Tales from a century and a half at the University of California
How the 1895 Track and Field Team Turned Cal into the Golden Bears
On May 2, 1895, eleven members of the California Track and Field team boarded a train at the Berkeley station on Shattuck Avenue and departed for the east coast to take on some of the great powerhouses of American track. No western team had ever traveled so far or competed against the highly regarded eastern…
Coach Clarence “Nibs” Price: A Rose Bowl AND a Final Four for Cal
Who is the only person who ever coached teams to both the Rose Bowl and the Final Four? The University of California’s Clarence “Nibs” Price. Nibs Price took over as Cal’s football head coach in 1926, after the death of Andy Smith. In his five years as head coach, he had three tremendous seasons and…
Pappy Waldorf: Cal’s Most Beloved Football Coach
Lynn O. “Pappy” Waldorf was the most beloved football coach in Cal history: beloved by his players, by the fans, and even by the Bears’ opponents. He was a great coach. A career record of 157-89-19, and a 67-32-4 record at California, are evidence of this. So are three straight Rose Bowl appearances and back-to-back…
Andy Smith: Cal Football’s Greatest Coach
Andy Smith’s accomplishments at Cal are, quite simply, beyond compare. In 10 seasons at California, he compiled a 74-16-7 record, won five Pacific Coast Conference championships and four consecutive national championships, and took the Bears to two Rose Bowls. He also led Cal to an astonishing five straight undefeated seasons. In the Wonder-filled 1920 season,…
Garrett Cochran: Cal’s First Great Football Coach
Garrett Cochran was only 22 years old when he was hired as head coach of the University of California football and baseball teams in 1898, and he only coached at Cal for two seasons. Despite his brief tenure, this young man earned the right to be considered Cal’s first great football coach by taking a…
The First College World Series Champions: The 1947 Golden Bears
By 1947, baseball was already an old and storied sport at Cal. The names of the members of inter-mural baseball teams representing each class, and the results of their games, were listed in the Blue and Gold yearbook as early as 1874. And by 1885, the Bears were playing against outside opponents. The 1886 Blue…
The House That Andy Built: The Making of Memorial Stadium
When its gates opened on November 24, 1923, it was called “the House the Andy Built.” Rightly so, since the impetus for the construction of California Memorial Stadium was the tremendous enthusiasm and fan support created by Coach Andy Smith and his Wonder Teams, which rendered venerable old California Field far too small, and required…
Cal Boxing vs. the Stanford “Color Line”
In early March 1923 the members of the University of California Boxing team were looking forward to their upcoming competition against arch-rival Stanford. It would be the eighth annual contest between the schools and, as always, it was the most anticipated. But on March 8, the day before the scheduled tournament, Dr. W. H. Barrow,…
1986: The Biggest Big Game Upset of Them All
Joe Kapp was the living embodiment of Cal football. As a Cal fan I know once said, “Joe Kapp is Oski made flesh.” It is no coincidence, then, that Joe Kapp played a role in three of Cal’s biggest Big Game upsets: in 1956 as Cal’s starting quarterback in Pappy Waldorf’s final game; in 1982…
“Hey Stanford, Eat My Peach!” Wherein a Walk-On Cal Quarterback Beats John Elway
1980 was a truly abysmal season for the Bears. After a modestly successful 7-5 season in 1979, which had culminated in Cal’s first bowl appearance in 20 years (a loss to Temple in New Jersey’s Garden State Bowl), Cal fans hoped better times were ahead in 1980. This was especially so because of the return…
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Cal Bears History 