I know this is a route, but Coach Dykes and TCU have a lot to be proud of to have gotten this far. Georgia is a monster football team.
I don’t think I’ve ever told this story on here, but Sonny Dykes will always have a special place in my heart for what he did for me when he was at Cal.
I struggled deeply with major health issues the majority of my time at Cal. I was in a really bad place then, mentally and physically. I was in the band, and really enjoyed my time there, but I was struggling to keep up and my fellow bandsmen were getting more and more tired of my crap. They had seen me limp off the field at the end of practice so much that it really wasn’t on anyone’s radar anymore. We were practicing in memorial, if my heavily impaired memory serves, and I didn’t make it off the field with everyone else at the end of practice. I just kinda slumped against the edge of the bowl and tried to catch my breath. The team must’ve been doing something afterwards because one of the assistant coaches (I can’t remember who, my memory is heavily impaired from this time period) came and found me and brought me back to the football office, gave me some water, and made sure I got home.
I thought that was nice, because I knew it wasted some valuable time, so I decided to send the Coach that helped me a thank you card, and I also sent one to Coach Dykes. A few days later, I got a message from the football office, asking me to come to Coach Dykes’s office. He talked to me about life and stuff for like 15 minutes, and then told me that he had checked with Bob (the band director) and had heard that we would not be traveling to Colorado. He asked me if I would travel to the Colorado game as a guest of the team. They took me with the team, roomed me with the Chaplin, and had me on the sidelines with the team. I have a picture from the broadcast of me standing like 3 yards behind Coach Dykes.
That would’ve been really cool on its own, but what really meant the most was afterwards. From that point on, until the moment he was let go by Cal, every 4-6 weeks or so Coach Dykes would call me into his office and just check how I was doing and chat with me for like 20 minutes. I didn’t offer him anything. It didn’t help him win more games, get more money, or keep his job. It was just kindness.
That was a point in my life where my family didn’t think I would live that long. We weren’t sure whether that would be because of some of the medication I was taking, or because I wouldn’t be able to live with the pain anymore, but if you had honestly asked my parents, they would’ve said I wouldn’t have made it. I latched onto that little bit of kindness. I made it from game day to game day, and from meeting to meeting.
I graduated in 2017 and got married in May of 2022. We bought a house in November. I’m living a normal life, a blessed life, and I will never forget the time that Coach Dykes gave to me, the selflessness of it all. I’ll always root for Coach Dykes wherever he goes. I don’t have an easy way of contact Coach Dykes, but someday I hope to have a chance to tell him what that meant to me.
It is great to hear a story like this since it illustrates that, even though his tenure in Berkeley was less than successful and he did badmouth us a bit in the end, he seems like a fundamentally decent person, which is something that everyone should be thankful for. This actually takes some of the bad taste out of my mouth when I think about his lousy Pac-12 record and some of his epic collapses (such as our 2014 28 point collapse in Tucson).
Chats are nice but WHERE'S THE CHICKEN SPAGHETTI?!
(I joke. IIRC, the chicken spaghetti was his way of making sure players were getting enough to eat and also just being hospitable. A genuinely good guy who couldn't assemble a defense and wanted to be in Texas.)
Southern kindness. One aspires to be "good for nothing."
That is likely a big reason Sonny did that apart no other motive.
Yes, I think highly of Sonny and his time, here. I do not think yesterday's results reflect the intangible positives he brings, such as your story. But that manner of kindness, without profit, will become increasingly rare as college football follows more and more of a business model.
Imagine if Wilcox inherited this TCU team? He would've had the Horned Frogs proudly winning the AutoZone Liberty Bowl to put a nice 7th-win cherry on top of the season, instead of getting their doors blown off in the national championship in humiliating fashion. Dykes is pathetic!
Or, imagine if Gary Patterson inherited this team! ;)
Asked recently by Sports Illustrated about his time in Berkeley, he said, “Probably better if I don’t say much about that. It’s just a hard place. I took a step out there without understanding what I was getting into.”
Well, Tedford showed it was possible. Was. He got Cal 2 mins from an AP #1 ranking.
I think most would agree that Championship level of success is not possible now, what with all the heightened admission standards and the current leadership. I mean, look at the level of football being played last Saturday, and tonight, and by Oregon, USC, Utah and Washington….these teams are basically playing a different sport than Cal.
Doesn’t mean that 6-6 and a Sun Bowl berth are not possible though. El Paso, TX, December 2026, v. Virginia. Be there!
Probably not taking Cal to a NC game but with the resources and support Wilcox has been given and the Pac12 being down the previous 4 years, he might have gotten us to a Pac12 title game.
Dykes never intended to be at Cal for any meaningful length of time. He clearly used Cal to pay for his “recruiting” trips to TCU so he could interview on Cal’s dime, not his own.
He was a disastrous hire by Sandy Barbour - a permanent strain on her time at Cal imo.
PS: Couldn't be happier that Dykes is getting reemed, steamed and dry cleaned by Georgia.
Congrats Coach! Even if it wasn't gonna be at Cal, happy to see you put to rest the saying, "the best offense is a good defense!". The best offense is a good offense!
After spending a fortune to upgrade Memorial and other facilities, most of us alums we’re interested in something modest: 6 or 7 wins a year and bowl eligibility. Wilcox isn’t getting it done
People who complain about Alabama, and now Georgia, having a cupcake or 2 on their schedule should note that after what happened to Oregon, and now TCU, not a lot of AD's are calling up to inquire about playing one of them down in Atlanta. And if they do, their head coach will strangle them.
This is a false narrative (and that's before the SEC moves to 9 conference games once Texa/homa join) as far as Georgia (and Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina) are concerned, though it is a factor elsewhere. Remember these 4 have a permanent 9th P5 game against their instate ACC rivals.
This (24-7 Georgia and counting) is what I was afraid of/expecting. And it doesn't mean TCU isn't good; they have proven they are very good. But this is a whole different breed of dawg they are dealing with. The structure is different, but this reminds me of USC's 55-19 National Championship game. Another case where you have a team that's just better in a lot of ways and places.
Just curious. How many of you would be interested in a minor football league that included the semi-peo Berkeley Bears?
News Flash: Today's players could care less what “school” is providing their NIL money. Do today's players even bother to attend classes at the school that is playing them to play football?
In 2023 we're all just rooting for laundry. Like any other semi-pro team, which at best is mediocre, usually losing consistently. The “Cal” semi pro team gets “Cal” branding, at no charge, as do all the other “college” semi-pro teams at their schools.
2023 “college” football has nothing to do with what you rooted for during your time at Cal. The shame of it is the Cal semi-pro team is permanently buried in the group of also ran, really bad losing semi-pro teams. So we don't even get to pretend that this is anything worth cheering for.
I'm genuinely curious how the pejorative "woke" negatively affects the trajectory of a college football program and keeps them from competing for national championships. Is it because woke people just aren't really interested in football? Or are there specific woke policies that make it harder to recruit and retain the best players?
I wouldn’t so much call it “woke”, but I think in general the way the city of Berkeley imposed so much upon the team during COVID, and the utter contempt that many professors have for athletics doesn’t help that much.
There is also a cultural advantage that the southern schools have in that their fans are used to watching football and have their college football fandom as more central.
The "woke" factor as defined here, and the campus/community environment, are a big problem for Cal relative to most of the Pac, but then Utah and TCU (and a lot of similar programs) are about as far from that as possible, and they still have the problem relative to the best of the south east ;ie the sheer number of next level players. The west has players just as good, and looking at NFL rosters confirms it, but its a case of 1-2 here, 2-3 there, while Georgia and Bama have 10 of those type of DL's and LBs and DBs, and 15 such O-linemen. And a culture that encourages that, vs one that openly discourages it.
I don't think "woke" is actually defined here. But in a negative context, I only know it as the co-opted and oft weaponized term used superficially to counter what is broadly viewed as "progressivism run amok", but with dubious regard for the complexity and reality of actual social justice issues. It invariably has undertones regarding race and/or gender. I just don't see how it's really relevant. Cal is among at least 50+ d1 schools who wont be sniffing a national championship in our lifetimes, if the power structure and general state of college football continues on its current course. Ironically, perhaps it will take some "woke" policies to actually disrupt the ncaa football power structure and help even the playing field. :)
I know this is a route, but Coach Dykes and TCU have a lot to be proud of to have gotten this far. Georgia is a monster football team.
I don’t think I’ve ever told this story on here, but Sonny Dykes will always have a special place in my heart for what he did for me when he was at Cal.
I struggled deeply with major health issues the majority of my time at Cal. I was in a really bad place then, mentally and physically. I was in the band, and really enjoyed my time there, but I was struggling to keep up and my fellow bandsmen were getting more and more tired of my crap. They had seen me limp off the field at the end of practice so much that it really wasn’t on anyone’s radar anymore. We were practicing in memorial, if my heavily impaired memory serves, and I didn’t make it off the field with everyone else at the end of practice. I just kinda slumped against the edge of the bowl and tried to catch my breath. The team must’ve been doing something afterwards because one of the assistant coaches (I can’t remember who, my memory is heavily impaired from this time period) came and found me and brought me back to the football office, gave me some water, and made sure I got home.
I thought that was nice, because I knew it wasted some valuable time, so I decided to send the Coach that helped me a thank you card, and I also sent one to Coach Dykes. A few days later, I got a message from the football office, asking me to come to Coach Dykes’s office. He talked to me about life and stuff for like 15 minutes, and then told me that he had checked with Bob (the band director) and had heard that we would not be traveling to Colorado. He asked me if I would travel to the Colorado game as a guest of the team. They took me with the team, roomed me with the Chaplin, and had me on the sidelines with the team. I have a picture from the broadcast of me standing like 3 yards behind Coach Dykes.
That would’ve been really cool on its own, but what really meant the most was afterwards. From that point on, until the moment he was let go by Cal, every 4-6 weeks or so Coach Dykes would call me into his office and just check how I was doing and chat with me for like 20 minutes. I didn’t offer him anything. It didn’t help him win more games, get more money, or keep his job. It was just kindness.
That was a point in my life where my family didn’t think I would live that long. We weren’t sure whether that would be because of some of the medication I was taking, or because I wouldn’t be able to live with the pain anymore, but if you had honestly asked my parents, they would’ve said I wouldn’t have made it. I latched onto that little bit of kindness. I made it from game day to game day, and from meeting to meeting.
I graduated in 2017 and got married in May of 2022. We bought a house in November. I’m living a normal life, a blessed life, and I will never forget the time that Coach Dykes gave to me, the selflessness of it all. I’ll always root for Coach Dykes wherever he goes. I don’t have an easy way of contact Coach Dykes, but someday I hope to have a chance to tell him what that meant to me.
What a great story and congrats on getting married!
Thank you!
It is great to hear a story like this since it illustrates that, even though his tenure in Berkeley was less than successful and he did badmouth us a bit in the end, he seems like a fundamentally decent person, which is something that everyone should be thankful for. This actually takes some of the bad taste out of my mouth when I think about his lousy Pac-12 record and some of his epic collapses (such as our 2014 28 point collapse in Tucson).
Chats are nice but WHERE'S THE CHICKEN SPAGHETTI?!
(I joke. IIRC, the chicken spaghetti was his way of making sure players were getting enough to eat and also just being hospitable. A genuinely good guy who couldn't assemble a defense and wanted to be in Texas.)
Love me some chicken spaghetti! I wondered if anyone would bring it up. LOL
Has anyone ever had chicken spaghetti? Is it the same as chicken tetrazini?
I've not had it but I believe it's a
creamy pasta casserole so would be similar. A lot of recipes use canned cream of X soup or Ro-tel.
Thank you for sharing.
Best Wishes.
(Cal Band 77-82)
Fantastic story! Thank you for sharing it!
Wow, what a great and inspiring story. I am truly happy you have found peace and happiness.
Thanks for sharing. Great story.
Beautiful.
Southern kindness. One aspires to be "good for nothing."
That is likely a big reason Sonny did that apart no other motive.
Yes, I think highly of Sonny and his time, here. I do not think yesterday's results reflect the intangible positives he brings, such as your story. But that manner of kindness, without profit, will become increasingly rare as college football follows more and more of a business model.
Great share.
Let's just get this out of the way...he wasn't gonna do this at Cal.
He doesn’t do this at TCU without Gary Patterson’s guys either.
Imagine if Wilcox inherited this TCU team? He would've had the Horned Frogs proudly winning the AutoZone Liberty Bowl to put a nice 7th-win cherry on top of the season, instead of getting their doors blown off in the national championship in humiliating fashion. Dykes is pathetic!
Or, imagine if Gary Patterson inherited this team! ;)
I think this is a huge indictment of old, gray-haired football coaches.
Sonny said it wasn't possible at Cal. my understanding is that our administration is a mess. From https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/college/article/Sonny-Dykes-TCU-Cal-17700648.php
Asked recently by Sports Illustrated about his time in Berkeley, he said, “Probably better if I don’t say much about that. It’s just a hard place. I took a step out there without understanding what I was getting into.”
Well, Tedford showed it was possible. Was. He got Cal 2 mins from an AP #1 ranking.
I think most would agree that Championship level of success is not possible now, what with all the heightened admission standards and the current leadership. I mean, look at the level of football being played last Saturday, and tonight, and by Oregon, USC, Utah and Washington….these teams are basically playing a different sport than Cal.
Doesn’t mean that 6-6 and a Sun Bowl berth are not possible though. El Paso, TX, December 2026, v. Virginia. Be there!
Probably not taking Cal to a NC game but with the resources and support Wilcox has been given and the Pac12 being down the previous 4 years, he might have gotten us to a Pac12 title game.
That’s so true. It’s the wrong Conference to produce 5 incompetent offenses in 6 years.
At least with Sonny there was always the chance of a tipped pass INT or fumble and a 45-41 win.
With Wilcox now, that is basically off the board…you’re gonna need breaks to win ugly.
And not nearly enough is being made of the incompetent decision by Knowlton to commit the University and $20 M to this guy.
Dykes never intended to be at Cal for any meaningful length of time. He clearly used Cal to pay for his “recruiting” trips to TCU so he could interview on Cal’s dime, not his own.
He was a disastrous hire by Sandy Barbour - a permanent strain on her time at Cal imo.
PS: Couldn't be happier that Dykes is getting reemed, steamed and dry cleaned by Georgia.
I don’t agree with this take at all.
This is the Sonny I remember vs top-25 teams…
Exactly what I was thinking. It's either Drop50Stop50 and win or get 50 dropped on you.
This defense looks familiar…
Georgia did this to a lot of defenses. Did it to Oregon to start the season and continued to do so against just about every defense they faced.
Yeah; the Frogs have had elite coverage on some plays...and the Dawgs still just beat it.
Georgia is just on another level.
So does the very talented but TO-prone Dykes QB.
Congrats Coach! Even if it wasn't gonna be at Cal, happy to see you put to rest the saying, "the best offense is a good defense!". The best offense is a good offense!
Go Bears!
How dare you criticize the importance of making the world a safer place for dog poop!
Yep. UCLA might; we won't.
Not without a major change of leadership priorities.
BTW- If I was betting, I am afraid it looks grim for TCU. That being said, never rule out a TCU comeback.
Why, because I know him and he’s a good and decent family man. Because he took a team and rebuilt their soul and instilled a strong competitive ethic.
Well said. Remembering, as well, our APR improvement.
He was a Techsun through and through, and was always going back home. And it was obvious from his first presser. Just a bad hire for Cal.
That said, props to Sonny for being positive about his Cal experience over the past few weeks. Respect.
After spending a fortune to upgrade Memorial and other facilities, most of us alums we’re interested in something modest: 6 or 7 wins a year and bowl eligibility. Wilcox isn’t getting it done
People who complain about Alabama, and now Georgia, having a cupcake or 2 on their schedule should note that after what happened to Oregon, and now TCU, not a lot of AD's are calling up to inquire about playing one of them down in Atlanta. And if they do, their head coach will strangle them.
The problem is not the cupcakes, it’s that the SEC only plays 8 conference games. There would be fewer undefeated SEC teams if they played 9.
This is a false narrative (and that's before the SEC moves to 9 conference games once Texa/homa join) as far as Georgia (and Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina) are concerned, though it is a factor elsewhere. Remember these 4 have a permanent 9th P5 game against their instate ACC rivals.
There are a bunch of Ducks saying "See, I tried to tell you it wasn't going to be so easy!"
This (24-7 Georgia and counting) is what I was afraid of/expecting. And it doesn't mean TCU isn't good; they have proven they are very good. But this is a whole different breed of dawg they are dealing with. The structure is different, but this reminds me of USC's 55-19 National Championship game. Another case where you have a team that's just better in a lot of ways and places.
Georgia is just so much faster on both sides of the ball.
No wonder Demetris got buried and lost on that team
Exactly, and TCU wasn’t gonna get two pick-six’s and multiple stops within the 1 v. UGA. Still, they absolutely belong in the game.
Next year will be telling for Sonny tho…wherever he’s at.
They absolutely deserve to play in this game. My prediction for Sonny is he stays at TCU and then gets the Texas job after next year.
We are in total agreement. Sark gets dumped after another non-CFP season next year and Sonny realizes Gary Patterson was the bridge to his dream job.
Those that had Georgia -50 are breathing easier.
nice try sonny
Stetson Bennett is older than all of the AFL playoff QBs
I think Mahomes is older by maybe a year.
Ho-hum
It's exciting to finally have a team worth rooting for in the championship game
TCU is worth rooting for? They are located in Texas, not Berkeley. 7-65, Georgia by the way.
Go Sonny! Make the CAL Bears fans proud. It’s time for an upset!
Seriously? Why would any Cal fan be “proud” of what TCU does. T-C-U, not C-A-L
Georgia even dominated the halftime show. TCU was quite good, and then Georgia came out, and was on a completely different level.
Wow! The fighting Sonny's gave up 65 points to a legit team. What a surprise! Definitely reminds me of the bad old days when he was in Berkeley and his defenses couldn't stop a sneeze. But wait! The real problem at Cal was that he had to share the football field with the band (https://247sports.com/Article/Ex-Cal-coach-Sonny-Dykes-says-school-once-canceled-practice-to-let-band-use-field-Mike-Leach-comments-195425532/) and a "deteriorating brand" (https://bearinsider.com/forums/2/topics/101557). TCU will finish 7-5 next season. I wonder who will get the blame for that?
And despite all that, I would gladly have Cal trade places with TCU tonight and lose this game the way TCU did.
Just curious. How many of you would be interested in a minor football league that included the semi-peo Berkeley Bears?
News Flash: Today's players could care less what “school” is providing their NIL money. Do today's players even bother to attend classes at the school that is playing them to play football?
In 2023 we're all just rooting for laundry. Like any other semi-pro team, which at best is mediocre, usually losing consistently. The “Cal” semi pro team gets “Cal” branding, at no charge, as do all the other “college” semi-pro teams at their schools.
2023 “college” football has nothing to do with what you rooted for during your time at Cal. The shame of it is the Cal semi-pro team is permanently buried in the group of also ran, really bad losing semi-pro teams. So we don't even get to pretend that this is anything worth cheering for.
Anybody still watching?
Georgia is already taking bows, celebrating, and sending in the bench- midway through the fourth.
Kind of dicks to roll it up, when they have a lock.
When you pull the QB with 12 1/2 minutes to go. and are playing mostly freshmen, and running B gap calls, it ain't exactly rolling it up.
Didn’t do that until they had tacked on more points and a forty point + lead. I mean what’s their grudge with TCU?
Classic, Sonny.
"We suck. You're gonna' roll over us."
"Surprise, we got big plays."
I'm genuinely curious how the pejorative "woke" negatively affects the trajectory of a college football program and keeps them from competing for national championships. Is it because woke people just aren't really interested in football? Or are there specific woke policies that make it harder to recruit and retain the best players?
I wouldn’t so much call it “woke”, but I think in general the way the city of Berkeley imposed so much upon the team during COVID, and the utter contempt that many professors have for athletics doesn’t help that much.
There is also a cultural advantage that the southern schools have in that their fans are used to watching football and have their college football fandom as more central.
The "woke" factor as defined here, and the campus/community environment, are a big problem for Cal relative to most of the Pac, but then Utah and TCU (and a lot of similar programs) are about as far from that as possible, and they still have the problem relative to the best of the south east ;ie the sheer number of next level players. The west has players just as good, and looking at NFL rosters confirms it, but its a case of 1-2 here, 2-3 there, while Georgia and Bama have 10 of those type of DL's and LBs and DBs, and 15 such O-linemen. And a culture that encourages that, vs one that openly discourages it.
I don't think "woke" is actually defined here. But in a negative context, I only know it as the co-opted and oft weaponized term used superficially to counter what is broadly viewed as "progressivism run amok", but with dubious regard for the complexity and reality of actual social justice issues. It invariably has undertones regarding race and/or gender. I just don't see how it's really relevant. Cal is among at least 50+ d1 schools who wont be sniffing a national championship in our lifetimes, if the power structure and general state of college football continues on its current course. Ironically, perhaps it will take some "woke" policies to actually disrupt the ncaa football power structure and help even the playing field. :)
Very well said and I agree with all of this, especially the last two sentences.