Chianti Dan: UCLA's Marie Antoinette, leaving for Italy on July 6

Although Dan Guerrero has never come out publicly and declared "let them drink chianti" yet, he might as well have extended his one finger salute to UCLA Bruins fans, alumni, students and faculty everywhere, when it was announced that the self proclaimed "Warrior" was the guest of honor for Alumni Travel's Chianti and Italian Riviera trip.

Join UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero '74 and discover Tuscany's epic history, then continue to the glorious Italian Riviera.

Any last minute takers? During a time when student tuition fees have been rising and the chancellor is whiningcampaigning against the State of California's budget cuts against public education, what does Warrior Guerrero choose to do? He chooses to go on a $2,995 booze cruise as a guest of honor. How is that for setting an example of a UCLA bureaucrat? While the UCLA administration and other governing bodies such as the Interfraternity Council (IFC) have done away with or (at least tried to curb) longstanding traditions that involve alcohol, such as the Fall Quarter Zero Week Greek Row festivities (this was before my time), tailgating at the Rose Bowl or the nationally renowned Undie Run, the Athletic Director, has chosen to headline a booze cruise to Italy. Does anybody else find this ironic?

As of today at 6pm, a reservation form was still available online, so UCLA Alumni Travel must have learned the hard way that the unpopular, out of touch Warrior Marie Antoinette is not that big of a draw. Sorry Alumni Travel, maybe next year a few quick Google searches will reveal how popular Dan Guerrero is within the UCLA community.

More after the jump.

Despite what most of us Bruins would call an underwhelming and underachieving year, there were a few bright spots such as winning one NCAA championship in women's volleyball during the 2011-2012 academic school year and UCLA baseball making it to Omaha.

However, let's not forget about the performance of our two major revenue sports teams. UCLA football became the NCAA's first football team to go 6-8 in a season that included a nationally televised brawl against Arizona and a 50-0 shellacking at the hands of our most hated rivals. Let's not forget whose genius idea it was to wear the "Surrender Whites" alternate jerseys.

Our basketball team did not fare much better, in a very peculiar and distracting season during which we played our home games adjacent to Southern Cal's campus (any idea whose genius idea that was?), one of our best on-court players, Reeves Nelson, was dismissed from the team for violating team rules and we missed the NCAA tournament. By the way, I heard Sports Illustrated had some nice things to say about UCLA basketball as well. How did Warrior and Chancellor Block respond? They hired a crisis management firm.

In most of our eyes, this year was a very forgettable one for UCLA Athletics. Unfortunately, Dan's boss, Gene Block who may be is as clueless and incompetent as Dan is, and believes that this was a year in which we "enhanced" our "outstanding record."

Dan Guerrero's cruise is ongoing from July 6-July 15. Please continue to let our clueless chancellor know that we cannot take his donation pleas seriously until he decides to give us an Athletic Director who will take UCLA Athletics seriously. Until then, we can only hope that the UC regents do a little bit more research before hiring another tonedeaf bureaucrat. chancellor@ucla.edu