Golden Nuggets: Wildfire Preparation, a Book Mention, and definitely not a cursed Oski Photoshop

I'm back from vacation and in rare form.

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!

A real photo! I didn’t even have to photoshop this one.

Only You (and some Berkeley Students) Can Prevent Wildfires

Our top nugget this week comes to us from Berkeley News who connected with UC Berkeley Professor Michael Gollner and his students who work with the Berkeley FireSafe Council and use their knowledge (and wildfire simulation models) and muscles to prepare the Berkeley hills by removing excess brush and vegetation. Read the full article here!

Oh what the heck I still busted out photoshop for you because I love you.

Hot Links

• Another new ranking dropped and Cal was once again at the top, alongside our fellow brethren UC schools. See, isn’t it nice when we all work together instead of backstabbing the oldest brother and fleeing to play games in places where it snows.

• UC Berkeley outlined some plans to account for the Bancroft Library’s namesake, opting to not change the name but instead reckon with “H.H. Bancroft’s bigotry, racism, and nativism, while acknowledging that the name and the legacy may have caused and may continue to cause harm.”

• Write for California Alum Name Le was interviewed by ESPN Writer Bill Connelly for his upcoming book “Forward Progress: The Definitive Guide to the Future of College Football" to talk about the Calgorithm. Read an excerpt below and pre-order the book here.

  

  

• Downtown Berkeley will be getting a new pho place in 2026 in downtown Berkeley’s most interesting building.

Golden Bear Honors

• Tyler Shimizu (Gymnastics) was named a CSC Academic All-American

• Acacia Anders, Xiomei Geluz, Ashanti McDade, Holly Medina, Kaylee Pond, Anna Reimers, and Annabel Teperson (Softball) were named to the All-ACC Academic Team

• Jarren Advincula, Alex Birge, Oliver de la Torre, Gavin Eddy, Max Handron, PJ Moutzouridis, Logan Piper, David Shaw, Ryan Tayman, and Cole Tremain (Baseball) were named to the All-ACC Academic Team

• Track and Field named 29 Golden Bears to the All-ACC Academic Team

• Caisa-Marie Lindfors (2nd Team) and Audrey Jacobs (3rd Team) were named to the Academic All-America Honors

• 9 Men’s Rowing Athletes are set to compete in the U23 World Rowing Championships in Poland

• Likwise, Cal is sending 4 Women’s Rowing Athletes to the U23 Women’s World Rowing Championships

Cal Athletics Round Up

• Women’s Basketball announced their 2025-2026 Non-Conference Schedule

Cal Pros Round Up

PGA

• Ben An, Michael Kim, Colin Morikawa, Sampson Zheng are all preparing for The Open Championship

• Collin Morikawa will be trying out a new caddie

NFL

• Congrats to Jared Goff and Christen Harper on the birth of their new daughter, Romy Isabelle Goff!

• Jared is also featured in Quaterback: Season 2 on Netflix

• Marshawn Lynch’s foundation helped bring a new basketball court to West Oakland

MLB

• Marcus Semien launched career homerun number 250 this past week!

Next Week in Bear Territory

• Celebrate early the 10th Anniversary of Cal beating Texas in Austin

Thanks again for reading all the way down to the bottom here. As always, if I forgot something, please do let me know in the comments! Now to go back to pretending I’m on vacation up at Lassen National Park.