By Clarissa Cruz

This slug is no slouch. He quotes Nietzsche and majors in molecular biology. Brad Mangin

New York City is a lot of things, but in late winter picturesque isn't one of them. Garbage-stained slush on every street corner, perpetually gray skies and an irritated, chapped-lipped populace with faded Mystic Tans is more like it. So imagine my delight when SIOC beckoned with this assignment: Tour a bunch of sunny California schools to unearth a college sports culture unlike any other. Hundreds of miles, three moving violations and one pair of ruined Kenneth Cole kitten heels later, I was thoroughly educated on the finer points of ultimate Frisbee, met a philosophical mollusk and developed a deeper appreciation of these badass athletes.

Mile/0

Attracting brainy hippie types, UC Santa Cruz isn't exactly known for being an athletic powerhouse. The Division III school, located 90 miles south of San Francisco, doesn't even have a football team. So it's fitting that as we have lunch at Joe's Restaurant on campus, perhaps the best-named mascot in the country, Sammy the Banana Slug, is quoting Nietzsche to me. "If there is a must, then there is a can," says 21-year-old junior Farhad Ghafarzade, who dons the bright yellow, slightly phallic costume. He's talking about how he manages to perform at games, major in molecular biology and train for a triathlon on the side. And did I mention that he also converts used vegetable oil into environmentally friendly gas for his car? Not the typical profile for someone whom I will see a couple of hours later grinding his athletic director during a Jay-Z song at a women's basketball game -- but I'm enjoying the contradiction.

Mile/74

My next stop is San Francisco. Enraptured by the multicolored sunset while driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, I don't notice the squad car trailing me until high beams flash in my rearview mirror. I pull over.

"Have you been drinking, ma'am?" the gruff officer asks, shining his flashlight into my (thankfully undilated) pupils.

"No, not at all," I say, shooting him a charming grin.

"You were going 75 in a 50-mph zone. That's $150," he says. "You crossed a double yellow line -- another $150. And you failed to stop when I tried to pull you over -- another $150."

"I'm sorry," I say, trying another tactic. "I'm from Manhattan, and I'm not used to driving."

"I see," the officer says. "So you're not drunk, you're just from Manhattan."

"Yes," I say, hanging my head.

"O.K.," he snaps. "I'm not going to give you a ticket, but these roads are very twisty, so drive more slowly from now on." The Manhattan defense works every time.

Mile/118

Santa Clara, 44 miles south of San Francisco, is known for its bucolic campus, its affluent, politically aware student body ... and having the most fashionably quirky (see: Steve Nash) giant-killing (see: Santa Clara 77, North Carolina 66 on Nov. 19) basketball team this side of Beverly Hills. I meet the Broncos' two leading scorers, junior Travis Niesen and senior Doron Perkins, to discuss their fashion philosophies. "Reckless abandonment," says beachy blond Jeff Spicoli look-alike Niesen (nickname: Pretty Boy) when asked to describe his personal style.

Perkins, on the other hand, is a bit more high-maintenance. "I've always got to match," he laughs, flashing a Taye Diggs-esque grin and admitting to owning 40 hats and 30 pairs of shoes. "Some earrings, a jersey, and I always wear a hat or a headband."

Each guy's fashion sense mirrors his on-court persona. "[Perkins's style] goes along with his style of play," Niesen says. "He's going to be color-coordinated with his white headband and armband, and whatever he does on the court, he looks really good doing it. I may not look good doing everything I do, but I don't care what other people think. We both get the job done on the basketball court, but we go about our business in different ways." Ah, Lagerfeld and Galliano couldn't have said it better.

Mile/407

Next stop: UC Santa Barbara, home of the winningest ultimate Frisbee team in the country, the Black Tide. Since 1984 the Tide has won six national titles and finished in the top four 14 times. (The women's squad, the Burning Skirts, isn't nearly as accomplished, but it deserve props just for calling itself that.) On a drizzly Thursday night the men's team is holding a scrimmage, complete with flashy tosses and acrobatic receptions. "It's not something that natural talent plays as much a part in as drive," says junior co-captain and mechanical engineering major Scott Perry, who sports a huge mop of springy blond hair. "The guys that join are relatively good athletes who just didn't want to pursue their sport in college."

That's not what I expected for a sport Harold and Kumar might participate in. "We're a pretty intense team -- we practice 12 to 15 hours a week," says Perry. "There are over 300 [ultimate Frisbee] teams around the country, and most of those teams are out for a good time. We pride ourselves on being a quality team, so we're very competitive."

Mile/512

No trip to California campuses would be complete (at least for Aaron Spelling acolytes like me) without a visit to Occidental College in Los Angeles, where 90210: The College Years was taped. The ground trod by Brandon, Kelly, Donna, Steve and Andrea is even more lush in person, and it turns out that the creators of California University aren't the only ones who found Oxy photogenic: Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Katharine Hepburn to the Wayans brothers has filmed here. "It's close to the studios, it doesn't have palm trees, and it's got a classic academic quad," says Occidental spokesperson Jim Tranquada of the college's Hollywood appeal. "It can stand in for almost any school."

Interesting, but another factoid has caught my attention: Ben Affleck spent one year here in the early '90s after transferring from Vermont. I hike up to Stearns Hall, the Spanish-style dorm he lived in, and wonder what Jennifers Lopez and Garner would think of the modest accommodations. My musings aren't as far-fetched as I thought. "He still comes by occasionally," Tranquada says. "Earlier this year he was just wandering around campus, hanging out at the student union."

Mile/627

My journey ends at UC San Diego, home to one of the top club surfing teams in the country. I get up at an ungodly hour to meet senior captain Danny Caldwell and the rest of the team at Black's Beach, where they are practicing for a competition the following week.

"Uh, are your shoes going to be O.K.?" Caldwell asks, looking down at my silver, pointy-toed Kenneth Cole kitten heels. "There was a mudslide from the rain, so we have to hike down to the beach instead of driving."

"Of course they'll be O.K.," I say brightly. I am an intrepid journalist! I will do anything for a story! I can handle a little sand! But as I catch a glimpse of the steep, rocky, mud-filled path, I become frightened. No worries, I tell myself, surferlike, as I slowly make my way down to the beach. The rest of the flip-flop- and sneakers-wearing group is way ahead of me. What if I slip and die? With nothing but my silver shoes and Seven jeans to ID my body?

After what seems like hours, I join the surfers, who are already peeling off their clothes and getting into their wet suits. My ordeal is instantly forgotten. Omigod ... hot! Forget Pilates and Atkins -- surfing seems the surefire way to get a rock-hard bod. O.K., focus. The story. I'm here for the story. "Compared to other teams, we don't have that much of a structure," says Caldwell, a structural engineering major who wants to be -- sigh -- a firefighter after graduation. "We don't all get together and practice that often, but everybody's surfing all the time. We're just really laid-back and kind of just stoked to be surfing and competing."

Also stoked is the lone female member practicing today, freshman Ashley Pardoen. So, Ashley, what's it like being one of the few women in this male-dominated sport? "I can't complain," she smiles, giving her well-toned teammates a once-over. I hear you, sister.

Issue date: April 14, 2005