LA JOLLA, Calif. – The UC San Diego athletic department will provide the men and women within the Triton basketball programs with a transformative educational and cultural experience this summer when the two teams travel to Italy for a tour of one of the world's oldest western civilizations.
 
The department kicked off a fundraising campaign today that will generate funding needed to provide each program's coaches and scholar-athletes with a trip of a lifetime.  The 10-day trip will feature opportunities to learn more about the people and history of Italy, as well as provide each program with preseason training sessions, exhibition games against international competition and valuable team bonding experiences.
 
While in Italy, the basketball scholar-athletes will visit historical and cultural sights ranging from the Colosseum in Rome, the Sistine Chapel and Vatican, the duomo in Florence, and the famed grand canal in Venice. The Tritons will also have a guided bike tour in Bologna, see the famed city of Siena in Tuscany, and take a cooking class on a farm in Verona. The UC San Diego teams will also practice along the way and are slated to square off against local club teams in Rome, Florence, and Venice.
 
Gifts of any amount will help sponsor a Triton on their cultural tour of Italy. For more information – or to make a gift, visit the UC San Diego crowdfunding page at https://crowdsurf.ucsd.edu/campaigns/triton-mens-and-womens-basketball-foreign-tour/. Gifts will be accepted through May 15.
 
The Tritons' foreign tour is scheduled for August 15-25.
 

 
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in NCAA Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.