Football
4/15/2025 2:13:00 PM
Story Links
DAVIS, Calif. – UC Davis athletics is proud to announce that, thanks to the generous contributions from The Arp Family Foundation, the UC Davis football defensive line coaching position has been renamed the Jane and Fred Arp Defensive Line Coach, honoring the late great UC Davis football defensive line coach.
Arp, a former Aggie himself and a member of the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame, was a member of the Davis coaching staff for 41 seasons. During that time the Aggies put together 37 consecutive winning seasons, 20 straight conference titles and 18 NCAA postseason appearances.
“I chose to endow a coaching position because when Fred started out as a coach he didn’t get paid during his first three years,” said Jane Arp. “He worked as a laborer during the summer so he could be a coach at UC Davis. I wanted to help young coaches starting out so they could continue their coaching careers.”
Near the end of his coaching career, Fred earned the 2000 National Football Foundation Contribution to Amateur Football honor, the AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year award in 2022 and an All-America Football Foundation Top Assistant Coach accolade in 2008.
“Fred is the epitome of a Davis guy,” said Jane and Fred Arp Defensive Line Coach Jerry Brady. “If you talk to current or former Aggie Football players, coach Arp is consistently brought up as one of the all-time great coaches in a coaching lineage that is among the most impressive in all of college football.”
Under Arp, six defensive linemen earned first team All-American honors, three earned Academic All-American honors or NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship awards and eight are now members of the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame.
“Fred lived and breathed UC Davis Football and Aggie Pride,” added Brady. “Being the defensive line coach here bears as much responsibility as being the quarterback coach here. I try to embody Fred as much as I possibly can with my spirit and my energy. It means the world to me to have the Arp Family name attached to the defensive line coaching title and I look forward to many more years of being the Jane and Fred Arp Defensive Line Coach at UC Davis.”
The Arp family has a long history of philanthropic support to the university and for almost 60 years both Jane and Fred have given their time and energy to the Aggies. Jane herself makes as many Aggie football road trips as possible and makes sure to be at every home game. Jane, through the Arp Family Foundation, also made a large commitment to the Football Excellence Fund to help current head coach Tim Plough make investments in the current team’s success.
This story is an example of UC Davis Athletics’ commitment to the Ignite Strategic Plan Pillar of “Revenue Generation” by creating endowments among the coaching staffs to increase revenue to assist with coaching staff compensation. Read more about our strategic plan here; IGNITE
