The Azusa Pacific Blog » Football

The Cougar Countdown: Day 22

athletics — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 06:10:09 +0000

DAY 22 (Aug. 22): More Than A Game

Eddie Garcia met the Azusa Pacific football team in 2006, when the Cougars hosted a day of Special Olympics as part of the football program’s outreach into the community. That event marked the beginning of Garcia’s friendship with the Cougar football program, and over the course of that friendship Eddie has had a steady presence with the team, attending practices and games while keeping Azusa Pacific’s coaching staff updated on his Special Olympics performances and academic achievements.

Garcia is a gold medalist Special Olympics athlete, although he is most proud of his 27-0 record in surgeries he has had to undergo to treat the disease he was born with. In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Garcia has his bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona along with a master’s degree from UCLA. In addition, he was recently accepted into a doctorate program in psychiatric care at UCLA.

The Cougar Countdown: Day 15

athletics — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 02:44:18 +0000

DAY 15 (Aug. 15): Cougar Football Fears No Foe

Azusa Pacific’s 2012 football season not only brings the challenge of taking on a full 10-game NCAA Division II conference schedule, it also puts an NCAA Division I scholarship program on the Cougar slate for just the fourth time in program history.

The season opener is a Thursday night contest Aug. 30 at UC Davis, which competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of Division I. Like Azusa Pacific, which is entering its first year in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, UC Davis is also entering its first year in a new conference. The Aggies, who were 4-7 overall last year, start their inaugural season in the Big Sky Conference.

The Cougar Countdown: Day 13

athletics — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:57:34 +0000

DAY 13 (Aug. 13): A Glance Behind The Scenes

It all begins in early August. The new athletics season starts again, and with it comes a tidal wave of new and returning student-athletes and an exhaustive amount of work to welcome them. They show up, ready to go through the process of re-acclimating to life as a student-athlete. The amount of man-hours it takes to help the athletes transition back to campus is almost immeasurable, although for the most part invisible.

April Reed heads the athletic training department. When the 200+ fall athletes return to campus, her office is one of the first stops, as each student-athlete must be cleared by the athletic training department before they can even participate in practice. She, along with the rest of the athletic training staff, have to take in roughly 130 players per day, running various tests ranging from sickle-cell, to ortho/joint testing.

The Cougar Countdown: Day 8

athletics — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:42:46 +0000

DAY 8 (Aug. 8): Football Introduces New Look

What do you do when your helmet is dubbed “the coolest helmet in NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) College Football” by an independent blog?

If you’re Azusa Pacific, you introduce a brand-new alternate lid for road games, unveiling them for the first time on a Thursday night in August for a season-opening visit to NCAA Div. I UC Davis.

Azusa Pacific's new "stealth black" helmet (left) will be worn on the road, while the traditional brick red helmet seen on the right will continue to be worn at home.

Week In The Life Of A Freshman

Kelsey Bjugstad — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:46:51 +0000

So this blog is a few days late, but the bonus of it being late is that you get it with pictures and an example of a normal week in my life. My week has been pretty random, so here are my awesome APU highlights! :)

Sunday: We went to a beach bonfire with our brother hall. We celebrated their RA’s (see note below) birthday with hotdogs and cake. It was fun, but I was definitely tired. Note to self: Get more sleep before going somewhere. Actually, getting more sleep in general would be a pretty good idea.

The mix of wind and fire made it hard to heat our hotdogs!

Greetings from a Freshman perspective!!!

JP Park — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:37:24 +0000

Me (J.P) at Yosemite!

Hey everyone!!! First off, my name’s J.P and I’m a freshman here at Azusa Pacific University! I’m from Virginia, so deciding to travel all the way to California was a HUGE decision, but I can say it has been the best decision I have made in my entire life.

For those of you who don’t know, there is a program at APU called the “High Sierra” program. For a semester, you get to live on the mountains at Bass Lake, CA with other students who can be in any grade level. You have the chance to rock climb, wake board, trek, hike, and even conquer Yosemite!!

Or E N tay shun…

Kelsey Bjugstad — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:12:30 +0000

You can thank my fellow 3rd North sisters for the title of this blog. Can’t you tell we are freshman? We apparently haven’t learned the art of spelling. There are currently 5 of us watching Pride and Prejudice with girls popping in and talking. Actually, we are barely watching the movie and mostly talking. I love it.

Orientation was pretty crazy. It was a bit stressful, really interesting, but mostly overwhelming for me. Which isn’t true for everyone, some kids had no problem with it all. Overwhelming isn’t also a bad thing though, Orientation is guaranteed slight chaos anywhere you go I think. But this chaos was actually quite organized; APU has an impressive schedule that they stuck to. There was so much to do! There always was a friendly face to help us out though. The events were really cool including a football game!