Column by Art Spander
BERKELEY — His world doesn't go beyond the stadium rim. Not during the football season. That's the nature of the beast, which consumes as it reassures, terrifies as it comforts. Does Jeff Tedford know the A's are in the baseball playoffs?
"I have no idea," he answered, then added, "But I saw as I was coming to practice today, the Dodgers were playing somebody." In another sport, Cal on Saturday is playing somebody, Oregon. For Jeff Tedford, in his fifth season as Golden Bears coach, there is nothing more. "Something else could go on outside the stadium," Tedford admitted, "and I wouldn't even know it, because I spend every day here. When I get home, on Thursday night, I see my wife and family. The next day I'm right back it. Only two nights at home, Thursday night and Saturday after the game." It is just before 7 on a gloomy, damp Wednesday evening, the middle of one of the bigger weeks in memory for Cal, No.16, ready to meet Oregon, No.11.
One of the bigger weeks for Tedford, who was offensive coordinator at Oregon before becoming head coach in Berkeley before 2002. Groups of lights are scattered about Memorial Stadium, shining just brightly enough to hold practice when the sun goes down. A mist is falling, and Tedford, never one to be unprepared, is attired in waterproof Gore-Tex. Home away from home. Workouts. Training table meals. Hours of videotape. A monastic existence. For 45-year-old Jeff Tedford a necessary existence. "I really can't do it any other way," Tedford said. "I've said I'm going to try, and I just can't."
He sounds apologetic. He sounds like so many coaches, college or pro, men who fear the unknown, even more than they fear the opposition's running back. "If I wasn't doing it," Tedford explained of his methods, "I would feel like I'm taking a shortcut, and I wouldn't be comfortable. The only way I'm comfortable is to use every hour of the day to prepare, and then I have no regrets. "I will never walk away from a game saying, 'If I only would have worked another hour or two.' I don't ever want to cut any corners. If I were to go home at 10 o'clock at night, I would be miserable." The Golden Bears are 4-1. They have speed. They have size. They have a coach who doesn't concern himself about anything but the moment.
The story has been told of a young man who grew up without a father in Downey, a working class community east of Los Angeles. Jeff Tedford didn't have much — "My mom was always working, trying to keep a roof over our heads"—but he had the love of the game, instilled in him by an older brother, Dennis. "I'll never forget," Tedford said, "when I was a little, skinny freshman at Warren High School, and the varsity coach had no idea I would ever become a player, and I was wandering around outside. It was a crossroads. He called me in and sat me down and talked to me about life. I really admired that, respected that a lot."
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