Column: Is UC San Diego move to Division I smart? On that campus, most things are

This university smitten with Division I athletics, UC San Diego, is about as far from Jock U as a place can get.

The woman carrying a hand-crafted, PVC pipe trident at a student tailgate on Friday is a biology major with minors in organic chemistry and literature. There’s a three-pronged weapon in her hand — and in her head.

When you walk into RIMAC Arena for the Tritons’ Spirit Night celebration, the person singing the National Anthem is a PhD candidate. And how many places, exactly, can claim the biggest banner hanging in the gym … brags about its Nobel laureates?

Now, this brainy bunch has kicked open the door to bigger athletic skies in the Big West Conference. This group wants to meet you in the alley, as well as the library.

“We’re known for research and science,” said junior tailgater Caitlin Ng. “Now we can be a school that can do it all, you know?”

The campus turned Spirit Night into a living, breathing brochure for the long, winding road to Division I competition.

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Fans cheer the UCSD women’s basketball team.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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UCSD basketball player Dalayna Sampton before the game.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Fans cheer the UCSD women’s basketball team.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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A fan (who refused to be unidentified) cheers during a half time musical chairs event.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Fans cheer.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Fans cheer during opposing team free throw.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Members of the UCSD dance team perform.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Members of the UCSD band perform.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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A banner for UCSD Nobel Laureates hangs in the gym.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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UCSD students Kendra Corey (left) and Kathryn Kaloroumakis ride down a giant slide during the Spirit Night Tailgate.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Students enjoy themselves during the Spirit Night Tailgate.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

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UCSD student Caitlin Ng gets her face painted during the Spirit Night Tailgate on Friday before the basketball games.  (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

A Big West membership bid unraveled in 2010 when students voted against supporting the higher cost of higher competition. Last April, the conference turned the Tritons away.

Slowly, the students climbed on board. So did a majority of the faculty. So, ultimately, did the Big West. Earl Edwards, the Tritons’ director of athletics, had to swallow a couple of heartbreaking no’s to land a chest-pumping yes.

Not everyone, though, is buying what Edwards and those athletically inclined are selling. There are those pesky student fees required to fund what’s estimated to be a $5.8 million scholarship bill by the time the Tritons go Division I across the board in 2020.

Just as importantly, there’s the university’s treasured reputation as an academic all-star. It’s one thing to say you’ll do it the right way and stay true to the path, but when D-I pressures build, so do temptations to take shortcuts.

So not everyone has wrapped the Division I switch in a warm hug.

Not yet.

“I think if you focus just on the athletic piece, I could see people maybe not jumping up and down about it,” Edwards said. “But when you think what it’ll do at a local, regional and national perspective, then it’s a whole different story.

“I would say any time you have a major cultural shift, you’re going to have some people who don’t buy into it because they’re not accustomed to change and they don’t really know what it’s going to look like.”

More are all in than not, however. And Edwards promised that Triton athletics will be a trustworthy academic caretaker.

“That’s who we are,” he said. “That’s our DNA.”

Patricia Chin, the trident-toting, course-loading glutton at Friday’s tailgater, said the reaction among her friends is mixed. Chin, though, sees the long play.

“If it’s Division I, there might be more name recognition for UCSD — and that can only help,” she said.

You find yourself admiring the move and Edwards’ commitment to a grander athletic horizon. It’s about taking a risk. It’s about wanting more. It’s about shoving safe and secure into the rearview mirror. It’s a slow process, but then again, most things worth their salt require real time and sweat.

UC San Diego already swells with a bigger undergraduate population than Auburn and Oklahoma. They’re Power 5-sized without a Power 5 prom date, until now.

In living rooms all along the recruiting highway, men’s basketball coach Eric Olen already has been handed a freshly sharpened tool.

“(Edwards is) helping us eliminate reasons to say no,” Olen said before his team faced Cal Poly Pomona. “I think very few kids grow up saying, ‘I want to play Division-II basketball.’ ”

Olen has polished his sales pitch, telling recruits that high school juniors could play four seasons of Division I.

You start to mention the fact that the chance to play in the NCAA postseason, which UC San Diego can do after a reclassification period ends in 2024, looms as well.

“Oh, we know,” Olen said. “If you’re a high school sophomore and you redshirt your first season (at UCSD), you’ve got a shot to be on the first team that plays in the NCAA postseason. You can be the first to do something. That’s pretty appealing.”

Dreams of being the next Princeton, making March even madder, grabs an ear or two. Before, you sold the sun and the science. Now, you can sell the competitive sizzle, too.

Chin, a rookie tailgater, said this whole big-sports stuff remains foreign.

“Right now, I’m learning about the kinetics of reactions and molecules,” she said.

So, you ask: What do the kinetics of reactions and molecules have to do with Division I athletics.

“Same school,” Chin said.

Smart kid.

bryce.miller@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @Bryce_A_Miller