by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold.[121] Yale Blue was chosen because many of the university's founders were Yale University graduates (for example Henry Dur

 arts groups in comedy, dance, acting and instrumental music. A few examples include Jericho! Improv & Sketch Comedy, The Movement, Taiko drumming, BareStage student musical theater, the Remedy Music Project, and Main Stacks Competitive Hip Hop Dance Team.
Since 1967, students and staff jazz musicians have had an opportunity to perform and study with the University of California Jazz Ensembles. Under the direction of Dr. David W. Tucker, who was hired by the Cal Band as a composer, arranger, and associate director, but was later asked to direct the jazz ensembles as it grew in popularity and membership, the group grew rapidly from one big band to multiple big bands, numerous combos, and numerous instrumental classes with multiple instructors. For several decades it hosted the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival, part of the American Collegiate Jazz Festival, a competitive forum for student musicians. PCCJF brought jazz luminaries such as Hubert Laws, Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, and Ed Shaughnessy to the Berkeley campus as performers, clinicians, and adjudicators. The festival later included high school musicians. The jazz ensembles became an effective recruitment tool. Many high school musicians interested in strong academics as well as jazz found that the campus met both interests. Numerous alumni have had successful careers in jazz performance and education including Michael Wolff and Andy Narell.
UC Berkeley also hosts a large number of conferences, talks, and musical and theatrical performances. Many of these events, including the Annual UC Berkeley Sociological Research Symposium, are completely planned and organized by undergraduate students. The Berkeley Forum is one such student group that organizes panels, debates, and talks by leading experts from a wide variety of fields.[120]
Athletics[edit]
Main article: California Golden Bears
UC Berkeley's sports teams compete in intercollegiate athletics as the California Golden Bears. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A as a member of the Pacific-12 Conference. The official school colors, established in 1873 by a committee of students, are Yale Blue and California Gold.[121] Yale Blue was chosen because many of the university's founders were Yale University graduates (for example Henry Durant, the first university president), while California Gold was selected to represent the Golden State of California. The California Golden Bears have a long history of excellence in athletics, having won national titles in football, men's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's crew, men's gymnastics, men's tennis, men's and women's swimming, men's water polo, men's Judo, men's track, and men's rugby. In addition, Cal athletes have won numerous individual NCAA titles in track, gymnastics, swimming and tennis. On January 31, 2009, the school's Hurling club made athletic history by defeating Stanford in the first collegiate hurling match ever played on American soil.
California finished in first place[122] in the 2007–2008 Fall U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings (Now the NACDA Directors' Cup), a competition measuring the best overall collegiate athletic programs in the country, with points awarded for national finishes in NCAA sports. Cal finished the 2007-2008 competition in seventh place with 1119 points.[123] Most recently, California finished in third place in the 2010–11 NACDA Directors' Cup with 1219.50 points, finishing behind Stanford and Ohio State. This is California's highest ever finish in the Director's Cup.[124]
Cal's seismically unsafe Memorial Stadium reopened September, 2012 after a $321 million renovation. The university incurred a controversial $445 million of debt for the stadium and a new $153 million student athletic center, which it planned to finance with the sale of special stadium endowment seats. However, in June 2013 news surfaced that the university has had trouble selling the seats.[125] The roughly $18 million interest-only annual payments on the debt consumes 20 percent of Cal's athletics' budget; principal repayme