UC San Diego undergraduates voted 6,137 to 2,567 to more than double student athletics fees to fund a move to NCAA Division I in sports.

Now comes the hard part: Getting seven more votes.

The referendum to elevate from Div. II to Div. I without football is contingent on an invitation from the Big West Conference, which rejected UCSD’s application in 2010 and added Hawaii instead. The conference currently has nine schools – eight in California plus Hawaii – and requires a supermajority, or seven votes, from its presidents and chancellors to expand.

“I want to emphasize, this is the first step of a process,” UCSD athletic director Earl Edwards said.


But it was hard to contain the euphoria of what could be a historic vote, the results of which were unveiled on the patio of a campus pizzeria on Tuesday and sparked wild celebration among about 100 athletes in attendance. There’s also the blessing of the Faculty Senate and formal approval from Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, plus six years of transition mandated by the NCAA, but for a moment before shuttling off to afternoon classes, students allowed themselves to dream a little.

“That’s what makes it cool,” said junior Danny Glascock, a midfielder on the soccer team who was part of a student group that spent this year campaigning for Div. I. “A lot of people who voted, they won’t see it. They just did it because it’s the right thing to do. Obviously I’d love to play in the Big West against some of those soccer schools, but I’ll be pumped to come back and see it.

“When I was high school or middle school, I would have wanted someone to do the same thing for all of us. Someone’s got to step up and do it. This is kind of our bit of history for UCSD.”

Big West commissioner Dennis Farrell has remained non-committal on UCSD’s prospects, saying he would wait for student approval first and then assemble an expansion committee to examine the merits of adding a 10th member. A conference vote isn’t expected until later this year, and the fee increase wouldn’t begin until the fall quarter after a formal invitation.


Then the Tritons must spend two years increasing athletic scholarships to certain minimum levels. And only then can they apply with the NCAA and begin a four-year transition while reclassifying to Div. I, meaning the target for full-fledged membership isn’t until the 2023-24 academic year.

Forgive the premature celebration, then. This was the third time UCSD students have held a Div. I referendum. The previous two failed, most recently in 2012 by a margin of 6,407 to 4,673.

That vote lasted two weeks and had a 51-percent turnout but came amid UC tuition hikes and a worse economy. This referendum was five weekdays – beginning last Tuesday after a computer glitch pushed back voting a day and extending into Monday night – and only 35 percent of 25,173 eligible undergraduate cast votes in the online system.

Nearly 70 percent said yes to Div. I and the accompanying fee hike.


The current Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) fee is $129.38 per quarter, or $388.14 per year if you don’t attend summer school. The increases will be phased into over three years to $289.38 per quarter – or an extra $480 per year. The math over four years: $3,472.56.

That is expected to generate an additional $10 million annually for the athletic department (29 percent of the fee hike goes to university-wide financial aid), doubling its current budget to cover increases in scholarships, salaries and staffing. That also would set up a unique financial model, with practically all the budget coming from student fees – an enormous percentage in Div. I.

A half-dozen UCSD teams like water polo and men’s volleyball already compete at the Div. I level, since there aren’t enough programs nationally to create separate divisions. The rest would gradually ramp up with added scholarships and tougher schedules in the coming years.

Without football, men’s basketball is considered the marquee Div. I sport. It’s also the one that might face that hardest adjustment, especially with Edwards’ insistence that the school won’t relax admission standards in any sport.


The Tritons have struggled at times to remain competitive in men’s basketball at Div. II but appeared to turn a corner last season with limited scholarships, finishing 24-8 and reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament with a fundamental, unselfish style of play. But the size and athleticism at the next level is a different story.

“A huge challenge for us, obviously a big step up,” third-year coach Eric Olen said as he watched several of his players celebrate at the pizzeria. “But this is a different place. I think when you find people who value the things that we do, value the education, and find the guys who want to be here, that’s how we’ve had success.

“We had some big hurdles in the Div. II level, and we feel like we’re starting to overcome some of those hurdles and have some success. And we didn’t change the admission standards to do that.”

Edwards also presided over the move from Div. III to Div. II in the late 1990s, which was punctuated by a women’s soccer team under longtime coach Brian McManus that won NCAA titles in its final year of Div. III and first two years of Div. II.


“For me, it’s like watching your children grow up and go out to be doctors and lawyers, and you play a big part in that,” Edwards said. “To see us go from Div. III to Div. II and what that’s done for the university, I anticipate moving to Div. I it will be even more … But it’s not like this happens overnight. People will have to be patient.”

The next step is convincing a nine-member Big West expansion committee when it visits the campus, along with a Faculty Senate accustomed to working at a university without big-time athletics.

“I would never try to speak for the Faculty Senate,” Edwards said. “That’s pretty much their arena. Like any major topic such as athletics, you’ll have people on both sides. But I’d like to think that the Faculty Senate would take into consideration that (the vote) was overwhelming. You’d like to think that would have some influence.”