To some football players, their jersey number is an identity. It says, 'This is who I am' for as long as they are able to wear it.

A lucky few earn the opportunity to keep the same number from Pop Warner through high school through college through, maybe, the NFL.

Yet still others see it simply as the number they are lucky enough to be awarded, the lasting statement that they have made the team. Now it is their job to keep earning that numeral, for there are others grasping to don it for themselves.

At UC Davis, during the long and distinguished tenure of now-retired defensive line coach Fred Arp, one number always stood out.

That number was 88 and Arp, who mentored Aggies d-linemen from 1967-2007, took it as his own personal responsibility to be sure the athlete who wore 88 deserved to wear 88.

"Ric Rimmer [1972-74] was the first d-lineman to wear the number after transferring from the University of San Francisco. Then Rick Clerici wore it and both guys earned all-conference honors.

"It was then I figured, 'Well, let's make sure we always give this number to an up-and-coming defensive end, a guy who would follow in Rimmer's and Clerici's footsteps," said Arp.

The next 88 was Casey Merrill [1975-78]. "Casey was the epitome of what our guys were like in those days," Arp recalls. "He made All-American, then got drafted by Cincinnati in the 5th round of the 1979 draft."

Merrill never played for the Bengals, but he did go on to a long NFL career with Green Bay, the New York Giants and New Orleans from 1979-86.

When Merrill departed Davis, Arp knew immediately who his next 88 was going to be.

"It had to be Glenn Fricker. You knew from the day he came here, he was going to be special, and he was." Fricker [1980-83], to this day still holds the Aggies record for single-season sacks with 18 in 1983 and career sacks with 45.

While Fricker set a high bar, the 88ers who followed him were both very good players; Rick Daum [1984-86], then Mike Clark [1987-88].

"Both were solid guys," said Arp. "They gave us all they had."

By the early 1990s, several UC Davis wide receivers wanted 88, since the number, then and now, is more closely identified with offensive, than defensive, players.

Come 1995, however, a young recruit named Josh Anstey caught Arp's trained eye. "Everyone in our d-line group could see this guy was going to be a stud, and no one had asked for the number in several years. So I gave it to Josh, and he continued the tradition of great d-linemen to wear eighty-eight."

Another player awarded 88 was B.J. Brust [1999-02]. "When I showed up on campus, Josh was in eighty-eight, and he was a great player," said Brust. "I was a lowly redshirt at the time, hanging around in the background, and it became apparent to all of us that it was an honor to wear this number."

Brust had no idea what was about to befall him. "At some point headed into my second year, we were all sitting around talking about what numbers we were going to ask for. If I remember correctly, in typical Fred fashion, I was never spoken to about wearing it, but instead I saw it on a roster sheet when we were going to ask for numbers.

"My name was already filled in at eighty-eight," he added. "It was a very unexpected and special moment."

Yet one Brust admits filled him with a slight case of dread.

"Along with excitement, there came a bit of pressure to live up to the expectation that came with [wearing] this number. I knew I was not going to break any sack records following Anstey, but I also knew I had to represent the history of this number in the best possible way. It was very cool to know that Fred saw something in me, even while just redshirting, that he would give it to me."

Of all Arp's #88 recipients, perhaps it's Brust who cherishes the honor the most.

"Every time I put on that jersey, I thought about the history of it, the expectations, and it made me give that much more for my team," he recalled. "That jersey is framed in my home and I will be honored to tell my boys when they are older the history behind it, what it meant to myself, my coaches and my team. That number is still with me every day. It was an honor to represent Club Fred."

When Arp retired from active coaching after the 2007 season, the #88 tradition went with him. "Well, for one thing, I wasn't issuing the numbers any longer," he says.

Arp, from his home in Colfax where he lives with wife Jane and monitors daily the progress of his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers, assists the football program in opponent scheduling, and continues to atted every UC Davis game, home and away. Tonight's contest is the 443rd consecutive Aggies game he has seen in person. 

His sense of right and wrong flared up only once over the last eight years. When the Aggies opened the season at Fresno State in 2009, he noticed that #88 had been assigned to a... punter.

"I wasn't trying to be a jerk," the old coach said, "but I had to go to our equipment guy and say, 'Take eighty eight off him, please.' The next game he wore ninety."

Order was restored.

Perhaps, though, even a brief time with 88 paid off for that punter. It was Colton Schmidt, who went on to become the best punter in Aggie history and now starts for the Buffalo Bills.