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.
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
Hatching Elements
The Campanile has a trio of new peregrine falcon chicks nesting on it, and their names are Californium, Lawrencium, and Berkelium, after three of the 16—count ‘em, 16!—elements discovered at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
Posted on June 7, 2018 - 3:40pm
Now that a few days have passed, the decision by National Football League owners to fine teams with players who do not “stand and show respect to the flag and the [national] anthem” hardly seems Solomonic; rather than ameliorating tensions, it almost assures another football season marked by player protests, discord both inside and outside the League, and acrid tweets from President Donald Trump.
Posted on May 29, 2018 - 5:04pm
Marshawn Lynch is a jerk. And he’s also a hero. He’s ungrateful, immature, and stupid. And he’s a genius with a heart of gold. Lynch, star running back of the Seattle Seahawks and former UC Berkeley phenom, is all of these things and more—if the various media portrayals are to be believed. Just don’t ask Lynch himself if any of it is true, because he’s not talking.
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.”
In the countdown to Sunday’s Super Bowl, suspense is building over the question on the mind of every devoted football fan: What will Marshawn Lynch say—or, more accurately, not say—to the media after the game?
However popular the Seattle Seahawks’ running back is with Seattle fans, he has a lot fewer friends at NFL headquarters, which regularly fines him big bucks for refusing to speak to reporters after games. Nor is he beloved among some segments of the press, who have called him unprofessional and immature.
Posted on January 29, 2015 - 3:31pm
In an office at Cal Athletics sits a special historic artifact—a football autographed by the 1938 Golden Bears football team, co-champions of the Pacific Coast Conference.
Posted on May 9, 2011 - 4:26pm
Another photo from the archives. No dates or info, just a great action shot. Check out the face masks!
By the way, Bear fans, the football team will hold an open practice this Saturday, April 17, which is Cal Day, of course. For more on the big event, go here.
Posted on April 13, 2010 - 12:43pm
