Our next match=up of the weekend features a basketball star in Jerome Randle taking on a football legend in Joe Kapp, in Joe's own region no less. Randle was the leader and ball handler for the 2010 Pac-10 champion Golden Bears and really grew in his time at Berkeley while Kapp is a former Cal player and coach who had some great moments for the Bears including being the head coach on the sideline for The Play. He is also the father of former Cal fullback Will Kapp.
Randle got here by narrowly beating Wesley Walker and Kapp advance by virtue of a romp over Pete Cutino. This match-up comes out of the previously mentioned Joe Kapp region and the winner will move on to face, the winner of the DeSean Jackson / Ken Montgomery vote. You can take a look at the full bracket here and see all the upcoming match-ups for yourself. The full write-ups are after the jump and the voting for who moves on will end on Friday. GO BEARS!
(2) Jerome Randle
Jerome Randle Cal Highlights (via sharkswarriorscal)
Avinash provides some thoughts:
I talked a little about Randle in our Remembering the Seniors post.
Randle's evolution as a player was remarkable. When I first watched him sophomore year I cringed watching him run the offense. I don't play much basketball, but when I do I'm usually the point guard, and the things Randle did are NOT things that would make my teammates happy. The shots themselves weren't that bad. I'm guessing if he was taking them in the first place he was hitting them in practice, and the next two years proved he could make those shots.
No, it was the lack of ball movement and inability to get the ball to the bigs that really exasperated me. The process of watching our plays developed was chaotic, and not in an enjoyable Nellie-ball sort of way. You could see the team unravel during conference play as they ran into smarter and more efficient teams. That's the point guard mantra--run the offense, make your teammates make happy. Bad point guards lead to bad teams, and that was what Cal was in 2008.
(The most curious thing was that Randle and Ryan Anderson never really gelled. Although people opine what would've been if Ryan had returned for a year (or two) with Monty, Jerome probably would've left as he was already on the fence after the Braun firing, and we'd have probably had two years of Nikola Knezevic running point guard. Think we're Pac-10 champions this year if that happens?)
His maturation was exceptional under Monty though. First he got the alpha dog streak as the team's on-the-court leader in his junior campaign. That he went from an inconsistent shooter shooter to one of college's most efficent offensive players (53rd in the nation in 09) in a year without great bigs to set picks for him lends credence to Montgomery's teaching methods. Amazing what putting a system in place does for good players.
Second, his endurance for a guy his size was exceptional. He played an average of 35 minutes the past two seasons, and that's including blowouts. And it wasn't like the guy was taking plays off either--he handled the ball on over a fourth of our possessions the past two seasons. It not only underscored the importance of Randle, but the faith Monty had in letting him play those long minutes. It wore him out last season, but his performances were solid from beginning to end this year.
Finally, he embraced his teammates and ran with them as they ran with each other. Although his 2009 campaign was more spectacular than his 2010 season, I felt he played even better this year. He sublimated his individual talents in search of the team goal, which was the conference crown. The final stretch of the Pac-10 season (where they won nine out of their last ten games) was perhaps the best basketball he ever played as a Bear. He stepped up when they needed him, he stepped aside when others were ready to carry the load. And they got that conference ring.
Jerome Randle Highlight Reel 2009 Full Version (via eirving)
(3) Joe Kapp
fb Where are they now? Joe Kapp OSU (via calathletics)
Led Cal to the 1959 Rose Bowl
Member of the '56-57 and '57-58 basketball teams that won the Pacific Coast Championship
Led the Minnesota Vikings to the SuperBowl
Named Pac-10 Coach of the Year in his first year coaching at his alma mater
Coached The Play
Not afraid to throw down at the age of 74
From his Calbears.com profile:
Former the head coach of the California football team...Kapp quarterbacked the Bears to their Rose Bowl appearance in 1959...earned first team All-American honors following the '58 season named by Time magazine and the Football Writers Association...was the starting quarterback for three years, leading a miraculous turnaround from a 1-9 team in '57 to the 1958 PCC title and a Rose Bowl appearance in 1959...Kapp is the only man ever to appear in the Super Bowl, Grey Cup, and Rose Bowl...also lettered in basketball in 1956 and 1957 in which the Bears made two NCAA Tournament appearances...had a fine pro football career, spending eight years in the Canadian Football League and leading the BC Lions to a pair of Grey Cup appearances before moving on to the NFL, where he led the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl in 1970...voted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 1984...served as President and General Manager of the British Columbia Lions in the CFL in 1990.
Reader TheScientist019 gives his two cents:
"He may not be able to drink tequila anymore, so let's give him the CGB HOF instead!"