UCSD Athletic Director Earl Edwards has been with the Tritons since 2000.

In the spring of 2000, Earl Edwards took over as Athletic Director at UCSD. The program was transitioning from Division III to Division II and going through everything you’d expect as a result. I was also a freshman at UCSD at the time. 

Though I wrote for the newspaper on campus (the UCSD Guardian), covered a number of sports, and played in the school’s pep band, I had never met Mr. Edwards (now 17 years into his role there) before last week. 

In our conversation, he talked about UCSD’s ongoing efforts to move to Division I, the state of limbo they are currently in with the Big West Conference, and what’s new with UC San Diego athletics.

On Tuesday afternoon, UCSD announced that the students had approved a measure to increase student fees in order to start the process of moving to Division I. It was a long time coming.

After multiple failed attempts over the past decade to make the move, the time was right. Of the over 8,000 students who voted (35 percent of the student body), about 70 percent of the voters said “Yes.”

“Division I will help extend the entire university’s culture of excellence, align us with peer academic institutions, improve the student experience, strengthen our brand, increase alumni engagement and further our community connection. This move will impact the entire campus in a multitude of ways,” said UCSD Director of Athletics Earl Edwards in a release from UCSD Athletics.

Excitement

People were pretty pumped on social media today.

UCSD students overwhelmingly pass the DI referendum. DI here we come! Go @UCSDtritons !! pic.twitter.com/V7UMGIOafs

— Brad Kreutzkamp (@UCSDcoachK) May 24, 2016

Got chills watching the announcement all said and done UCSD is D1 bound #tritonsrising

— Justin Donatella (@jdonatella9) May 24, 2016

UCSD IS NOW GOING DIVISION 1!!!! So proud to have taken part in the pro side of this referendum ??? #UCSD #Tritons

— Kelly Weldon (@kellyweldon20) May 24, 2016

Not D-1 yet

Many were tweeting on Tuesday that UCSD was now “officially Division I.” That’s actually not the case. The vote was provisional and dependent on the University finding a Division I conference.

Enter the Big West, which we are quite familiar with here at Fansmanship. The conference currently includes Cal Poly, UCSB, UC Davis, Hawai’i, CSUN, Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and Cal State Fullerton. UCSD could be the tenth team –it makes so much sense from an outsider’s perspective — but including the Tritons will still take a number of steps on the part of the Big West and the UCSD administration.

@BigWestMD @Ghizal_Hasan Thanks Steve!

— fansmanship (@fansmanship) May 24, 2016

So, there’s still clearly some work to do, and the concept that UCSD is already rubber-stamped is one the Big West doesn’t seem to like very much.

In the end, UCSD seems to make way too much sense not to be the 10th Big West Conference school.

A proud alumnus

Hey, in case you haven’t heard, I did my undergraduate studies at UCSD. While I never voted in an election like this between 1999 and 2003, students before me voted to fund projects like the Price Center and RIMAC, adding tons of value to my college experience and that of thousands of other students over the years.

In terms of what matters to me about on-campus life, UCSD basically had everything I could want — except Division I athletics.

Over the past week, 6,137 students paved the way to change the future of UCSD. For that, I couldn’t be more proud. Way to go Tritons.

Over a week-long voting period that starts on Monday, UCSD students will vote on whether to raise student fees over the course of three years in order to make the move to Division I.

In a podcast last month, UCSD Senior Associate Athletic Director, Ken Grosse, talked with me about it at some length.

The results of the vote will not be known until next Friday afternoon, May 20th.

It makes sense for UCSD to be a Division I school. It has an academic reputation that rivals schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA and enrollment higher than other Division I UC schools like UCSB, UC Irvine, and UC Riverside, all of whom play in the Big West.

I am a former UCSD Guardian sports writer, a member of the UCSD Pep Band, Shuttle Driver, and supporter of the Division I move. Here’s hoping the student body does the right thing and approves the fee increase.

The Tritons a part of Division I and NCAA’s March Madness? It could happen!

As an alumnus of both UCSD and Cal Poly living in San Luis Obispo, I witnessed Cal Poly’s first Division I basketball tournament appearance last year from here on the central coast. The buzz around the university was palpable. So many of the people I deal with at work from around the country suddenly had some context for my town, and my school. Cal Poly is definitely well-known in academic and engineering circles, but this was different. Since those two appearances on national television (the Mustangs won a first-four game), lots of people in my field (education) understand the central coast based on the context of that tournament run. Later that year, the Mustang baseball team hosted a regional and again, people took notice.

Votes like this are always fascinating. There is a concerted effort online and on Library Walk from UCSD Students for Division I, along with other outreach efforts, but who knows how people will actually vote. Students have five days to make their voice heard starting Monday, so keep you updated here as best we can throughout the process.