The curse of Mote?
University president is link between two athletic programs' shocking tailspins
by Evan Millar
March 15, 2005
Three years ago, Terrapin fans cheered a resurrected football team to a surprise Orange Bowl berth and a top-tier men’s basketball team to its only national championship.
This season, those fans ended the football and basketball regular seasons with little to root for.
The Terps earned neither a bowl spot nor an NCAA men’s basketball bid this year. The downfall is unique, a statistical anomaly shared by only one other school: University of California-Berkeley.
But while the schools sit on opposite coasts, they stand together in history. And their fates are linked by one man — Dan Mote.
Yes, that Dan Mote.
“It’s déjà vu all over again,” the university president said with a laugh. “Am I the plague?”
Mote was earning his first of three degrees at Cal in 1959, when the Golden Bear football team made the Rose Bowl and when the men’s basketball team won an NCAA championship. His first date with future wife Patsy was that next year at the 1960 NCAA tournament, where Cal again reached the Final Four.
Yet by the time Mote earned his doctorate in 1963, those two teams had already fallen off the map. The 1961 Golden Bear football team finished 1-8-1. In 1962, it finished 1-9.
“I didn’t go to the Rose Bowl. I went skiing instead,” Mote said. “During those times, we went to the Rose Bowl fairly often, so it didn’t look strange that we went. If I had known that would be the last time they’d gone in 45 years, I would have gone. If they went this year, I would have flew back there.”
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Cal basketball started to struggle as well. After making the tournament every season from 1957 to 1960, the Golden Bears missed the NCAAs in consecutive years — a startling streak considering their Final Four appearances just two years earlier.
But even when Mote left Cal briefly from 1963 to 1967, the struggles remained. When he returned as a professor, it seemed to solidify the curse. In his 31 years on that university’s faculty, the Golden Bears did not return to their level of prominence.
Cal football did not make a bowl until 1979 and did not win one until the 1990 Copper Bowl — not one of the most sought-after destinations. Even with Mote gone and NFL prospect Aaron Rodgers at quarterback the past few seasons, the Golden Bears still could not make the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl or Sugar Bowl — the four most desired postseason appearances.
California men's basketball returned to the NCAAs in 1990 and increased its appearances as Mote’s tenure there neared its end, making trips in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997. With Mote gone, the Golden Bears made consecutive trips from 2001 to 2003.
But while Cal reached the Sweet 16 twice since its downfall, it has not advanced further and has not Danced the past two seasons.
The Terps, meanwhile, benefited — at least briefly — from Mote’s arrival. In 2001, three years after Mote took over as president, Gary Williams took Maryland to the Final Four. A former Terp football player, Ralph Friedgen, arrived that spring to revive a once-prominent program.
In his first season, Friedgen led the Terps to a 10-2 record, including their first ACC championship since 1985. The Terps earned an Orange Bowl spot for the first time in 46 years. Months later, Terp men’s basketball reached its second-straight Final Four.
The Terps knocked off such powerhouses as Connecticut and Kansas to reach the title game, where they defeated Indiana. Seniors Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter rolled around on the floor, overwhelmed by emotion.
Similar emotion was rarely seen this season, both on the football field and in Comcast Center. Terp football had few bright spots this season, aside from a 20-17 upset of No. 5 Florida State — the program’s first win over a Top-5 team since 1983. But they finished 5-6, the worst season in Friedgen’s tenure.
Gary Williams also saw a similar inconsistency. The Terps learned Sunday they will not be in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1993, a fate that was likely sealed by the Terps’ loss to Clemson in the first round of the ACC tournament.
“It’s always hard on the team,” said Mote, who was at the game. “I feel so much for the players who put their heart and life into this. But they’ll keep going. They move on.”
The Terps and their fans hope so. And Terp nation and Mote hope Cal’s history does not repeat itself in College Park in the coming decades.
“It’s very important to the university. It creates a common basis for all people,” Mote said. “They come together in athletics like no other thing they have here.”
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