From her office in Haas Pavilion, Teri McKeever can look down on Spieker pool. She’s been known to yell out the windows if things aren’t going the way she wants—just one of the many ways she’s distinguished herself over three decades of coaching at Cal.
Posted on January 10, 2019 - 3:50pm
Kids don’t play like they used to. For one thing, they are too often locked to their screens. For another, we’ve got ’em on tight schedules, shuttling from play dates to practices, music lessons to ball games.
When I heard that the theme for this edition of California magazine was play, my thoughts turned to music and sports. Both are forms of self-expression, closely linked in ways that are at once intuitive and surprising. We have many campus programs in each—another way we seek to embrace the fullest possible range of human endeavors and do justice to the essential meaning of “University.”
In May, new UC Berkeley Athletic Director Jim Knowlton took over a tough job, spearheading a department in upheaval.
It was a sunny November Saturday at California Field and the stands brimmed with 20,000 boisterous fans. Banners waved, blue-and-gold streamers unfurled, and the usual cheers of “Oski Wow Wow! Whiskey Wee Wee!” went up as players took the field.
was during the Great Malaise of the Jimmy Carter years that Zippy the Pinhead, clown prince of non sequiturs, first wondered, “Are we having fun yet?” The questioner was a simpleton, but time has endowed his question with the ring of profundity.
Or is that an alarm bell? A warning from our inner child to slow down, ease off, throw our hands in the air like we just don’t care?
Listen up, America. We are failing at play.
Once upon a time, Berkeley had its own daily newspaper, the Berkeley Gazette, and for a brief, semi-glorious moment, it had two sports-reporting brothers. The paper was small enough that the brothers weren’t exclusively sports-reporters, but being born and bred in Berkeley, with Bear-blood in their veins, they wasted as much ink and newsprint on Cal’s sports program as they could possibly get away with.
Posted on December 3, 2018 - 9:36am
For those who know, the Stanford Axe is more than just a trophy. Awarded to the annual winner of the Stanford–Cal “Big Game” (full disclosure: I’m a Stanford grad), the Axe represents one of the oldest college rivalries in the country, dating back to 1892. The origins of the Stanford Axe have been told again and again, including the infamous heist of the Axe by Cal students in 1899, and subsequent repossession by Stanford 30 years later.
Yet, some mysteries remain.
Posted on November 15, 2018 - 3:24pm
1. You spent much of your professional life in Oregon and Washington, what inspired you to move to California and UC Berkeley?
I was certainly drawn by the name and the reputation, but also the health of the program, and the fact that the last four directors were here for many years, really their entire careers. Within this kind of profession, that speaks loudly. There’s a lot of support and a lot of opportunity here, and at a certain point it became clear to me that this was the way to go.
Posted on November 13, 2018 - 1:57pm
This weekend, the NCAA’s newest “Emerging Sport for Women,” varsity triathlon, will be holding the Women’s Collegiate National Championships in Tempe, Arizona. But the 75 women racing the sprint triathlon aren’t NCAA athletes. And triathlon isn’t an NCAA sport—at least not yet.
Posted on November 2, 2018 - 1:46pm
Cal running back and rising senior Patrick Laird is known for more than just his walk-on career and impressive collection of awards. An avid reader since childhood, Laird isn’t afraid to flaunt his bibliophilia—on the football field and now, in the classroom. With the support of Cal Athletics, he’s using his platform as a standout football player to encourage younger students to pick up a book (or four, or six) this summer.
Posted on June 20, 2018 - 1:21pm
On a late morning in July, 17 days after formally beginning work as Berkeley’s 11 th chancellor, Carol Tecla Christ sat in her sunlit office in California Hall, reflecting on the meaning of her new job title. “It’s essentially a representational role,” she said. “As the chancellor, you’re the storyteller-in-chief.”
With so many world-class athletes, UC Berkeley is always well represented at the Olympics. The joke in 2012 was that if Cal were its own country (and isn’t it, in its own way?), it would have tied for sixth in the world for the number of gold medals won. That number was 11, by the way.
Posted on June 16, 2016 - 3:31pm
In the spring of 2014, Maddy Kerr was the only member of her family living in the Bay Area. She was nearing the end of her freshman year at UC Berkeley, on the brink of walking into an Intro to Film final exam, when her phone buzzed with a text from her dad.
Posted on October 26, 2015 - 12:58pm
When Keala Keanaaina came to Cal on a football scholarship in 1998, a career in the NFL was not on his radar.
“I wasn’t one of those football guys that dreamed of going to the pros,” says Keanaaina. “I chose Berkeley because of its academic reputation. My goal was to graduate and get my degree.”
