From The Desk Of The Athletics Director: October, 2016

Greetings Highlanders Fans

The UC Riverside Athletics Department rang in the new year with a Welcome Back picnic in late September. All of our 300-plus student-athletes, coaches and support staff were there engaging in fellowship, along with Chancellor Kim Wilcox, Vice Chancellor Ron Coley, Vice Chancellor James Sandoval, Vice Chancellor Peter Hayashida, Dean Sharon Duffy, Athletics Association Chair Chris Jensen, and numerous other athletics supporters.

Special thanks to Chick-Fil-A for providing the meals, and Altura Credit Union for sharing important information about fiscal responsibility with our student-athletes in a fun and engaging manner. With Altura's core values centering around respect, integrity innovation, passion and excellence, theirs is a partnership of ours that will flourish for many years to come.

Speaking of corporate partners, we recently announced a three-year agreement with Max Muscle Nutrition making Max Muscle the official nutrition provider for UC Riverside Athletics (view the Max Muscle promo video/like them on Facebook).

In addition to providing our student-athletes with NCAA-approved nutritional supplements, Max Muscle will dedicate 10 hours per week of nutritional guidance to student-athletes; and provide them with athlete-specific nutrition plans, hospital-grade body composition technology, and insights into potential eating disorders, all to ensure that all of our student-athletes are able to perform at peak efficiency, while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Max Muscle and the Highlanders will partner on a number of related community events throughout each academic year, and collaborate on in-store appearances by members of our coaching staffs and UC Riverside Spirit Squads.

We will also merge our considerable social media presence to cross promote pertinent events while raising the profile of both brands in the Inland Empire.

No doubt, Max Muscle Nutrition will have a prominent place in our new locker rooms. As I have mentioned in recent editions of our E-Newsletter, we are renovating the 1950s-era locker rooms that many of you knew as students, and transforming them into the newly-named "Bear's Den." The only thing that would make this transition more exciting is if we added your name to the marquee. "The [Your Name Here] Bear's Den" has a nice ring to it!

We're also looking for a few good Highlanders to join our department as Bear's Den Team Captains. We're calling on you to help us lead the charge in getting this space built for our student-athletes. If you're interested in being a part of this project, please contact Krysta Plato at (951) 827-6823 or krysta.plato@ucr.edu. While we're on the subject of The Bear's Den, please stay tuned for an invitation to an exciting event at Homecoming.

Getting back to the fields of competition, our fall sports have already started Big West play, but the biggest pre-conference win of the season was the Men's Soccer Team's 2-1 home victory over #20 Gonzaga in mid-September. That marked the fifth win over a nationally-ranked opponent for Men's Soccer over the last three-and-a-half years.

Both of our soccer teams are gearing up for runs at the Big West Tournament this November. The Women's Championship is being decided this year at Long Beach State, with the top four teams doing battle at George Allen Field for conference bragging rights, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

The Men's Tournament features the top three teams from each of the two divisions playing at the higher seeds' home venue, so keep your eyes peeled for schedule announcements regarding that championship as well.

There is still a lot of regular-season action on tap between now and then, though, so be sure to get your tickets to cheer on your soccer and volleyball teams.

You can also help us promote Domestic Violence Awareness Month throughout October, and attend our Domestic Violence Awareness game on Friday, October 21 when Women's Soccer hosts UC Santa Barbara at 7 pm. The Highlanders will wear special purple T-shirts that evening, and an additional 200 shirts will be distributed to the first 200 fans in attendance.

All of our student-athletes will also hear speakers present on healthy relationships that week, to become ambassadors for the movement in their own right.

Be sure to share the hashtags #UCRagainstDV and #CampusOfRespect as we collectively do our part to end domestic violence.

Basketball season will be here before we know it. If you haven't secured your Homecoming Tickets yet, you should do so now, since we anticipate a sellout. The Men's Basketball Team hosts Fresno Pacific on Saturday, November 19 at 4 pm, and our three championship teams from a year ago—Men's and Women's Golf, and Women's Basketball—are receiving their championship rings that day as part of the Homecoming festivities.

In addition to the brand new floor that was put down over the summer, the SRC Arena walls received a makeover. Gone is the baby blue paint from circa 1995, and in its place is a bold UC Riverside blue that continues our branding efforts on campus and throughout the Inland Empire (view photo gallery of both projects).

Looking further ahead, by the time you read this, ballots will have been distributed to Athletics Hall of Fame voters, and our next induction class should be announced in November. The Athletics Hall of Fame celebration is scheduled for Saturday, April 15 at the Mission Inn. You will want to bookmark gohighlanders.com/hof.aspx, and check back throughout the academic year to keep up with all of the celebration particulars, as well as to learn about our new inductees.

Our community relations outreach is also in full swing this season with Highlanders. Men's Basketball teamed up with the Riverside County Department of Public Health and the Riverside Unified School District in early October as part of International Walk To School Day, and members of the Women's Basketball, Men's Golf and Men's Tennis Teams are spending time at the Feeding America Riverside location on October 8 in an effort to help feed over 400,000 men, women and children in need throughout the Inland Empire.

If you'd like to partner with the Highlanders out in the community, please reach out to our director of fan engagement, Darron Pinkney at 951-827-5425.

I know softball season seems a long way off, but not for our newly-minted coaching staff. We recently hired Nikki Palmer as our new head coach, and she tabbed three-time PAC-12 Pitcher of the Year Cheridan Hawkins to serve as her second assistant. As one of our many programs on the rise, I can't wait to see what Coach Palmer and her troops have in store for us this spring.

Until next month, thank you for your continued support of UC Riverside Athletics.

All The Best – And Go Highlanders!

From The Desk Of The Athletics Director: October, 2016

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