I remember the summer just before I came to UCSD, when a couple of people told me that this is a boring school. I was told that there is little to do except join other people and study each night.

Now, in my second year here, I still hear students around me expressing their disappointment in the lack of flavor and excitement at UCSD.

How can people here can find nothing to do or stay at home and study on a Friday night when there are big events right here on campus? People unaware of the things they can do at UCSD must be blinded by the posters promoting Triton athletics and sporting events around campus.

Why don’t students at UCSD try to get excited on the weekend and attend a sporting event? If you went to RIMAC to watch one of our soccer teams play, you would be sitting down and cheering for one of the best Division II women’s soccer teams in the nation. Or you might be pushing on the men’s soccer team, which seems like it’s always involved in a tight game. Or you could go to Canyonview Pool and help the formidable UCSD men’s water polo team bounce back from a sub-par start this season and make its way back up the California Collegiate Athletic Association standings.

So many people here are bitter that they’re not at UC Berkeley or UCLA. Even I get bitter when I watch a basketball or volleyball game on TV and see the sea of students turning the bleachers into a party. But we should be able to generate the type of crowds that schools like UCLA produce. We have the people to fill the stands, and there is a handful of reasons to go out to a UCSD sporting event — one being that the teams here are good.

As sports editor, I’m going to attempt the impossible and help the blinded UCSD community know that the women’s soccer team is attempting to three-peat as national champions, and that Triton squads like last year’s men’s baseball team, which finished just one game short of advancing to the playoffs after being picked to finish in last place, continue to show up critics and shatter expectations.

I’m almost ashamed of the UCSD students who don’t know about the past success of our Triton teams, but I’m not completely surprised, because I know that only a few people go to games. I’m used to reporting on a soccer game and sitting in the stands with parents of athletes and the only other student there is a Guardian photographer.

So here’s a quick overview for those of you who don’t know much about UCSD sports. The Tritons dominate Division II sports, as evidenced by our third-place finish in the 2002 Sears Directors’ Cup, the award given to the top Division II athletics program. Also, UCSD has won 29 national titles since 1970, and women’s soccer head coach Brian McManus and his Tritons have been national champions six times in the last eight years.

The word about UCSD sports is starting to get out, but I’m going to challenge a few of the six people reading this column. Instead of studying this Saturday night, go to RIMAC Arena and watch the women’s volleyball team play. Be a part of an energy-filled arena that will give the Tritons a serious advantage over its opponent, hated rival UC Davis, on Saturday (Oh yeah — for those of you who may have not known, the Aggies of Cow Country are our rivals.).

Until you do just a couple of the things that UCSD has to offer, it’s going to be boring. Until you get out of your room, you are going to dislike going to school here. And to the few still-bitter Tritons who didn’t enjoy the atmosphere of the sporting event and regret not staying in your room and studying O-Chem, good luck with your transfer application to UCLA.