Well, it finally happened. Cal has submitted.
At least that's the view of sportswriter Ray Ratto, who in February gave a tongue-in-cheek admonishment to the Bears faithful after UC-Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said that his school's athletics department should try to be more like Stanford's.
Ratto, writing for espn.com, was referring to Berdahl's comments in the San Francisco Chronicle suggesting that the Cardinal athletic program is worthy of emulation. "The Stanford basketball team certainly has some players who are definite NBA prospects, but they didn't come to Stanford just to play basketball," the chancellor said in an interview with the newspaper.
Later in the article Berdahl noted, "Stanford has carved out a niche where they can get the top athletes who are also top students. . . . They have a good overall program, winning the Sears Cup every year."
Wrote Ratto: "This is troublesome. . . . We want Cal fans taking to the streets. In fact, we want them to take to the streets of Palo Alto, emptying the Starbucks of frappuccinos and the Sharper Images of plutonium-powered Palm Pilots."
Meanwhile, Cal Monthly, the alumni publication of UC-Berkeley, wondered out loud whether the Bears should capitulate once and for all. "Should We Drop Football?" read a headline in February. "It was telling that, following the 2000 version of Big Game torment, no one threw frozen oranges at the Stanford Band," wrote Carolyn Jones, a former Cal Monthly assistant editor. "No Cal fans stormed the Tree. Everybody just shrugged and politely filed out of Memorial Stadium.
"After so many seasons of unfathomable disappointment for fans, maybe it would be best if the new [athletic director] swiftly pulled the plug. They shoot horses, don't they?"
