The sun is shining in a hand held video, Tre Harrison is smiling at you through the phone leaning into the camera, pointing to the back of this week’s helmet “See, it’s in the details.”
Stacking good news on top of last week’s win against Virginia Tech, Cal Football unveiled a collaboration over a year in the making earlier this week, with the simple image of the iconic Steal Your Face logo adorning a Cal football helmet, a (nearly) wordless announcement of a collaboration with the Grateful Dead.
The details Harrison refers to indeed include Oski, flanked by the Dead’s dancing Bears. Along the strip is the thunderbolt missing from the steal your face logo (replaced by a script Cal logo, naturally), the white bolt is set on a subtle blue tie dye accenting a largely gold helmet.
The work on this project began shortly after Chief Marketing Officer Jason Hobar came on board with the university. His team at Nike had assisted Class Trip previously with their on field collaboration with Oregon. “When I got the job at Cal, that was maybe not the first call I made, but I knew I wanted to do something around a theme game, the fact that the Grateful Dead are part of Bay Area culture, they’re from here. I just saw the natural synergy of combining culture and sports together.”
It takes few quick clicks to realize that Class Trip and the Dead have a small offering available to many fan bases around the country, but this expansive and elevated collection celebrates the band’s 60th anniversary of playing in and around Berkeley, from then-named Harmon to the Greek Theater. “The Grateful Dead have played more concerts around UC Berkeley than any other university in the United States” Hobar continued. It’s one of those things that feels true without checking. (It’s true).
Rich Lyons appears in the photos shot of the collection at the Greek Theater. Members of the team and band had been selected, and it happened that he could make it and was an enthusiastic participant, as he has been since signing on. “This is not just athletics” explained Hobar, “this is athletics working with the chancellor and his office…nobody on this campus should be working in a silo, especially on this campus when you have so many great partners.”
The collection is also a chance to merge the Cal of it all with the Berkeley of it all, with details in the rollout including a PSA about the project on local radio station KALX. The videos continue to roll out as the week progresses. On Thursday, a surreal and self aware video found inside linebacker Kamar Mathudi in full uniform thumbing through the vinyl in the storied original location of Amoeba Records on Telegraph. It feels like Berkeley.
The Bears will don these uniforms this Saturday at Cal Memorial Stadium to face off against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at 7:30 PSD.
Being a Bear from the late 70's, I resemble a Dead Head. I think I attended at least 30 concerts. Filmore, the old Winterland and even at the Oakland Audtiorium in the 80's after work. I was in my suit! Was at the Oakland Coliseum when the Dead played warm up for the Who and when Jerry and Pete Townsend played an encore of Johnny B Good together. EPIC! Also, there was a music venue back then on the NE corner of Shattuck and University (older Bears help me out). Jerry used to play there regularly with his band. My dentist was a former SAE Golden Bear Dead Head with dozens of bootleg albums. He pulled my upper wisdom teeth while I was gassed and dosed listening to piped in Dead music (instead of classical music). I own a bunch of Dead vinyl, including the Steal Your Face plastic. Great Times!
Some AI researched history on the bear.
Bob Thomas created the iconic Grateful Dead bears (commonly called the “dancing bears”). He was the Dead's chief artist and graphic designer. He designed them in 1973 specifically for the back cover of the album "History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear’s Choice)".
The bears were a visual tribute to Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the band’s sound engineer who curated the album. Owsley was known as the Acid King at the time-- an underground LSD chemist who reportedly produced millions of doses of LSD. 'Dancing Bear Acid' was top shelf acid at the time (personal recollection).
Stanley himself later clarified that the bears are marching, not dancing, based on their leg positions—though fans quickly popularized the “dancing bears” nickname, and it stuck.