Jul 27, 2023Liked by Avinash Kunnath, Christopher Helling, TD_24
I attended the first Golden Buddies event at Memorial a couple of weeks ago with my nephew who has Downs Syndrome. This is a new program run by the players for children (primarily, but not exclusively for various developmental disabilities) that provide exposure to football skills. What a genuinely wonderful group of guys. Was so proud, not only of my nephew, but these student athletes, who showed just wonderful kindness and thoughtfulness throughout the day with every child. We had the best day. But my other big takeaway was that Cindric is clearly the leader on the team and is already positioning himself as a future coach of this program (if we still have one, but that's another story).
All of this talk about what great guys Wilcox and the players are (which is true) is just whistling past the graveyard. With Colorado bolting for the Big 12 and Oregon reportedly ready to do so as early as tomorrow, Cal Athletics is SCREWED, big time. Whatever media deal Kliavokoff is able to land will be substantially less (perhaps by as much as $10 million per year) than what we were getting before. Even with the Calimony from FUCLA, Cal's athletic department is going to have some big time budget deficits to fill. The bottom line is that Cal has no cards to play in this drama other than being in the eighth largest media market in the country and the Big 10 (and perhaps other conferences) are perfectly content to let us sweat it out (possibly for years) and then swoop in and buy us on the cheap. I am a die-hard Golden Bear but this may be the beginning of the end for football at my beloved alma mater. Hopefully Wilcox and co. can bring us one winning season before everything simply implodes in July, 2024.
All the above is probably so. But not yet. This Fall the team has a football season to play out. I expect the coaches and players to play like there is no tomorrow. That winning season we need is very possible. Go Bears.
Does anyone besides sunshine pumpers actually believe in the Calimony? I bet UCLA will keep delaying until Regents forget about it and move on. Would be very surprised if we get more than $5M in total
Good point. One thing that this entire, year-long drama has taught me is the absolute ruthlessness of college sports. FUCLA and U$C knew that they were going to screw everyone else in the Pac-12 but they didn't even give it a second thought. You are right to suggest that FUCLA will try every legal avenue available to avoid paying us. Greedy bastards. I hope that they get the payback that they deserve.
I appreciate your efforts and fresh content. Thank you. Yes, Wilcox is an easy guy to like and respect. But we all know that's not enough. Holmoe was evidently a nice guy.
Tom Holmoe had neither the fortitude nor the candle-power required to be the head man. Wilcox has both of those, plus the ability and desire to learn from his failures. This season will tell whether his learnings combined with his team-building (recruiting, portaling, coaching, mentoring, all of it) will be enough for a major breakthrough. My gut tells me it will. But my gut was wrong once before. No, twice.
I like that Wilcox would like to blitz on every play if he could. It's not realistic, but if he had the personnel or the right opportunity, he would do it. We blitzed so much more in the early years with TDR. Would like to see it happen more again.
Great writeup! I miss when Media Day and the Pac-12 Tournament were still in LA.
I attended the first Golden Buddies event at Memorial a couple of weeks ago with my nephew who has Downs Syndrome. This is a new program run by the players for children (primarily, but not exclusively for various developmental disabilities) that provide exposure to football skills. What a genuinely wonderful group of guys. Was so proud, not only of my nephew, but these student athletes, who showed just wonderful kindness and thoughtfulness throughout the day with every child. We had the best day. But my other big takeaway was that Cindric is clearly the leader on the team and is already positioning himself as a future coach of this program (if we still have one, but that's another story).
Christopher Helling, what a fine effort, enjoyable retelling, and incisive questions. You did us all proud.
Do you know if Cal has posted the fall practice schedule? thx
All of this talk about what great guys Wilcox and the players are (which is true) is just whistling past the graveyard. With Colorado bolting for the Big 12 and Oregon reportedly ready to do so as early as tomorrow, Cal Athletics is SCREWED, big time. Whatever media deal Kliavokoff is able to land will be substantially less (perhaps by as much as $10 million per year) than what we were getting before. Even with the Calimony from FUCLA, Cal's athletic department is going to have some big time budget deficits to fill. The bottom line is that Cal has no cards to play in this drama other than being in the eighth largest media market in the country and the Big 10 (and perhaps other conferences) are perfectly content to let us sweat it out (possibly for years) and then swoop in and buy us on the cheap. I am a die-hard Golden Bear but this may be the beginning of the end for football at my beloved alma mater. Hopefully Wilcox and co. can bring us one winning season before everything simply implodes in July, 2024.
All the above is probably so. But not yet. This Fall the team has a football season to play out. I expect the coaches and players to play like there is no tomorrow. That winning season we need is very possible. Go Bears.
Does anyone besides sunshine pumpers actually believe in the Calimony? I bet UCLA will keep delaying until Regents forget about it and move on. Would be very surprised if we get more than $5M in total
Good point. One thing that this entire, year-long drama has taught me is the absolute ruthlessness of college sports. FUCLA and U$C knew that they were going to screw everyone else in the Pac-12 but they didn't even give it a second thought. You are right to suggest that FUCLA will try every legal avenue available to avoid paying us. Greedy bastards. I hope that they get the payback that they deserve.
I appreciate your efforts and fresh content. Thank you. Yes, Wilcox is an easy guy to like and respect. But we all know that's not enough. Holmoe was evidently a nice guy.
Tom Holmoe had neither the fortitude nor the candle-power required to be the head man. Wilcox has both of those, plus the ability and desire to learn from his failures. This season will tell whether his learnings combined with his team-building (recruiting, portaling, coaching, mentoring, all of it) will be enough for a major breakthrough. My gut tells me it will. But my gut was wrong once before. No, twice.
Thanks for the nice report.
I like that Wilcox would like to blitz on every play if he could. It's not realistic, but if he had the personnel or the right opportunity, he would do it. We blitzed so much more in the early years with TDR. Would like to see it happen more again.