikes in one of the biggest cycling races in the world. I mean, I walked downtown instead of biking, because you’d have to be some kind of crazy to bike under such conditions.

Or you’d have to be cool like Lance Armstrong and Co. and become a world-class cyclist. Whatever works for you.

 

Have a question you’d like answered in next week’s All AG-Cess? ADAM LOBERSTEIN can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.XXX

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here