2025 Hall of Fame: Ralph Cicerone and Dan Guerrero

CORNERSTONES

While UC Irvine had many triumphs in its storied past, the passing of the 1999 Student Referendum which was championed by former UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph Cicerone and Athletic Director Dan Guerrero completely changed the trajectory of the department, setting it on an unprecedented path to success.

Cicerone and Guerrero were the cornerstones of what UC Irvine has been able to accomplish since 2000. UCI has won four national championships, had an individual national champion and produced 26 Olympians. Those credentials aren’t matched by many schools, including Power 5 conferences.

Cicerone and Guerrero not only laid the groundwork for success athletically, but among the community and student body.

In 1992, UCI was forced to cut the baseball and men’s cross country and track programs due to a budget crisis. Cross country and track and field were ultimately brought back as non-scholarship sports.

Later that year, Guerrero was hired after serving as the Athletic Director at Cal State Dominquez Hills from 1988-1992.

Guerrero’s path to college athletics was anything but conventional.

Guerrero was a heralded baseball player at UCLA and graduated with a degree in history in 1974. He would go on to play professional baseball before career in public service turned unexpectedly into a life of college athletics.

Guerrero serve as the executive director of the Harbor Community Development corporation while earning his master’s in public administration from Cal State Dominguez Hills. He offered to help fellow Bruin teammate and head baseball coach Andy Lopez with fundraising for the team and caught the eye of CSUDH Athletic Director Sue Carberry. Carberry saw potential in the young Guerrero and created a position in the department for him, but his salary would have to come from teaching classes in the School of Management, of which he was a recent graduate.

"I enjoyed being back on campus. Being around student-athletes and the baseball program motivated me to work in college athletics.”

 While Carberry gave him room to grow and learn the business, it came with a lot of long days balancing his two positions. A pay cut and leap of faith paid off when Carberry retired and Guerrero became the Athletic Director in 1988.

In 1990, Guerrero would apply for UCI’s open athletic director position, only to watch Tom Ford be hired. He had no idea the position would be open again in 1992 until one of those late nights working at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday he got a call from Horace Mitchell asking if he would apply again.

"My path into college athletics was very non-traditional. I didn’t transition from coaching into an administrative career, as was quite common in those days. I began my career in administration and eventually worked my way up. Had I not been in the office that Friday night, I might not have been the athletic director at UC Irvine. I personally always felt the need to outwork other people, to show a genuine commitment to the task at hand and to take pride in the collegiate athletic enterprise."

It didn’t take long – his introductory press conference - to field his first question about bringing baseball back. Guerrero was a second baseman at UCLA and later inducted into the UCLA Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

Baseball would have to wait as Guerrero was steadfast in his commitment to get the remaining sports fully funded before focusing on baseball.

Dennis Smith was the Interim Chancellor when Guerrero was hired, but when Smith left UCI to become the President of the University of Nebraska system, Laurel Wilkening, perhaps an unlikely ally at first glance, was hired. 

Wilkening was an avid swimmer and would use the pool then stop by Guerrero’s office for a visit.

“I was fortunate to work with Laurel. The relationship we ultimately developed fostered the confidence that we could launch that first referendum for the Anteater Recreation Center and succeed," Guerrero noted.

Cicerone became UCI’s Chancellor in 1998 after establishing himself as an expert in atmospheric chemistry, joining the UCI faculty in 1989. He would found the department of Earth System Science and go on to become the Dean of Physical Sciences.

Cicerone and Guerrero would meet right away to strategize, but found so many similar personal interests, including the love of sport, especially baseball. Cicerone, team captain of the baseball team at MIT, knew the power of an athletic department on a campus and its culture. He saw it firsthand at schools like Illinois and Michigan.

“I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to work with Laurel. But then Ralph became our Chancellor. With him, it was heaven on earth. We had so many common interests apart from baseball and formed a relationship that I've never enjoyed with any other Chancellor," Guererro remembered. “I frequently sought counsel from him and tapped into his wisdom, getting his opinion on many subjects, but most importantly as it related to running the department and being a good leader.”

Cicerone knew Athletics could not only bring publicity and funds to a university but provide activities and a social scene to the students on campus. A vibrant student body would help attract the brightest students to Irvine and alumni connections would flourish with a successful program.

It was time to compete - in athletic arenas and in classrooms.

The Chief Executive Roundtable, a group of local business executives, was created and provided a jumpstart in raising funds. Cicerone would join Roundtable members in a halftime free throw contest, raking in pledges for every shot he made. Cicerone wasn’t just a talented baseball player, he showed off his overall athletic skills, making a lot of free throws.

A student group was also formed – the CIA – Completely Insane Anteaters – boosting the atmosphere at home basketball games.

Even with fundraising helping level up the competition there was still divide. UCI athletics was in the bottom 6% of the country in scholarship funding.

To uplift the entire department another referendum was crafted which included significant funding as well as adding women’s golf, women’s water polo and women’s indoor track and re-establishing the baseball program. Part of the referendum also allowed enhancements to facilities. A pool to house the water polo programs that had to previously go off campus to play games, plus an upgraded soccer facility and renovations to the baseball stadium.

"Timing is always tricky when spearheading a referendum, but more so when a campus faces financial hardship. So, it was clear that without the blessing of the Chancellor, we had no shot."

While Cicerone and Guerrero were in lock step with the vision of athletics, the duo would have to take a backseat on the actual execution of the vote as this had to be student driven referendum.

Dubbed The Fab 5, women’s volleyball player Sarah Libecap, men’s basketball player Brian Scoggin, swimmer Chris Benetiz, men’s golfer Mike Lawrence and distance runner Kay Nekota, rallied the troops and implemented a strategic and effective gameplan.

The vote was an overwhelming success. The 32% turnout in voting was the second highest in university history with over 2,000 students voting for the highest dollar option.

Following the passing, Guerrero exclaimed the referendum as one of his greatest victories of his life.

For the previous seven years, a baseball from the 1974 championship team sat on his desk as a reminder that this was something he wanted to accomplish. That was the motivation, and the hard work paid off.

"It was a very proud moment personally because we accomplished something very few schools in the country could achieve. It was especially meaningful to me because when baseball had been dropped in 1992, the Head Coach was Mike Gerakos, my college teammate at UCLA, for whom I had great respect. Mike was admired in college baseball circles and ran a class program. I was happy for him that we could bring it back."

Guerrero knew Cicerone’s partnership was invaluable.

"The Chancellor had great respect on campus. As the athletic department developed alignment with other entities at UCI, there was a willingness to help our program. We created the buy-in, the buy-in to what we were attempting to achieve, how we were doing it and why we were doing it. The effort to build this program was highly galvanized.”

Results of fans and funding were immediately seen as the men’s basketball team went 25-5 overall and captured the regular season Big West title in 2000-01. The team went on to play in the post-season at the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).

The women’s sports that were added instantly elevated the department nationally. Women’s golf won a Big West title their first year in 2002 and would go on to win five more championships, while women’s water polo is one of UCI most successful programs, capturing nine Big West titles and making eight NCAA appearances.

Since baseball’s resurrection, the Anteaters are one of the most respected teams in the country. The team has earned 10 NCAA postseason berths, including two College World Series appearances and has climbed to No. 1 in the national rankings. The 2025 team enters the season ranked No. 24 in the country.  

In 2009, the baseball field was renamed Cicerone Field in front of a sold-out Anteater Ballpark crowd. The Anteaters would honor Cicerone with a comeback victory that night defeating UCLA, 5-4, in 10 innings driving home the winning run against future Major Leaguer Gerrit Cole.

Guerrero was honored as the 2001-02 Division I-AA/I-AAA West Region NACDA Athletic Director of the Year before leaving UCI to become the Athletic Director at UCLA, a position he held from 2002-2020. Cicerone would go on to be the President of the National Academy of Sciences from 2005-2016.

The legacy of the two men and their impact on UC Irvine Athletics is clear and undeniable. They will be inducted into the UC Irvine Athletics Hall of Fame Friday evening. Cicerone, who passed away in 2016, will be inducted posthumously with wife Carol accepting on his behalf.