From the article:
The 18-person task force formed to come up with a solution to combine the school’s academic name (UC Berkeley) with its athletics name (Cal) produced an 18-page report that concludes this:
Recommendation #3
Shift the athletics identity to Cal Berkeley in both name and logo. Develop a visual identity that clearly communicates this shift.
In essence, the “Cal” and “UC Berkeley” names were merged for sports in this recommendation.
Outsiders looking in find it crazy that Texas has 6 different university systems, but as you point out it works pretty well now.
But it didn’t always. For example, from UT Arlington’s Wikipedia article:
Efforts began to turn ASC into a four-year institution, but the Texas A&M system board refused to consider the idea since it was possible that ASC could grow to be larger than College Station.
…
Enrollment reached 9,116 students in the fall of 1963, a larger total than the Texas A&M College Station campus. Although Texas A&M proposed a reorganization for the system to recognize ASC’s growth, A&M System President James Earl Rudder resisted developing ASC into a university with graduate programs. Rudder and the Texas A&M board of directors, viewing ASC as a threat to the College Station campus, withheld construction funding and blocked degree development
…
Joining the UT System was of immediate consequence. In 1966 the Graduate School was established with an initial slate of six master’s degrees and new construction projects started.
Yeah, there are stupid, inefficient turf battles like A&M holding down UTA, or A&M acting like Tech shouldn’t have a vet school(!!!), or UH and UT fighting over that property in Houston, but it also means that the systems can grow. UTD and UTA mean there’s nobody thinking about a university in south Dallas? UNT can help with that. Tarleton State doesn’t need a ton of PhD programs, but they seem to have demand and expertise for one in criminal justice, so they have one. Same with SFA and forestry.
SFA
I heard they were flat broke and were leaning towards joining the A&M system so I just looked it up – I totally missed the news they joined the UT system this year. Glad they got to keep their name.
I think there was a law passed that you can’t change the name of universities named after “Texas heroes.” Lord knows we wouldn’t want to lose such luminous legacies as Sul Ross and Mirabeau Lamar.
