December 2005

Briefly speaking: Movin' up in sports

Pam Gill-Fisher is senior associate athletic director of Intercollegiate Athletics. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)

When the UC Davis football team narrowly beat Stanford in September, the wild upset splashed across newspaper headlines, sports radio talk shows and television sports news nationwide. A couple of years ago, UC Davis would never have met Stanford on the field, but a transition to Division I status for its sports teams has changed all that — and not just for football.

The switch to Division I-AA from Division II greatly impacts the level of competition for all 26 intercollegiate sports teams on campus, which include 14 women's teams and 12 men's, says Pam Gill-Fisher, senior associate athletic director of Intercollegiate Athletics.

UC Davis is in its third year of a four-year transition to Division I-AA status, with formal Division I designation coming in fall 2007.

That means not only is the competition tougher, so are the rules governing Division I athletes, Gill-Fisher says. Academic requirements for athletes are more stringent and also limit athletes to four years of competition within five years after starting college.

But UC Davis will be able to field stronger teams against these better opponents. "As we make the transition to Division I, our ability to attract higher-caliber athletes will increase because we're moving to an advanced level of competition," Gill-Fisher says.

As UC Davis makes the transition, more scholarship money is available for all sports. Thanks to a referendum passed in 2002 by the students, a percentage of student fees pays for these scholarships.

"It would be difficult to make the transition to Division I without the students' support," Gill-Fisher says.

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