Was/is an absolute monster. In my opinion, if he had stayed 4 years, he would have been considered an all-time Cal great. His freshman year he was robbed of Pac-10 Freshman of the year. His sophomore year he was one of the most underrated basketball players in the nation. He got absolutely no national recognition, mostly because he wasn’t on a tournament team. Look at that team. The people surrounding him were pretty much awful (PChris was the only other good player on the team. This was back when Jerome Randle was the Nate Longshore of basketball). His starting point guard had a 1.2-1 A-TO ration. ERIC FUCKING VIERNEISEL AVERAGED 24 MINUTES A GAME ON THAT TEAM. I think I would give Vierneisel a run for his money in a pick-up game. He had a .298% on threes and still shot 84 of them. And don’t even get me started on Devon ’I’ll give effort when I feel like it’ Hardin. The point is that Anderson was that team. He was the only reason we made it to the NIT. That team minus Ryan Anderson would have had single digit wins

I am still angry that he never got any national props. Look at his stats that year: 21.1 PPG, 9.9 RPG, 49% from the field, 41% from three, 87% FT. He almost (and look how close he was) threw up a 20-10 in one of, if not the toughest conference in the nation. The Pac-10 was getting abundant love that year thanks to Love-Mayo-Bayless-Lopez twins-Budinger-Harden-Afflalo-that whole Wazzu team-etc. However, the guy who was most valuable to his team and who arguably had the best season that year got no love at all.

Ryan Anderson: the unloved Cal great.

Nnamdi Asomugha — California Golden Blogs Hall of Fame

Nnamdi Asomugha is the true embodiment of a California Golden Bear. On the field, Asomugha propelled himself to become one of the top secondary players in football while at the University of California. Playing safety at Cal, Asomugha was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in 2003 with the 24th overall pick where he then became a cornerback. What a cornerback he would turn out to be.

Since the first day, Asomugha has had to prove the doubters wrong. Many questioned whether or not he was worthy of the high selection, but he silenced all of them for good. After his eight-interception season in 2006, Asomugha earned the reputation of a being a shut-down cornerback. In 2007, one scout told Pro Football Weekly that Nnamdi Asomugha was thrown at "less than any defender in the last ten years." The following year, Nnamdi saw even less action. Opposing quarterbacks tested the top-notch corner a mere 27 times. Asomugha allowed only eight receptions all year. He’s a unanimous All-Pro selection on every team and has earned the right to be called, undoubtedly, the best cornerback in the National Football League. He is, without question, the undisputed leader and the heart of the Oakland Raiders.

Nnamdi Asomugha graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Finance in 2006. More importantly, philanthropy has been a huge area of focus for the pride of the Silver and the Black. He has been partners with the East Oakland Youth Development Center since 2004. He emphasizes the importance of education, hard work ethic on and off the field, a positive attitude, and a healthy diet.

In 2006, Asomugha launched an annual high school college tour program. Each year, he teams up with the East Oakland Youth Development Center to take students from Bay Area high schools on college tours across the country. Additionally, Asomugha distributes backpacks to the incoming freshmen each year at Narbonne High School in Los Angeles. He also outfits the football and basketball team with shoes, a mandate he wrote into an endorsement contract he signed with Nike.

Not only does Asomugha help within his community, he also helps in his mother’s homeland of Nigera, since he’s born of Igbo descent, an ethnic group in southeastern Nigeria.

Education and community service are his mainstays. Asomugha serves as Advisory Board Chair for his family’s foundation, the Orphans and Widows In Need (OWIN) Foundation. Through OWIN, Asomugha and his family provide food, shelter, medicine, vocational training, literacy efforts, and scholarships to widows and orphans victimized by poverty or abuse in Nigeria.

To top all of that off, Asomugha met with former president Bill Clinton to discuss the importance of global service and student activism at the Clinton Global Initiative University.

President Clinton’s youth initiative designed to challenge college students to take action on some of the most pressing global issues in areas such as education, poverty and global health

Here are some of the awards that Nnamdi Asomugha has been noted for off of the football field.
Outstanding Community Service Nomination (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008)
Commitment to Excellence Award (2006)
Commitment to Excellence Award (2007)
Home Depot Neighborhood MVP (2007)
Sports Illustrated 2008 Sportsman of the Year (2008)
“Do Right Men of 2008” by Essence Magazine (2008)

Here are some videos on the best cornerback in the NFL.
Nnamdi Asomugha Highlights
Nnamdi Asomugha: Pro Bowl Special
Nnamdi Asomugha Photo Montage

You ever seen a caged bear? Pacing back and forth in a cage, angrily eyeing the people outside . . . just as soon as this door opens, I’m going to eat each and ever last one of you.

That’s what it was like seeing Willard occupy the middle linebacker spot from 1991 to 1994. Taking over from another really great linebacker in the middle (Mick Barsala), Willard terrorized quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends with his massive hits, amazing sideline-to-sideline speed and his knowledge of the game. I’m not old enough to have seen Nickerson or Riveria play, but between them and Fujita/Bishop/Follett – Willard was the MAN. He was the best tackler I’ve ever seen – even including pro linebackers. Wearing his little half shirt he was the monster of Strawberry Canyon.

Unfortunately his knees gave out after 4 years on Memorial’s Turf and he never really played in the NFL for the Chiefs.

(Once I get home and use my VPN, I’m going to C + P some of Tightwad Hill’s column about Willard . . .and find a photo with him and his little half jersey)

Nowadays we take big point guards for granted. But in 1991 and 1992, aside from Magic Johnson, there wasn’t really any big player taking the ball off the rim, powering down the court on the fast break and then either pick out the open (wo)man or take it to the rim for a lay-up. But before players like Lamar Odom, Penny Hardaway, Diana Turasi, Alana Beard, Jalen Rose and Steve Smith were on the scene – Misha was the bridge between eras (okay, not really, but work with me).

Standing 6’1" but handling the ball and running the Bears offense with flair, the Belgrade native was nicknamed by the Cal atheltic department as “Lady Magic” – she was voted All Pac-10 twice and Kodak All American once – leading the veteran Bears (um, I’m going to guess as to who was on that team – Jackie Lear, Trisha Stafford, Ingrid Dixon, Keisha Martin, Kim Robinson?) to a Sweet Sixteen Berth.

Here’s what the Cal Athletics site has to say about her:

One of Cal’s only first team Kodak All-American (1993) in women’s basketball history…Vukadinovic propelled the Golden Bears to NCAA postseason berths in each of her two seasons with the program…two-time first team All-Pac-10 choice led Cal to the 1992 and 1993 NCAA playoffs…a member of the Yugoslavian National Team, she would have competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics if her country had not been banned…Vukadinovic, also a GTE Academic All-American and two-time first team Pac-10 All-Academic choice, ranked as high as fourth in scoring average (15.7 ppg), sixth in assists (358) and third in three-point shooting percentage (.389) among Cal’s career leaders…voted the school’s women’s basketball Player of the Decade for 1986-96.

Personal Memories – I made it to every woman’s basketball game I could – especially when Misha was playing. I have this weird love for big point guards -Magic, Steve Smith, Penny, Billy Owens, Lamar Odom, TMac (2004-2006 only), are among my favorite players – and Misha joins them. I can still see her pulling the rebound down and “powering out” (like Magic used to) and then finding Jackie Lear with a one hand 30 foot bounce pass, or shaking her defender with a left to right behind the back dribble, before nailing the 3. Before the age of do-it-all women players – she was it. Could handle the ball, rebound, score, shoot from distance, pass and was a decent defender.

Coach Clark, a Cal rugby alum himself, deserves to be up there on the list of integral people associated with Cal. He has guided Cal rugby to 19 national titles since he took over in 1981. He led Cal to an unprecedented 115 game winning streak.

Winning was not necessarily the aim. Rather, it was a by-product of excellent preparation, attention to detail, dedication, and perservearance. He teaches his players to be thoughtful, selfless, and responsible adults. Clark is quick to point out that Cal rugby is completely self-sufficient and is comprised of non-scholarship athletes who earn their keep on and off the pitch.

After all, Clark is accustomed to overcoming incredible odds:

The following month Clark attended a party at the house of an acquaintance in San Francisco and went outside to help break up an altercation. He ended up squared off against a man with a 9-mm Magnum. The assailant, who was under the influence of PCP, fired at Clark, hitting him four times. One bullet shattered his left femur, another the left fibula. At San Francisco General Hospital, heavily sedated and suffering significant nerve damage in the leg, Clark was confronted with the possibility of amputation. One night, while drifting in and out of consciousness, he awoke to a lecture on prosthetic limbs from a hospital counselor. “I called up one of my mates,” Clark recalls, "and said, ‘I need you to get down here, and whatever you do, don’t let them take my leg.’ "

Clark hung on, enduring a 45-day stay at the hospital and then more than a year of physical therapy. Eighteen months after the shooting he ran a 10K. “When something like that happens,” he says, “you’re either going to be a victim or you’re not.”

For example, rather than his team do bench press excercises, he has them do pullups:

"We do a lot of pullups because they’re great for grip strength" said Coach Clark. Picture this: if you’re lifting your opponents up into the air by gripping onto their shorts – be it in a scrum, a ruck, or a maul – you have to rely on your gripping, pulling and hoisting muscles.

On top of this, Clark volunteered to coach the USMC rugby team in the offseason.

To honor his efforts, the marines presented Clark with this American flag (above) that was flown over Camp Ripper in Iraq on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. It is one of his proudest possessions.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Clark on Stanfurd refusing to play Cal in rugby:

“We lose to Stanford in many sports, but if you want to make a Cal team quit, bring a weapon.”

For the better part of four decades, Bob Milano was the heart and soul of Cal baseball. He played catcher for the Bears in the early 1960s. Then, after a brief semi-pro career in western Canada and a decade coaching and teaching at Burlingame High School, Milano returned to Berkeley in the ‘70s to serve as the Bears’ assistant coach and assistant athletic director. All of this was prelude, though, to his 22 years at the helm (1978-99), during which his teams’ 668 wins made him the winningest head coach in school history. Earlier this year, Milano was elected for induction into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, topping a long list of career achievements, which also include the following:

• two-time Pac-10 Southern Division (the “Six Pac”) Coach of the Year
• “Six-Pack” championship in 1980
• three College World Series appearances (including a 3rd-place finish in 1980)
• Olympic gold medal as an assistant coach of the U.S. National Team in 1988
• head coach of the U.S. National Team in 1997
• coached 15 All-Americans, 49 all-conference selections, and 1998 National Freshman of the Year, Xavier Nady
• fourth person in Cal baseball history to have his game jersey (No. 7) retired.

When I arrived at Cal in 1985, Milano was the senior member of a triumverate of charismatic coaches leading the three major men’s sports. Indeed, he seemed a perfect fit alongside football’s Joe Kapp and basketball’s Lou Campanelli. None of their teams were conference (let alone national) powerhouses, but all three men instilled a competitive fire in their players that made them a lot of fun to watch. For Milano, this meant the occasional belly-to-belly, nose-to-nose rhubarb with the umpires that always livened up an otherwise lazy weekend afternoon at Evans Diamond, and given the intimacy of the setting, fans were always well within shouting distance themselves. Alongside the series with Stanford, I always looked forward to the Sun Devils’ annual trip to Berkeley. ASU was, arguably, the premier team in the Six-Pack, and it was clear to all that Milano had a less-than-friendly relationship with his counterpart from Tempe, the late Jim Brock. I don’t know the full story, nor how much their feud extended beyond the diamond, but it centered around the 1988 College World Series, when Brock’s Devils handed Milano’s Bears a painful first-round loss using a bit of gamesmanship that stretched the boundaries of conventional baseball ethics. Leading up to the game, Brock had implied that he’d start his right-handed ace against Cal, only to surprisingly start the left-handed Rusty Kilgo in his place. As the New York Times explained, Brock was happy to ’fess up to the deception:

Brock said that he had not lied, since he had not specified a starter. When asked if his move was a breach of etiquette and whether it would affect Pacific-10 relations, Brock said: ‘’If you had to sacrifice 20 years of good relations to win today’s game, I would have done it.’’

Milano said he did not intend to speak to Brock about the issue. ’’I’ll file it away,’’ Milano said.

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, while a fierce competitor himself, Milano has long been revered around Berkeley as a gracious gentleman. That was certainly the impression I got in the few interactions I had with him myself, during my days at KALX. Ohio Bear recalls the same:

It was my play by play broadcast debut in the 1990 season. It was a brutal season for Cal baseball, but Bob Milano was the same old Bob. Anyway, we went down to the field to do the Bob Milano show taping and my broadcast partner informed Coach Milano that it was my baseball broadcast debut.

Bob: "That’s great. So is your mom going to be listening?"
Me: "No, not that I know of."
Bob: "Well, if your mom’s not even listening, I guess you’re not any good."

Awesome. (Yes, he was kidding.) Broke the ice nicely for my nervousness.

One of the things he was always gracious to do was the "Bob Milano Show," a pregame show that was pure Bob monologue. He’d take the mike and go 5 minutes. Awesome. It was a never fail lesson in baseball and candor, with the occasional funny malaprop. My favorite of all time was during a season in which a USC baseball player named Mark Smith shred us. He batted something like .600 against us that year and won 2 games with game-winning HRs. Yet, for whatever reason, Milano kept calling him "Chris Smith" over and over again. Gave him props, sure. But never got his name right!

And the Bob Milano legacy at Cal is far from complete. His son, Bob, Jr., is the Assistant A.D. for Capital Planning & Management. There is also a Diane Milano on the staff, who manages Cal’s Spirit Groups, but I don’t know if she and the Bobs are, indeed, related. (And to be honest, I’m assuming Bob and Bob, Jr. are father and son, but that is subject to fact checking.)

In the 1990s, Joy Fawcett became the world’s most famous soccer mom. One of the mainstays of the pioneering U.S. women’s national team (239 caps over 18 years), Joy played on the World Cup–winning sides of 1991 and 1999, and she also twice won Olympic gold in 1996 and 2004. While attacking players such as Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy attracted a bit more of the spotlight on those teams, Fawcett’s role was no less integral to their success. Indeed, Joy was a true fixture on the back line; she played every minute of every game in the 1995, 1999, and 2003 World Cups, as well as the ‘96 and 2000 Olympics. She did all of this while being mother to a growing family of three girls. A National Soccer Hall of Famer, Fawcett is arguably the greatest outside back the women’s game has ever seen. U.S. attacks often began with Fawcett’s accurate distribution from the flank, and she pushed forward enough herself to score 27 goals during her career on the WNT, most ever by a defender.

I first remember seeing the not-yet-married Joy Biefeld on the back page of the Daily Cal in the mid-to-late 1980s. This was a pretty dismal time for Cal sports, so any news of national-level success grabbed my attention. In 1986, the soccer stories were all about a young Brandi Chastain, who was national Freshman of the Year at Cal before transferring to Santa Clara. But ably stepping into her shoes in 1987 was Biefeld, whose offensive skills would be on full display. A three-time All-American, Biefeld amassed 55 goals and 23 assists during her Cal career, leading the Bears to the national semi-finals two years in a row. Joy was national player of the year in 1987, when she scored a school-record 23 goals.

Joy and her husband Walter now run Saddleback United Soccer Club in Mission Viejo.

• National Soccer Hall of Fame profile
• profile at Cal website
• Joy Fawcett profile on the WUSA website
• 2004 interview with USA Today
• story about her life today in OC, and living with rheumatoid arthritis