Daily Cal: Former Bears Do Battle on Japanese Gridiron

BY Ryan Gorcey

It turns out that bowl season isn’t quite over for the Cal football program. The Bears still have one more to go: the New Era Bowl.  While the name bears the familiar corporate stamp of many college bowl games, the game shares little else in common with the NCAA’s postseason match-ups. Rather, the July 8 game will be played in Kensai, Japan and feature former Cal players along with current Bears coaches instructing a Japanese football team and then playing against another team coached by a contingent from the University of Hawaii.

Former Cal players Chase Lyman, Tosh Lupoi, Joe Maningo, Mike McGrath, Tom Sverchek and Reggie Robertson will fly to the Land of the Rising Sun on June 30 along with quarterback coach Kevin Daft and defensive line coach Ken Delgado for a week of preparation followed by the game itself.   “Basically it’s almost like a corporate league over there, like the top football players in Japan,” Cal spokesperson John Sudsbury said. “They do it every year. They pick two colleges each year, and our coaches and those players will coach the team for a week and then they’ll go up against another team.”  The former Bears players will coach and play for the Blue Star team, while

the Rainbows will coach and play for the White Star team.  “The players serve as player-coaches,” Sudsbury said. “They’ll coach during the week and then actually play in the game.”  Lyman is the most notable of the Cal alumni, last playing for the Bears in 2004 before being drafted by the New Orleans Saints. Prior to his senior season being cut short by a knee injury suffered in the team’s fourth game of 2004 against USC, Lyman had 14 catches for 414 yards and five touchdowns.

Robertson last played for Cal in 2004 as a backup to now-Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Robertson is most noted for coming on in relief of Rodgers against the Trojans in 2003, when the Bears crushed USC’s national title hopes in a 34-31 triple-overtime upset.  Lupoi, a former Bears defensive lineman, should feel at home in the role of player-coach, as he is currently a graduate assistant for Cal after finishing his collegiate playing career in 2005.  Maningo was an All-Pac-10 honorable mention linebacker in his senior season of 2004, tallying 45 tackles and six sacks.  Another 2004 Pac-10 honorable mention, McGrath, made 19 total tackles—12 of them unassisted—in his final season for the Bears. He was a special teams standout in his four years for Cal, earning a scholarship after walking on in his freshman year. Sverchek, a defensive tackle, was signed by the New England Patriots in 2005 after being named to the Pac-10 All-Academic team in his 2004 senior season. Sverchek made 30 total tackles in his final campaign for the Bears, and had 5.5 sacks.  The coaches accompanying the players, Delgado and Daft, are entering their sixth and fourth years with Cal, respectively. Delgado’s 2004 defensive line, of which several of his traveling companions were a part, allowed just 82.5 rushing yards per game, good for second in the nation.  Daft came to Cal as a graduate assistant coach after a six-year professional football career, which included stints as a quarterback for the Tennessee Titans, the San Diego Chargers, Atlanta Falcons and San Francisco 49ers.