Honestly, Rugbear, I have felt torn between honoring JK's service to our country and disliking his record at Cal. I believe there is groupthink wave of anger looking for a scapegoat. Some cite causes; others figure he's the guy in charge. IMHO, Cal should never have been reduced to being a beggar whatever led to that condition. Moreover,…
Honestly, Rugbear, I have felt torn between honoring JK's service to our country and disliking his record at Cal. I believe there is groupthink wave of anger looking for a scapegoat. Some cite causes; others figure he's the guy in charge. IMHO, Cal should never have been reduced to being a beggar whatever led to that condition. Moreover, Cal should not be happy with middling results. Our athletics should match our academics, so, we should be the premier public university athletics in the USA and the feel from the cheap seats, here, is Cal leadership disdainfully tolerates athletics and will never let the Bears out.
I hear you Bowlesman, but think in these terms (context is key): when knowlton arrived he had about a$50m shortfall in our athletic budget. By scrambling, raising money, restructuring our finances and more, he kept all of our sports programs intact. We don't have Stanfurd's endowment and we don't have overwhelming Administration, faculty, and even alumni support for our athletic department and sports programs. We operate at a deficit and yet we still have a top 20 overall athletic program. And, Knowlton did hire Mark Madsen. Finally, with respect to our football program, Wilcox had it on the rise before Covid. Covid killed us. That loss to AZ because the idiot Berkeley health official would not let a third of our team travel (including our #1 and #2 QB's). Remember and world renown epidemiologist at UCSF said at the time that anyone who had the vaccine would have traces of Covid that would be found it they were tested. The key was were the players symptomatic. The vast majority of our kids were asymptomatic. We lost to a shit team, and the local crazy politics that impact our program were exposed. Mettauer left CAL because of this. Other recruits went different directions. In any event, Wilcox had some off years as a result of Covid. This year he has a top ten portal class. We have 50 new players. Our top end talent is better and our depth has never been better. I expect Wilcox to start delivering better results this year. In the big picture, we look pretty good unless you expect us to be Alabama or Oregon. That is never going to happen. We don't live in a state where there is rabid support for our football team and where the UC system will spend what Alabama spends to win. And we don't have a Phil Knight...yet.
I don't expect us to be Oregon or Alabama, yet, but if we were to match our academics, then we should be striving for that. A five year plan? And, yes, I think both the community and lackadaisical leadership support of athletics would hobble NCAA coach of the year. I think firing WIlcox would set us back even more and not solve the problem. Every Bear fan begins the season with hope, but this will and should be a watershed year where we fans step and make it clear that the program matters to us. If this is not the turning point, then during the next conference shuffle, we will not make it to a lifeboat.
Honestly, Rugbear, I have felt torn between honoring JK's service to our country and disliking his record at Cal. I believe there is groupthink wave of anger looking for a scapegoat. Some cite causes; others figure he's the guy in charge. IMHO, Cal should never have been reduced to being a beggar whatever led to that condition. Moreover, Cal should not be happy with middling results. Our athletics should match our academics, so, we should be the premier public university athletics in the USA and the feel from the cheap seats, here, is Cal leadership disdainfully tolerates athletics and will never let the Bears out.
I hear you Bowlesman, but think in these terms (context is key): when knowlton arrived he had about a$50m shortfall in our athletic budget. By scrambling, raising money, restructuring our finances and more, he kept all of our sports programs intact. We don't have Stanfurd's endowment and we don't have overwhelming Administration, faculty, and even alumni support for our athletic department and sports programs. We operate at a deficit and yet we still have a top 20 overall athletic program. And, Knowlton did hire Mark Madsen. Finally, with respect to our football program, Wilcox had it on the rise before Covid. Covid killed us. That loss to AZ because the idiot Berkeley health official would not let a third of our team travel (including our #1 and #2 QB's). Remember and world renown epidemiologist at UCSF said at the time that anyone who had the vaccine would have traces of Covid that would be found it they were tested. The key was were the players symptomatic. The vast majority of our kids were asymptomatic. We lost to a shit team, and the local crazy politics that impact our program were exposed. Mettauer left CAL because of this. Other recruits went different directions. In any event, Wilcox had some off years as a result of Covid. This year he has a top ten portal class. We have 50 new players. Our top end talent is better and our depth has never been better. I expect Wilcox to start delivering better results this year. In the big picture, we look pretty good unless you expect us to be Alabama or Oregon. That is never going to happen. We don't live in a state where there is rabid support for our football team and where the UC system will spend what Alabama spends to win. And we don't have a Phil Knight...yet.
I don't expect us to be Oregon or Alabama, yet, but if we were to match our academics, then we should be striving for that. A five year plan? And, yes, I think both the community and lackadaisical leadership support of athletics would hobble NCAA coach of the year. I think firing WIlcox would set us back even more and not solve the problem. Every Bear fan begins the season with hope, but this will and should be a watershed year where we fans step and make it clear that the program matters to us. If this is not the turning point, then during the next conference shuffle, we will not make it to a lifeboat.