INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS REMAINS A CRITICAL ELEMENT OF THE HISTORICAL SUCCESS IN CALIFORNIA. COUPLED WITH ITS PREEMINENT PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, THE CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM AND ATHLETIC PROGRAMS HAVE LONG BEEN RECOGNIZED AS LEADERS IN CREATING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEIR CITIZENS THROUGH ATHLETIC PROGRAMS EXPRESSLY DESIGNED BY AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGES.

Community college intercollegiate athletics provide millions of people — athletes, students, alumni and the general public — with great pleasure, the spectacle of extraordinary effort and physical grace, the excitement of an outcome in doubt, and a shared unifying experience. Thousands and thousands of men and women in the country are stronger adults because of the challenges they mastered as young student athletes at community colleges.

Sports are educational in the best sense of that word because they teach the participant and the observer new truths about testing oneself and others, about the enduring values of challenge and response, about teamwork, about discipline and perseverance. Above all, intercollegiate contests — at any level of skill — drive home a fundamental lesson: goals worth achieving will be attained only through effort, hard work and sacrifice, and sometimes even those will not be enough to overcome the obstacles life places in our path.

         - California Community College Athletic Association