Berkeley Advancement Identity

All-America
Use when referring to the team or a selection:

• an All-America choice

All-American
Use when referring to an individual.

All-Pac-12
Use to describe the best teams in the conference:

• the All-Pac-12 football team

See also Pac-12 in this section.

apostrophes
In staff titles, don’t use apostrophes:

• Bears football coach Justin Wilcox said...

No additional ’s in plural names or singular names ending in s:

• Bears’ last win versus USC or Gladys’ first at-bat

backboard
This along with backcourt, backfield, backhand, backstroke, and so forth are all one word.

ballclub
This along will ballgame, ballpark, ballplayer are all one word.

Bears
Short name of Cal’s athletic teams is fine for headlines and secondary text references.

Use Golden Bears on first reference.

California Golden Bears is used more in the sports world.

Berkeley
Do not refer to the campus as Berkeley or Cal Berkeley. Use Cal or UC Berkeley. California may also be used (not as common as the first two).

See University References for non-Athletics communications.

Cal Athletic Hall of Fame
Not Athletics with an s

Cal Family
Refers to the entire community of fans and donors in a warm, all-encompassing way. Both words are capitalized for Athletics collateral.

Director of Athletics
Not Athletics Director; But note name of the fund, Athletic Director’s Excellence Fund.

Go Bears!
No comma

NCAA
This stands for the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Abbreviate it on first reference; no need to spell out.

Other examples of usage:

• NCAA Division I, NCAA Tournament

No. 1
Don’t spell out or use symbols:

• The Cal rugby team defeated the No. 1 Saint Mary’s Gaels to end the regular season on a winning note.

Oxford or serial comma
Per Associated Press style, do not use the final comma in a list of things unless the meaning of the sentence is compromised. Note that this guide is using it!

• Your generosity supports athletic training, academic accomplishments and personal development.

Pac-12 Conference or Pac-12
UC Berkeley is a member of this collegiate athletic conference that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. It may also be spelled out as Pacific-12 Conference, but that is not very common. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (abbreviated as FBS; formerly Division I-A).

See also NCAA in this section.

Pan American Games, Pan Am Games
This competition is held among athletes from nations of the Americas every four years before the Summer Olympic Games.

team names
Don’t capitalize team names:

• Cal women’s water polo, not Cal Women’s Water Polo Team

titles
Don’t capitalize coaching titles.

See also Titles, General Style Preferences

Follow AP style, and use quotation marks around names of books, television shows, movies, and the like (except the Bible, which would be capitalized, no quotation marks).

Top versus top
Use uppercase when ranking comes from a titled list:

• USA Today Top 25

Use lowercase when using generically:

• top-10 running back

Hyphenate when it modifies object after reference: a top-five finish but finished among the top five

track & field
Use the ampersand.

years
List as:

• 1995-98, 1999-2002, and 2002-04 not 1995-1998 or 2002-2004