Sunglasses have come in handy for the laid-back football coach
By Dave Newhouse, STAFF WRITER
BERKELEY — The coolest look in college football can be found in Memorial Stadium. It's the man wearing the shades, Cal's Jeff Tedford.
C'mon, name another college gridiron figure cooler than Tedford, who stands in front of the Andy Smith Bench on game days, coolly eyeing the opposition without the opposition eyeing him behind his dark sunglasses.
Tedford's stoic presence, his baseball cap, and his ever-present shades make him the coolest dude in the game. He's a cross between Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" and the cop who peers inside Janet Leigh's car in"Psycho."
And what easily separates Tedford's coolness from the rest is his bobblehead doll, which is also fitted with shades, plus a headset and a play chart. Most bobbleheads look like somebody else's, but Tedford's is the spitting image. Just plain cool, baby.
Even his Cal players notice his cool breeze appearance.
"I can relate to that in Australia; the shades are the whole Gold Coast image where I'm from," senior Cal punter David Lonie said. "But coach Tedford is one of a kind out there. He isn't really fashionable, but it's California, a sharp look. He's stylin'."
"It's cool, it's coach Tedford, it's how he is — a laid-back coach, a laid-back look," said senior defensive back Harrison Smith from Oakland. "I don't know if it's an intimidation factor. But he's got those sunglasses on, he sits back and watches. And because you can't see where he's looking at, you gotta be going, gotta be moving."
Tedford's chief coolness statement is his expressionless face behind the sunglasses. The men in NASA's control center aren't this impassive. John Wayne wasn't any cooler as he drew his gun, and he didn't wear shades.
The coolest thing about Tedford is that he doesn't want to be cool. It's not about image, he swears. It's about keeping the sun out of his eyes.
"It's for the sunshine," he said the other day. "I don't like to squint. I can look at things clearly without having to squint."
Tedford doesn't wear prescription glasses. He has 20-20 vision, but he said the sun's glare affects his eyes.
"When you're concentrating on game-plan stuff,
you get a headache enough," he said. "Wearing glasses is much easier on my eyes. I have great vision. I can see anything, read anything. But I probably have very weak eyes when I face the sun or when the wind bothers me."
Though nonprescription, Tedford's shades are the right prescription for Cal football. He's beginning his fourth year in Berkeley with a 25-13 record, two bowl appearances, a No.9 national ranking, and having produced three consecutive winning seasons at Cal for the first time in 52 years.
But the shades he had on the other day hid his angry eyes as he reflected on last December's 45-31 Holiday Bowl thrashing by Texas Tech, and his players' "confidence turning into arrogance" in San Diego.
Thus it was a sensitive time to ask Tedford for his impression of his dead-on bobblehead doll, which left him less than impressed anyway.
"I'm not a fan of the bobblehead anyway, just because it makes me uncomfortable," he said. "But I didn't have an opinion on it one way or another."
The Tedford bobblehead was a Cal marketing ploy. But that doll is, nonetheless, the best bobblehead around as far as authenticity and creativity.
Coaches have their own identities. USC's Pete Carroll is the eternal cheerleader, hugging his players incessantly. Washington's Tyrone Willingham is the pacer, leading the NCAA in frequent sideline miles. Ohio State's Jim Tressel is the career Marine — close-cropped hair, tie, military bearing. Florida State's Bobby Bowden is the coaching grandfather. Texas' Mack Brown is ... let's not go there.
But the last thing Tedford wants to be known as is a cool cat.
"I don't look at it that way at all," he said. "The sunglasses are so I can see."
Shade it any way he wants, but his shades still are the coolest, the hippest, the raddist, the most.
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