How Giving Inspired Student-Athletes During COVID

June 11, 2021

My name is Cole Barden and I am the current President of the Men’s Lacrosse Team at UC San Diego. I am graduating this Sunday with a double major in Philosophy and International Business and a minor in Law and Society. I wanted to take this opportunity and cause for celebration to express my gratitude.

In a manner unmatched by any other association or club on campus, the Men’s Lacrosse Team has positively influenced all aspects of my collegiate life and helped me better myself as a person and teammate. Simply being around a group of highly driven, intelligent, and hardworking peers helped me stay motivated in my studies, forced me to have excellent time management skills, and provided me with many excellent examples to emulate in my own life. The brotherhood present on the team has led to some of my closest friendships and a wealth of experiences I will never forget...both the good and the bad. I know my brothers from the team have my back, share my goals for the lacrosse team, and will work hard to achieve them. In short, I would not trade my 4 years of UCSD Men’s Lacrosse for the world, and I know many of you know what I mean personally or through a loved one. 

The team that I have helped lead has worked this entire year knowing that we probably wouldn’t get a chance at a season, and yet we continued to sweat and bleed through a full season of practices because even though many of us were graduating, we had to uphold what the people before us had built. Everyone preceding me helped build a winning culture, a team that stood together, and traditions that helped us stay close – and taking a year off would be devastating to that. Everyone, especially the seniors, sacrificed a great amount of our limited time and effort to make sure that this program would not emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, a broken program, unable to field a team our alumni are proud of.

The recent outpouring of support from alumni, parents, and the lacrosse community has meant the world to me and showed me that all the hard work of this season has not gone wasted or unnoticed. Thank you again for your generosity. I am so proud to have been a part of creating the Men's Lacrosse Excellence Endowment alongside Coach Al and my teammates.

Sincerely,

Cole Barden ’21
President, Men’s Lacrosse Team