(9th and final day of blogs looking back on Fresno State athletics in 2007-08.)

An estimated 6,500 fans were waiting at Beiden Field on June 26 when the Fresno State baseball players arrived after a brief but joyous parade through the campus.

The rally at Beiden Field was full of speeches, many of them punctuated by crowd chants of "Fresno State! Fresno State! Fresno State!"

Nearly a year earlier, after a jury awarded millions of dollars to former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas, critics had demanded the resignation of university President John Welty.

About six months earlier, after a jury awarded millions of dollars to former women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, critics also demanded Welty's resignation.

On this pleasant June evening at Beiden Field, Welty took it all in while seated next to the 2008 NCAA champion baseball team. He couldn't stop smiling.

The scene brings to mind the maxim quoted by historian William Manchester in his biography of Douglas MacArthur: "England always loses every battle in a war except the last one."