Done right, a great university like UC Davis is enhanced by a strong intercollegiate athletics program

In little more than a year, most Aggie teams will be moving to the Mountain West Conference

UC Davis Chancellor Gary May, among others, has noted that intercollegiate athletics can serve as an attractive front porch for a great university.

True enough, though it comes with the caveat that it must be done in such a manner that it enhances the institution and doesn't overshadow the school's core academic mission.

We moved to Davis from Portland a number of decades ago so my dad could continue his academic career that had been interrupted by his service in World War II. The family voted 4-3 to bring me along. I was five years old.

My first memories were of the terror of starting kindergarten among a sea of strange faces at Central Davis School, of soft serve ice cream at Foster's Freeze, of long hot summer days without air conditioning and of Saturdays in the fall watching the helmeted warriors known as the California Aggies play football on the newly christened Aggie Field.

A decade later that field was renamed for former athletic director and head football and basketball coach Crip Toomey.

Basketball didn't start until winter in those days and was held in the grandest bandbox of all time, Hickey Gym, named for former athletic director, head football, baseball and golf coach and mayor of Davis, Vern Hickey.

Davis being a small town when we moved here - population 3,554 - and UC Davis being an extremely small campus, I had the distinct honor and pleasure of knowing both Crip Toomey and Vern Hickey while I was growing up, though I never dreamed that I might one day be an Aggie athlete myself.

Back then the Aggies competed in the highly competitive and longstanding Far Western Conference with the likes of Chico State, Humboldt State and the Gators of San Francisco State. UCD even had an intercollegiate boxing team for a while.

UC Davis continued to play at that level for decades, but as the school grew and the athletic department flourished, the Aggies eventually moved up to Division I, where the big dogs play. Football was assigned to a branch of Division I known as I-AA, where it remains today, though it is now called the Football Championship Subdivision.

Fast forward to today and the announcement several months ago that UC Davis will be taking the majority of its sports programs to the Mountain West Conference as of July 1, 2026. That date is fast approaching.

Football will remain at the FCS level in the Big Sky Conference for the time being, but there seems little doubt that one day in the not too distant future UC Davis football will take that final step up to football's top tier.

What does it all mean for one of the highest rated public universities in the land?