In the coming weeks and months, The New York Times will be inside Cal athletics, virtually and on campus in Zoom meetings, budget discussions and team workouts. The goal is to provide an inside-out view of the unprecedented challenges facing one university but, really, all of them.
The hurdles at Cal are both reflective of other top-level college athletic programs and unique to the Golden Bears. Cal is a member of the Pac-12 Conference, which dominates the college sports scene on the West Coast. Its athletic department is bigger than most: 30 sports, 300 employees, 850 athletes and a $100 million annual budget.
But athletics hardly define Cal, one of the premier public universities in the nation. It is the flagship of the enormous and prestigious University of California system. It is situated in the heart of the Bay Area, where college sports fight for attention. Its athletic department is perpetually in the red.
In other words, Cal represents both success and struggle in college athletics. And the pandemic along with other major issues of 2020, like fights over social justice is exposing all of it.
A third-year athletic director is overseeing a crumbling budget that threatens to rearrange the department and its priorities for years.
Coaches are trying to guide athletes through sports that have had seasons cut short or canceled, and are now juggling crushed hopes and uncertain rosters.
Hundreds of athletes are wondering if its the right thing to go to campus, to play, to travel, to study.read more
How a Power 5 Conference University Is Struggling to Have Sports in a Pandemic
