Cal Alums Feel Jilted/Two Parts

[50's PONY]

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Cal earns trip to Frustration Bowl
Bears miss rosy end to a winning year
- Tom FitzGerald, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 6, 2004



From old-guard alumni to humble freshmen, Bear Nation reacted with bitterness and frustration, although not a lot of shock Sunday, to the news that Cal's football team won't be in the Rose Bowl.

And while balmy San Diego should be a treat for the players, most Cal fans consider the Holiday Bowl -- in which the Bears will play Texas Tech on Dec. 30 -- the Ruse Bowl.

"This is the ultimate disillusionment for Old Blues who have been dreaming of going to the Rose Bowl," said Carl Stoney, class of '67 and a major Cal donor. "I'll go to the Holiday Bowl, but it will be with a heavy heart."

In the final computations of the Bowl Championship Series, Texas (10-1) edged Cal (10-1) for fourth place and an at-large berth in the Rose Bowl, where it will play Big Ten co-champion Michigan on Jan. 1.

The BCS is a system put in place by college presidents before the 1998 season to create a national championship game that rotates among the four major bowl, or BCS, games each year. The champions of the six largest conferences in the country -- Pacific 10, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern and Big East -- are guaranteed spots in BCS games, and stipulations were added later that gave guaranteed berths to two at-large teams based on their high BCS rankings. Those standings are determined using media and coaches polls and computer rankings.

Because USC won the Pacific 10, Cal was hoping to secure one of the two at-large berths. Cal had held a .0013 lead over Texas in the previous BCS standings, but the Bears' 26-16 victory over Southern Mississippi on Saturday night failed to impress enough voters in the Associated Press media poll and the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll. Cal remained fourth in both polls, but voters made it close enough that Cal lost in the BCS count, .848 to .835. Computer rankings, like each of the polls, count 33 percent.

So Cal lost its chance to play in the Rose Bowl for the first time in 46 years.

Herb Stansbury, who co-founded a group of alumni donors called the Bear Backers in the early 1970s, said the BCS dealt a blow not only to Cal but to the Rose Bowl. "I have to think it will be a terrible blow to the Rose Bowl people, too, because this is not a very attractive matchup, with Michigan and Texas," he said. "I don't think they'll be able to sell the game out."

"It was a major bummer," said Greg Overholtzer of Danville, who was with a group of Bear Backers at Saturday's game in Mississippi. "It was the first time I went to a Cal game when a win felt like a loss."

He said the bus that carried Bears fans back to New Orleans, where they were staying, was so quiet "you could hear a pin drop."

Overholtzer said he expected the outcome as soon as it was clear the Bears weren't going to stage their typical second-half flurry of points. "Cal had to block the extra point even to win the game," he said. "We hoped the fact (coach Jeff) Tedford took a knee (rather than running up the score) would help, but that didn't happen."

"It was terribly disappointing," said Jerome Dodson, class of '65. "I think the timing of the Southern Miss game hurt us. If we had played that when it was scheduled (Sept. 16, before it was postponed because of the threat of Hurricane Ivan), then our last game would have been Stanford. And that would have given us a bigger boost."

On the other hand, he said, "If we can keep Jeff Tedford, we'll have other shots at the Rose Bowl."

Tedford, who has resurrected the program during his three years in Berkeley, is one of the hottest coaches in the nation. Cal hopes to announce an agreement with Tedford on a new five-year contract in the next 10 days, sources close to the athletic department told The Chronicle.

The BCS outcome was "horrible, it's not based on merit," said 31-year-old Ryan Sandoval-Sullivan, who was 8 years old when he attended his first game with his mother, Gloria, a Cal alum. "Nothing against Texas, but it's just been a long time coming.

"I thought a win was all they needed. What if this game was played back in September, when it was supposed to?"

Many Cal boosters already had bought Rose Bowl tickets in anticipation of a berth. Don Mitchell, former president of San Francisco Federal Savings and Loan and a big Cal donor, had bought six. "Does anybody know how this BCS works?" he asked.

"It's terribly disappointing," said alumnus Rob Sandman of Sacramento, "but that's the system. I expected it when I saw the coaches poll (Sunday morning). The clipping call that took away a touchdown (in the closing minutes) hurt us. That would have made the score 33-16, and maybe that would have been more impressive."

On campus, freshmen Yelena Vinarsky and Dale Dualan took a more Berkeley- esque approach to the news. "We should protest," Dualan said.

At Kip's, the popular hangout a block from the Berkeley campus, the mood shifted from anticipation to frustration when the BCS pairings were announced. Wardell Myles, 31, whose parents live a 10-minute walk from the Rose Bowl, said he had bought tickets but now plans to sell them. Asked if he would make the trip to the Holiday Bowl, instead, he raised an eyebrow. "Are you?" he shot back.

Cal grad Gary Slavit of Sacramento said he would attend the Holiday Bowl at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, but he thought the BCS system proved faulty. "Clearly, there is something wrong when a No. 21 (Pitt) gets an automatic bid, but other far more deserving teams are relegated to lesser bowls."

Slavit was glad Tedford took the high road by not trying to pass for another touchdown Saturday night.

"The fact that a decision to run up a score even comes into play bothers me," Slavit said. "The BCS seems to be creating a situation where sportsmanship could be compromised. Personally, I would rather play in the Holiday Bowl knowing that I'll be cheering for a team that played with class and in the spirit of sportsmanship than go to the Rose Bowl by running up scores."

He added, "Rose Bowl or not, Cal had a great year with an incredible group of athletes that we are all very proud of."

Chronicle staff writers Janny Hu and Glenn Dickey contributed to this story.E-mail Tom FitzGerald at [email protected].

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