Golden Nuggets: Guest Nugs, Hummingbirds, and Punching Tickets to Nationals
Welcome to Summer in Bear Territory.
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!
Before we really get into it though, with summer nearly upon us, school finished and graduations held, and the athletic calendar quiet until August, we’re going to open up the focus area of Golden Nuggets here to pull content from across the greater northern California/UC System/Write For California Oskiverse (WCO) in a segment I’m going to call (but will very likely change because I can do whatever I want)…
Exploring Bear Territory (The Whole Damn World): UC Davis and Tahoe
We’ll start by looking north, and a little east up I-80 at our comrades at UC Davis who dropped one of the sicker uniform reveals of recent memory. Special thanks to
for reaching out to the UC Davis Athletic Department and getting this Golden Nuggets exclusive!Bold New Colors Celebrate Research Partnership Between UC Davis and Lake Tahoe
Written by
With summer upon us and the 2025 academic year coming to a close, I’d like to take the opportunity to share some interesting athletics news that fans and alumni of all UC’s should take an interest in: the environment in and around Lake Tahoe. Last week, UC Davis Athletics announced in a press release–and posts on social media–a new alternate jersey promoting the partnership between the university and UC Davis Tahoe Environment Research Center (TERC) coming this fall. The jerseys are light blue in color with white lettering accented by Adidas specialty color Bold Aqua, and feature a new alternate logo of Lake Tahoe in that same Bold Aqua color with the Davis “CA” in white stretching between the east and west shores of the lake.
This announcement comes on the heels of UC Davis extending their contract with Adidas and BSN Sports through 2032. Danielle Shank, Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Relations, explained that the Tahoe Alts project began as a way to kick off the first year of the new contract. “Knowing we had a little bit of money to spend [in] year one,” said Shank. “That made it available for us to see if we could invest into something fun. So we started talking about a different uniform potentially.” Within just a few days, that discussion led to an idea for partnering with one of the UC Davis research centers, which ultimately connected the project with TERC. “They totally got it,” Shank said while describing her first meeting to introduce the project to TERC staff. “They understand that athletics has different avenues to spread their message to places they wouldn’t touch.”
The team at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center immediately jumped on board with the project, sending Shank a bunch of TERC materials and a DVD to present the center’s research and their work in studying Lake Tahoe. “The Research Center has been taking measurements on Lake Tahoe since the late 1960’s,” explained TERC’s Communications and Marketing Specialist, Cara Hollis. “So we have a near continuous sixty year data set about the environmental changes that are happening here.” The research team–which includes about thirty inter-disciplinary researchers and staff, ten full-time monitoring stations, laboratories, and visitors centers–shares the data they are constantly collecting with other researchers and policy managers to assist in understanding how climatic shifts and human interference impact not just Tahoe, but other lakes around the world.
When the partnership was presented to the TERC, Hollis and the team in Tahoe were very excited. “My immediate thought was ‘what a fantastic opportunity to reach an audience we wouldn’t necessarily normally reach,’” said Hollis. “And then my second thought was ‘how fun for our researchers, scientists, and staff to be recognized in such a way.’” Over the following six months, the design team within Adidas and the project team in Davis collaborated to produce colors and a logo that celebrated the university’s commitment to the important environmental research carried out in Tahoe. After the designs were finalized and sent out, a handful of student-athletes were brought to the lake to create the promotional pictures and videos now seen online. One of the most notable of which depicted an Aggie soccer player on a buoy used in conjunction with a NASA satellite to give real time water temperature readings.
With the jerseys announced, the partnership will now focus on the upcoming athletic seasons. Danielle Shank reflected that the months of tireless work it took to bring the Tahoe alts from concept to final product had been a passion project for her. “It’s been really exciting,” Shank commented. “We had a lot of work to carry it out successfully, but at least from the launch and leading to that it’s been a really fun and exciting process.” Cara Hollis enthusiastically echoed Shank’s sentiments. “It’s very exciting not only from an outreach perspective with the sports community, it’s also a chance for us here in Tahoe to interact more with our colleagues in Davis and to raise awareness of research opportunities here.”
Nine teams including football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s soccer, gymnastics, and volleyball will be sporting the new looks at UC Davis Tahoe-themed games during their respective seasons. UC Davis will begin announcing the schedule of Tahoe games—starting with fall sports—this month. Merchandise featuring the new logo and colors is set to be available later this summer.
In addition to monitoring and studying Lake Tahoe, the UC Davis TERC also offers educational opportunities at multiple locations around the lake. The Tahoe Science Center in Incline Village, Nevada, and the Eriksson Education Center in Tahoe City, California both provide unique experiences through exhibits, guided and self-guided tours, volunteer opportunities, and lecture series for visitors of all ages. For more information on visiting TERC during your next trip to Tahoe, check out their website here.
Birds of a Feather
I also want to feature this week some research that came out recently (last week) that I mostly ignored because I thought it was strictly “me” content and not Cal content, but alas, there is a Cal angle! Last week, researchers, including a former Cal Graduate student now at UC Santa Cruz, found that one of our native Hummingbirds here in California, Anna’s Hummingbird, has been able to evolve and expand its range due in part to the number of hummingbird feeders across California. SFGATE wrote up a nice summary in case you can’t pay $62 to download a PDF.
Hot Links
Last week, EA revealed the EA CFB 26 Cover (still mad they didn’t choose my Oski inspired one). This week, we got the trailer. Cal gets second billing behind Alabama (no one mention that the Script Cal is facing the wrong side). We also got confirmation that this year, Coach Wilcox will appear in the game.
This week we also got kickoffs for 5 games, so start planning how you’re gonna spike your coffee to stay awake.
On top of that, the ACC Men’s Basketball Home and Away matchups were released.
UC Berkeley announced a $90 million endowment (combined with 4 other institutions) that will fund theoretical physics research on campus. I *think* this includes the physics of prolate spheroids being jettisoned through roughly sea level atmospheric conditions in Fall.
Berkeley News also featured an article profiling Timothy Bowles (Associate Professor, ESPM) and Michael Grunwald (Writer) discussing human impacts to food systems that are further discussed in his upcoming book. Read the article here.
E-40, supporter of Cal Football and general East Bay legend, held a Tiny Desk Concert
Golden Bear Honors
Cynt Marshall was named the Alum of the Year at the Berkeley Charter Gala
Garrett Macquiddy placed 3rd in his heat in the 1500m and will advance to the NCAA Championships
Johnny Goode also advanced to the NCAA Championships for the 400m race
Jessica Alsola was named an Academic All-American by Collegiate Sports Communicators
Gavin Eddy and Alex Birge were named the CSC Academic All-District
Cal Athletics Round Up
Track and Field competed in the NCAA West Region Championships (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4)
Men’s Rowing competed in the IRA National Championships (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) and placed 3rd overall
Women’s Rowing competed in the NCAA Championships (Day 1, Day 3) and placed 9th overall
Cal Pros Round Up
NFL
NBA
PGA
Next Week in Bear Territory
Track and Field Outdoor Championships Start in Eugene, OR (June 11)
Well, that wraps us up here at Golden Nuggets. As always, let me know what I forgot in the comments! Now to get in touch with the Central Sierra Snow Lab about an all white alternate uniform (yes, including helmets).
Great article. Keep Tahoe Blue!
Go Tahoe! No reason this wonder of a lake shouldn’t get informative publicity in any number of places. I wouldn’t have expected it on a UC Davis football team’s jerseys, but “Hey” says the lake, “I’ll take it.”