Golden Nuggets: Gains, Games, and Graffiti

The Calgorithm breaks containment again.

Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets! In this weekly write up, we try our best to cover all things Cal, Berkeley, Bearkeley, UC Berkeley, University of Cal Berkeley, University of Berkeley at Cal, BerkeleyInspire, and California Berkeley University that happened more or less in the last week! Let’s dig in!

Go Woke, Get Yoked

Calgorithm training camp started this past week with many online burners showing up in the best posting shape of their lives. While normally this is a rather slow ramp up, the Calgorithm started hot and stayed hot.

For those not terminally online, late Friday afternoon, Cal Football players started posting photos of themselves from when they joined the team, either in January or June, next to a post-photo following the Strength & Conditioning Program (see picture above of Dazmin James, Arkansas transfer who joined the Bears this past Winter).

At first, things took off slowly with most Cal-adjacent accounts seeing the photos and memeing, but then it absolutely took off and got aggregated by a few of the larger accounts including On3/Rivals, Yahoo Sports, before finally culminating in a Sportscenter shoutout

sportscenternext

A post shared by @sportscenternext

It went so far to make the the Sportscenter Moment of the Week. Just another week for the Calgorithm.

LOOK MOM, I’M A REPORTER

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 dropped on July 11th, but your intrepid writer was busy tubing on Lake Almanor and completely forgot that was happening. Until this past week when I suddenly remembered and downloaded the game to check it out and pretend that I was 11 years old playing in my parents garage on our Playstation 2.

Long time (since about March) readers of Golden Nuggets remember the Berkeley campus was featured prominently in the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. So with that, I went ahead and investigated this newest iteration to see how closely it holds up (and Avi said that if I write 2000 words on the subject with some pictures he might consider refunding the cost of just the one level (about ~$2.63).

All told if you’re actually interested in my review, I’ve really only played this first level so far, but its felt great. Much better than some of the other iterations that tried to revive this franchise. I think it’s worth picking up if you have that nostalgia itch, but man I don’t remember the game being quite that fast when I was a kid (Am I getting older?). I don’t recall the mascot of the original game, but in the updated version its a Chicken I think. Or Rooster? And the primary colors are Blue and Orange, so not a direct 1:1 translation (thanks UC Berkeley copyright department I guess.)

Sproul Hall, or the game’s version at least, after you get revenge on the fraternity brothers.

Still, the environment was fun to explore and see some familiar spots.

Sather Gate and the Campanile.

Nose grabbing off the Cesar E. Chavez Student Center.

I also learned that UC Berkeley sorry Cal-Berkeley used to hold a Skateboard Camp.

Hot Links

• The UC Newsroom, using data from a data firm released a new data dashboard tracking UC alumni employment since 2000 highlighting the top companies that hire UC Alumni

• Without wading too much into it, South Park debuted with some…memorable scenes that are now immortalized via graffiti painted by none other than Rod Benson.

• The ESPN ACC Football Roadtrip began this past Monday at Duke and will arrive here in Berkeley, airing on August 15th. The road trip will include a one-hour on-campus show airing weekdays through August 19th.

Golden Bear Honors

• Cal Volleyball received the AVCA Team Academic Award

• Cal Track and Field has 13 people receive the All-Academic honor from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association

• Incoming Freshman Teagan O’Dell (Swimming) took silver at the 200m IM in the World University Games

• Ryan Erisman took the bronze in the 800m Freestyle

• Eszter Varro (Water Polo) took silver at the World Aquatics Championship

• Matteo Bardana (Gymnastics) took silver at the FIS World University Games

• Caisa-Marie Lindfors (Discus) took silver at the FISU World University Games

• Jack Alexy took bronze in the 4x100m Freestyle Relay at the World Aquatics Championships

Cal Athletics Round Up

• Puff Morris at 2025 AMAZN All-Star Showcase. Here she is introducing herself in Tagalog. Oh and she dropped 53 points.

Cal Pros Round Up

• MLB

  • Marcus Semien helped the Rangers walk off the Braves.

  • Andrew Vaughn continues to rake in Milwaukee, recording an RBI in 8 of his first 13 games, including this game tying ground rule double

• NFL/CFL

  • Important Aaron Rodgers bathroom updates (we need sports back bad)

  • Cam Jordan connected to Cal Field Hockey player Christine Suggs at practice

  • You can now spell like Jared Goff(‘s deoderant)

• PGA

  • Max Homa tied for 39th at the 3M Open this past weekend ending the tournament at -12

Next Week in Bear Territory

• With football season just a few weeks away, consider watching last years thrashing of the Washington St. Cougars Oregon State Beavers

Thanks again for reading all the way to the end. As always, please let me know if I forgot anything in the comments!