Oakland Tribune: Players' antics put Tedford on spot

Column by Monte Poole

THOSE WHO support the old alma mater don't ask much of their coaches, only that he or she is smart, engaging, innovative, charismatic and, above all, able to recruit model student-athletes who play like the devil.  The latter aspect is more true at some places than others, and we are in the process of finding out if Cal still is one of those places.  Jeff Tedford is easily the most popular of Cal's major program coaches. And for obvious reasons. He took a mutt of a football program and raised it to purebred level. He knows football, is good with people, is stable and reliable, with a positive vibe.  But Tedford, whom some consider the closest God-like figure to coach at Berkeley since Pete Newell, keeps getting stung by the delicate angel/devil balance.

Tedford over the weekend received, for the second straight off-season, news about one or more of his players being arrested.  For the second straight year, the coach has had to follow a regrettable matter by issuing a statement regarding the wee-hours behavior of one or more of his players. For the second straight off-season, Tedford has had to announce that one of his players is being suspended.  The latest to find trouble is quarterback Steve Levy, who became an instant hero after shucking his backup status to lead the Golden Bears to an emphatic 27-3 win over Stanford in the Big Game, then leading them to a 35-28 win over BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl.

In a span of a month, Levy, a senior-to-be who has more desire than talent, became nearly as popular as Tedford.  But then Levy, 22, was arrested and booked around 4 a.m. Sunday, charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm after an incident at Kell's, a bar/restaurant on the southern edge of San Francisco's North Beach.  As to the specifics, well, that depends on who is in charge of the description.

One story has Levy attempting to splash the contents of a pint glass on a bouncer, only to have the glass decide to go along for the ride.  Another story has Levy being ejected from the bar and responding by picking up a glass and, as he exited, flinging it at the bouncer.  What is consistent is that Levy got into a confrontation with another man, was told to leave, threw a glass that hit the bouncer in the forehead, leaving a cut that was treated at the scene. And that Levy left the bar, only to be detained by others until police arrived to make an arrest. The whole giant headache lands squarely on top of Tedford, who was trying to squeeze in some vacation time.  He responded quickly, issuing a statement saying, in essence, that Levy is in trouble and will be on suspension at least until the extent of the trouble has been determined.  Tedford surely hated this, at least the third time in 19 months he has addressed a matter involving his players and police. The February 2005 arrests of defensive back Bernard Hicks and wide receiver Robert Jordan followed by two months the arrest of tight end David Gray.

Then there were the team members who were said to be in a dispute with Meleia Willis-Starbuck shortly before she was shot and killed last year, allegedly by a friend she had summoned for assistance. The charges against Hicks, Jordan and Gray were minor enough to be dropped in some cases, reduced in others. The same very likely will happen with Levy.  Which is not to suggest these incidents are irrelevant to the student-athletes, the victims or, more to the point, the coach who recruited them.  The Levy matter is the latest incident involving a football player that reflects on Cal in a way that brings a measure of shame to alumni who once made shame-avoidance a very high priority.  Indeed, Cal's emphasis on character over talent may have been a factor in the school appearing in one bowl game between 1959 and 1990.  In the real world, though, where big-time schools chase big-time talent, there always are risks. Heck, Levy is proof there is risk with those who have less than big-time talent. Winning sometimes requires a change in culture. Yet a culture tends to change once it gets a taste of winning. Tedford has changed the culture, made it more conducive to winning, but Old Blues are uncomfortable with seeing their school linked with arrest reports.   When athletics director Sandy Barbour last week signed men's basketball coach Ben Braun to a three-year extension, the reaction in the Cal community was a mix of puzzlement, resignation and grudging acceptance.  What must be considered is the influence of the Haas family, lead dogs among major donors and solidly in Braun's corner. What everyone has to concede is that Ben's recruits may transfer at a dizzying rate, but they don't generate the wrong kind of headlines.  That actually gives Old Blues a sense of pride — the kind of pride that comes harder if a coach makes a habit of addressing the behavior of his players.  Unless that coach is even more godlike than we know.