CBS Sportsline: Oakland native Lynch a pillar of Cal's Berkeley campus

By Dennis Dodd

There is a point where Oakland and Berkeley cozy up next to each other, though hardly holding hands. The California campus -- bastion of free thought, home of Nobel laureates -- shoulder-to-shoulder with gritty, urban Oaktown.  "It's probably a lot different than a lot of places in the world," said Robert Jordan, a junior receiver at Cal from East Oakland. "It's everything that you see in the movies -- high crime, drugs. ... You just have to keep your head on straight."  That tells you a lot about what you need to know about the two cities and Jordan's celebrated cousin, Marshawn Lynch. Cal's junior tailback also grew up in Oakland, on Telegraph Avenue, five minutes from the Berkeley campus. But he finds himself -- at least figuratively -- elbowing his way onto those campus banners that celebrate the school's Nobel winners in economics, physics, chemistry and literature.

Read the entire article here.