UCSD Athletics’ largely uneventful year was complemented by the fact that no attempt had been made on a move to Division I standing. Both in 2011 and 2012, the Division-I Triton rah-rahs have been given false hope that mobility was imminent. In 2011, the Big West chose the University of Hawaii over UCSD to join the conference, which hosts nearly every other D-I University of California athletics program. Student voters rejected a $495 fee increase in Winter 2012 that would have funded a move to D-I with a future invitation from the Big West.

The student interest group’s “D-I Not Now’” campaign against the measure was simple in that it focused primarily on preventing fee increases on students. This student body was only a year older than the current one, which voted against a measly $11 per quarter hike to help fix up Price Center and the Old Student Center with a clause that would likely reopen the Crafts Center. If students are not willing to keep up something they do use, then why pay for a hypothetical?

Even as someone who, after the D-I vote last year, exhibited all of the symptoms remedied by prescription-drug Cymbalta, I recognize that a move to D-I cannot be achieved by milking students for extra green … right now.

I’ve gone blue (and gold) in the face from explaining the benefits of a D-I program a countless number of times. Even within opposition groups to last year’s vote, the consensus seemed to be that a move was beneficial but not at the proposed cost. Even the name, “D-I Not Now” implied no inherent bias against the program, greater prestige or hyped-up school spirit. (Oops — I meant to say a move to D-I.)

The money’s got to come from elsewhere. I guarantee all athletic gift organizers this right now: Give me a position as assistant vice chancellor of campus student media relations with a $19 million one-time salary, and I will donate all but $500 to the D-I Fund. (I have my eyes on a new PS4.)

Short of paying out of the university’s hole-filled pockets, the new vice chancellor student affairs, the new A.S. Council and incumbent administrators in applicable positions need to turn the tide and make fundraising for Division I athletics a priority and a reality.

The map on page one of today’s issue of the Guardian shows where the Metropolitan Transit System and San Diego Association of Governments will lay tracks for the Blue Line Light Rail through Sixth College. Our academics are constantly developing, and it’s every week or so that our professors and graduate students win awards or are named to national boards. Another medical center building is sprouting up overlooking Genesee. The future is around the corner for UCSD, and it’s our job to get the ball rolling on making a strong competitive D-I program part of that vision.

But I’d also be okay if someone got me a PS4.