Golden Nuggets: Free Climbing, Schedule Releases, WAIT HE DID THAT WITHOUT ROPE?
101-STORIES? JUST HANGING BY HIS HANDS?
Hello and welcome to Golden Nuggets, our weekly recap article where we try to highlight all the fun, funny, or interesting things you might have missed roughly over the last week across Bear Territory (the whole damn world of course). Think of it like a cheat sheet for small talk about Cal.
What Do You Mean He Didn’t Use Ropes?
This past weekend while you were watching the California Women’s Basketball team beat Stanford, former Cal Student Alex Honnold up and decided to free climb the Taipei 101 Building without the assistance of ropes. Honnold was first made famous by the 2018 documentary “Free Solo” which documented his free climb up El Capitan in Yosemite.
Honnold enrolled at Berkeley in 2003 before dropping out to spend his time climbing things. Building off his brief Berkeley education, Alex, a former Civil Engineering major decided building buildings wasn’t for him, but freescaling them was. The 101-story climb took him a little under an hour and a half to finish. Congrats Alex!
Hot Links
Always Read Steve Kroner
Steve Kroner at SF Chronicle managed to get Tosh on the phone for an interview (have you seen how busy that guy is?) and its a good one. Give it a read here!
Tell The Whole Damn World Podcast
We’ve linked them in the past, but they’re worth including here! Tell The Whole Damn World is a podcast run by Ahmad Anderson and Reza Sirafinejad that covers all things Cal. Their latest episode was a tribute to Bob Milano, the former Cal Baseball Coach. Well worth watching (or listening!)
Small Bites
The Athletic ranked all 136 FBS Football Teams in 2026. Cal came in at 56th. Read here if you want to see why.
Rotoballer.com ranked the top 20 QBs heading into the 2026 season. JKS came in at 19th. Read why here.
Field Hockey Head Coach Shellie Onstead announced her retirement after 31 years at the helm.
Men’s rowing released their schedule.
Women’s Rowing released their schedule.
Beach Volleyball released their schedule.
Men’s and Women’s Rowing and Lacrosse all helped out at the Richmond Greenway MLK Day of Service
This Week on Facebook Marketplace
Oh good. Another branding crisis.
UC Berkeley. Cal. Cal Berkeley. Cal State Berkeley. But now we have…
Thanks to Mike “The Hot Dog Mayor” Davie for the find and submission!
Golden Bear Honors
Pietro Camilli (Track and Field) broke his own Weight Throw Freshman Record
Seth Johnson (Track and Field) broke the 300M School Record
Jasper Smith-Gordon (Gymnastics) broke a school record on the Vault
Theodor Roald Gadderud broke a school record on Parallel Bars
Jacob De Jesus was named to the Academic All-America Second Team
Cal Athletics Recap
Track and Field competed at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Invite (Day 1, Day 2
Rugby was Rugby, beating Olympic Club (75-5)
Women’s Water Polo beat Fresno State (15-11) and San Jose State (21-7)
Women’s Gymnastics beat NC State
Men’s Basketball beat Stanford (78-66)
Men’s Gymnastics competed at the Stanford Open
Women’s Basketball beat Stanford (78-71)
Cal Pros Recap
Football
Craig Woodson and Jaylinn Hawkins advanced to the Super Bowl after the New England Patriots beat the Denver Broncos.
Basketball
Jaylen Brown keeps scoring, currently averaging 29.6 points in 35.4 minutes. Jaylon Tyson was selected to compete in the Rising Stars mini-tournament during the All-Star Game Weekend. Congrats Jaylon!
Next Week in Bear Territory
Men’s Basketball plays at Florida State (1/28)
Men’s Swimming and Diving competes against Pacific (1/29) and Stanford (1/30)
Women’s Basketball competes against Notre Dame (1/29) and Louisville (2/1)
Track and Field competes in the UW Invitational (1/30-1/31)
Women’s Tennis competes against UCLA (1/30) and Stanford (1/31)
Women’s Gymnastics competes at Stanford (1/30)
Men’s Tennis competes against USC (1/31) and Davis/UCLA (2/1)
Women’s Swimming and Diving competes against Stanford (1/31)
Rugby plays at UCLA (1/31)
Men’s Basketball competes at Miami (1/31)
Women’s Water Polo competes against Pacific (1/31)
Women’s Golf competes against Ohio State at the Therese Hession Regional Challenge (2/1-2/3)
And so we find ourselves again at the end of Golden Nuggets. I appreciate you all reading this, and I have a ton of fun writing it. Last article’s most clicked link was the The Athletics Top 25 College Games of Last year, in case you want to relive some highs and lows. Hope to see some of you when I finally make it back to a Cal Basketball game against Clemon two Saturdays from now! Find me and get some stickers!
TwistNHook bought one your previous Facebook Marketplace finds