Golden Nuggets: 900 Miles of Swimming, news from the Monterey Bay, and a Cool New Hat

Pardon our dust!

Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets, our weekly recap article where we try to highlight all the fun, funny, or interesting things you might have missed roughly over the last week across Bear Territory (the whole damn world of course). Think of it like a cheat sheet for small talk about Cal. This will be the last Golden Nuggets for the summer as life is getting busy, but we’ll be back later this year!

The Main Course: A Swimmer Went to Sea

Catherine Breed, former Cal Swimming is set to be the first to attempt a swim from the the California-Oregon border ~900-miles south to the California-Mexico border. Along the way, she’ll have to fight off sirens, great sharks, a cyclops, live with a witch for a few years, rescue her crew of sheep and more. Sounds like quite the odyssey! Read more about the feat here and stay tuned as she’ll start soon!

Hot Links

Some New Berkeley Eats

BerkeleySide collected all the new local restaurants popping up around Berkeley. Give it a read here while you eat your lunch!

Monterey Bay Aquarium Has A New Golden Bear

The East Bay Times profiled new Chief Executive Officer Jenny Gray of the Monterey Bay Aquarium! Read it here.

Small Bites

• If you’re a big Shooter McGavin and Johnny Drama fan, boy do I have the…World Cup Watch Party? for you!

• Cal Night at the Oakland Ballers game is next week! Anyone need a new drawstring backpack?

• Cal Alum Ki Hong Lee is set to lead the newest iteration in the Call of Duty series

• The Athletic keeps profiling Cal Football so you might as well keep reading it!

• Joaquin Ruiz (former Daily Cal, now LA Times!) was named to the Top 10 of the AP Sports Editors Student Contest!

• Tom Hanks was caught hanging around Berkeley Typewriter

Golden Bear Honors

• Tonya Paulsson (Women’s Gymnastics) was featured in GQ Taiwan!

• Congressman Mark DeSaulnier recognized Jack Clark on the floor of Congress for his induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame!

• Ziqin Zhou (Men’s Golf) was named to the Division 1 PING All-West Region Team

• Fryderyk Lechno-Wasiutynski (Men’s Tennis) is the Singles Champion of the M15 Tsaghzadzor, Armenia.

• Berta Passola Folch (Women’s Tennis) was named to the CSC Academic All-America First Team

• Nine Cal Rugby players were named to the CRAA D1A All American Team

• Emma Donley (Beach Volleyball) was named to the 2026 USA Volleyball Beach Collegiate National Team

• Solomon Williams (Rugby) was named the Gatorade Student Athlete of the Month

• Jett Kenady (Baseball) was named a NCBWA Freshman All-American

• Trevor Rogers (Long Jump) was named a second team All-American

This Week in eCommerce

As a balding young adult male I have a rather extensive collection of hats with which to protect my head and display things I’m a particular fan of. I’m especially on the hunt for new and interesting Cal hats which often pop up on my Facebook Marketplace, which leads us to this week’s eCommerce find…

Just a fascinating variety of graphic design on display here. Yours for $35 in the Vallejo area!

Cal Pro Updates

Basketball

Mady Sissoko has signed with Real Madrid.

Baseball

Josh White is being called up to the big leagues with the Miami Marlins.

Football

Tony Gonzalez, Marshawn Lynch, and Ron Rivera are on the 2027 College Football Hall of Fame ballot.

Rugby

Rand Santos made his debut with the USA Eagles this past week.

Thanks for reading Golden Nuggets! We’ll be back later this summer as things ramp back up and life settles down (it does that right?)