Merced Sun Star: Cal's rise has been 20 years in the making

By James Burns

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Sam Parker knows what it's like to race out onto the pitch at Memorial Stadium under a rocking chorus of "Go Bears!" chants. He lived that life -- first as a player in the late 1960s and then as an assistant coach during the turbulent '80s.  So imagine his excitement last Saturday when the Bowl Championship Series was nearly thrown off its axis with Stanford's upset of USC. "I was watching the Florida-LSU game, thinking 'My God, we might be No. 1,' " said Parker, now an assistant coach at Buhach Colony.  "LSU pulled it out, obviously, but the big thing was holding off Ohio State." Cal did. The idle Bears -- still spinning after Stanford's miracle win -- jumped to No. 2 in the polls on Sunday morning without playing a single down. How big was the leap for those in Strawberry Canyon? Cal hasn't been ranked this high since 1951, when it held the top spot for one week.

Naturally, Parker was elated. Like many of the kids he coaches now, the sprite 57-year-old immediately jumped on the phone to share his joy with friends and family. He placed his first call to Bob Gregory, Cal's defensive coordinator. The lifelong pals talked about destiny, handling business against Oregon State this Saturday, homecoming and the prospects of a national title. "We were both saying how (the players) just need to focus on each game and not get ahead of themselves," Parker said.  "One of the motivating things this week was that SC game,"  he added. "Stanford came in prepared, and when Southern Cal couldn't put them away, you kinda knew..." The Bears were golden.

Parker, who has sat in Section F, Row 23 for every home game since 1989, can hardly fathom the attention and notoriety his alma mater has generated under Jeff Tedford.  "It's absolutely incredible," he said. "You go back on game day and see old teammates and players and you see how prideful they all are.  "The fellas they got playing now are the best they've had there in over 50 years. "The fact that they are winning is gravy. It's just awesome, but..." And here's the kicker. It should never have taken Cal -- an institution with unlimited drawing power and global appeal -- this long to be this damn good.

National title talk should have flooded the streets of Bezerkley two decades ago when Parker was still a coach. Parker remembers a program in constant flux when he took a job instructing the linebackers in the early 1980s.  It was dark and gloomy and a bit unsettling as head coaches came and went like the four seasons. "The Bears had fallen as far down as you possibly could,"  he said of the football climate. Parker was there as the program bottomed out, exhausting seven coaches before finally finding Tedford. There was Mike White, who took over the program during Parker's senior season. White kept the Bears competitive in the Pac-8, but he often rubbed the university the wrong way. Apparently, graduation counts for something. Enter Roger Theder, a master recruiter who left a lot to be desired as a coach. Theder attracted some of the land's best talent to the den, but... "He couldn't coach them." By the time Joe Kapp took the reigns in 1982, the Bears were an endangered species. But the turning point came during the Bruce Snyder era from 1987 to 1991. The job, Parker says, belonged to someone else. "In hindsight, the coaches that came and went, it all had purpose," he added. "But I'll also tell you that -- and this is me speaking -- they should have hired Jim Sochor instead of Snyder. "It would have speeded everything up by 20 years." Sochor is a legend among college football enthusiasts, and he did just fine without the gig at Cal.

He led UC Davis to an NCAA record 18 consecutive conference championships, and owns conference winning streaks of 41 and 38 games.  And just as Bill Walsh did for so many others, he lit the coaching paths for Oregon's Mike Bellotti, Colorado's Dan Hawkins and Boise State's Chris Petersen. In fact, those three would have been part of Sochor's staff had he been given the job. Bellotti would have run the offense, Hawkins would have orchestrated a mean "Division-I football!" pass rush and Petersen... Well, we know what kind of miracles he can work. "Bruce did a good job, but his intentions were 'Hey, I probably won't be here in five years,' " Parker said.  "And for me, that short-changed the players." Oh, what could have been. But trust me, you won't catch Parker fretting too much about opportunities lost -- not with his Bears winning games and surging up the national polls. "It's been a long, long evolution," he started, "but now we have a chance to do something special this year." Something they could have done 20 years ago.