We look back at some of the top student-athletes and defining moments in Anteater sports history
For more than 60 years, UC Irvine has built a tradition of athletic excellence, shaped by student-athletes whose accomplishments extended far beyond the court, track, field or pool.
In honor of the university’s 60th anniversary, we look back at some of the athletes who have defined the Anteater spirit over the decades – from pioneering figures to Olympic medalists – and the legacy they have built along the way.
Bob Ernst was a pioneer – first as an athlete and later as a coach.
He played on UC Irvine’s inaugural water polo team with Pat Glasgow, later joining the rowing team he would eventually go on to coach.
From 1970 to 1974, Ernst coached the varsity rowing team. Afterward, he moved to the University of Washington before coaching the U.S. Women’s Rowing Team for the 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988 Olympics. He was head coach for three of those years, and the team won gold in 1984.
He and Glasgow also played significant roles in the campaign to select the Anteater mascot in 1965, giving generations of fans a reason to shout, “Zot! Zot! Zot!”
Listen to Bob Ernst, Pat Glasgow and their fellow student Schuyler Bassett discuss the making of UC Irvine’s anteater mascot.
Some people are lucky if they find themselves talented at one sport. Then there’s Pat Glasgow, who excelled in two: water polo and swimming.
Glasgow began swimming in high school after making a pact with his buddy. “If the pool is heated, we’ll approach the coach,” he recalls saying. Luckily, the pool was heated.
That coach was Ted Newland, who would later become the head coach of UC Irvine’s men’s water polo team. Along with Coach Al Irwin – UC Irvine’s first swimming and water polo coach – he became both a mentor and a role model for Glasgow.
During his college career, Glasgow earned one of UC Irvine’s first NCAA All-American honors – first in water polo in 1965, then in swimming in 1967.
“We put UC Irvine on the map,” he says. “I was also able to watch David Belknap win UC Irvine’s first NCAA gold medal for the 100-yard freestyle.”
When asked what the experience taught him, his answer was simple: “You have to work hard and put in the hours to be successful. It’s nothing new, but it still bears repeating.”
June 1974 was a summer of tension across California.
California native President Richard Nixon was two months away from resigning. The Patty Hearst kidnapping and the Los Angeles bus strikes dominated headlines. All in the Family was the most popular television show in the country.
But in Irvine, a young athlete named Jeff Malinoff focused elsewhere: on the baseball diamond.
UC Irvine’s baseball team won back-to-back NCAA Division II championships in 1973 and ’74, culminating in a 14-1 win against New Orleans in the latter season. Malinoff was named MVP for his leadership and prowess at first base, helping the team finish the season with a 32-game winning streak.
As the late 1980s gave way to the early 1990s, Southern California was in the midst of a cultural boom, from skateboarding and surfing to MTV and the prominence of brands like Irvine-based Ocean Pacific.
Meanwhile, on the UC Irvine campus, E. Joclyn “Buffy” Rabbitt was making history of her own.
Across all women’s sports, Rabbitt remains the most decorated female athlete in UC Irvine history. Her accomplishments include NCAA All-American honors in cross country (three years) and track (four), along with multiple Big West championships and UC Irvine and Big West Scholar-Athlete of the Year recognition.
Her impeccable legacy carries on at UC Irvine, inspiring new generations of athletes to go the distance.
Jayson Jablonsky had to work his way up to the net. When he began his volleyball career as a preteen, he played the back row his whole first year.
“That really helped me to learn how to play defensively,” he says. “I also loved it because I was so active. I felt involved in every play.”
That foundation stayed with him as he was named National Player of the Year in 2006. The following year, he helped lead UC Irvine to its first NCAA championship in men’s volleyball.
Still, it’s the moments shared with teammates that he remembers most, both playing on the court and grabbing late-night bites at the Commons.
Jablonsky notes that his sport taught him how to quickly move on from failures.
“Volleyball is a game of battles,” he says. “Each play is a battle. When you lose one, you can’t dwell on it. You have to move on to the next one. It’s the same in my career – if I have a setback, I focus on how to bounce back.”
In 2015, the same year Apple released the Apple Watch and “Uptown Funk” topped the charts, Alex Young helped lead UC Irvine’s men’s basketball team to its first NCAA Tournament appearance.
To this day, he still holds program records for wins and career assists and is the only player in program history to record 1,000 career points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds.
As an assistant coach, Young helped lead the men’s basketball team to a record-breaking season in 2018-19, earning UC Irvine its second Big West Conference Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance.
In the summer of 2024, Tara Prentice found herself in Paris, France – not for a vacation but to compete in the Summer Olympic Games, becoming UC Irvine’s first women’s water polo Olympian.
Her path to the Olympics was years in the making, beginning with a CIF Division 2 water polo championship and continuing through her standout career at UC Irvine.
Prentice is the most decorated women’s water polo player in program history – a four-time All-American, four-time first-team All-Big West selection, two-time NCAA Woman of the Year nominee and the 2022 Big West Player of the Year.
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