Tag: cal bears

Longtime Cal women’s golf coach Nancy McDaniel has died

McDaniel retired from her position in Berkeley earlier this year after 29 seasons.

Nancy McDaniel, longtime women’s golf coach at Cal died on Wednesday from cancer. She was 57. Her former player and current Stanford women’s golf coach Anne Walker confirmed her death.

A Portland, Oregon, native and former star golfer at University of Washington, McDaniel retired from her position at Cal earlier this year after 29 seasons as the founding head coach of the women’s golf program. Since answering an ad she read in a golf magazine to be the first women’s golf coach at Cal, McDaniel helped turn the team, which debuted in 1995-96,  into one of the most nationally regarded programs. Under her leadership, Cal has consistently been ranked in the top 25 nationally as she led the Golden Bears to 10 NCAA Championship appearances, 22 NCAA regional appearances, the 2003 Pac-10 Championship and the 2012 Pac-12 Championship.

“We have a saying at Cal that team stands for Together Everyone Achieves More,” McDaniel routinely would say.

McDaniel had a post-playing career defined by excellence and was showered with numerous accolades. She was named National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA) Coach of the Year, the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Coach of the Year and Golfweek magazine’s Coach of the Year.

“I am forever thankful that Cal took a chance on me 29 years ago as it led to a dream career. Having the ability to use golf, a sport that I absolutely love, as a vehicle in mentoring young women both competitively and personally has been profound,” McDaniel said when she stepped down from her post. “The joy comes from watching them step into greatness in all parts of their life and creating relationships with them that last a lifetime. I want to thank my associate head coach and dear friend Bev Terry for always handling our players with positivity, care and compassion, and for supporting me through these last eight years together.”

Nancy McDaniel
Cal women’s golf coach Nancy McDaniel talks with her Golded Bears players. (Cal athletics)

Beginning at age eight, McDaniel’s parents began dropping her off at Waverley Country Club, and she went on to Washington from 1984-88 where she was team captain, an All American and earned Pac-10 All-Decade Team honors. She played professionally for five years before becoming the founding coach of Cal’s women’s golf team. Her husband, Jay, is the head golf professional at Claremont Country Club and served as the team’s longtime volunteer assistant coach. “I volunteered him for the last 29 years,” Nancy told NCGA Golf Magazine.

After garnering back-to-back Pac-10 and West Regional Coach of the Year awards in 2001 and 2002, McDaniel led the Bears to a nation-best seven first-place tournament finishes in 2002-03, their highest-ever national ranking at No. 2 and their first of two conference championships.

She was inducted into the WGCA Hall of Fame in 2016 in the later years of a 20-season consecutive run to NCAA Regionals. She coached 17 All Americans, 31 NGCA/WGCA All-American Scholars and 43 All-Pac 10/12 golfers.

One of those players was Walker, head coach of the Stanford women’s golf team since 2012 — a native Scot, and a former Golden Bear player who was McDaniel’s first-ever international recruit way back in 1997, then McDaniel’s assistant coach for six years.

When McDaniel was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, Walker was by McDaniel’s side. And when doctors told McDaniel the cancer returned in the summer of 2023 and had moved to her stomach, Walker moved even closer.

“She’s my first responder,” McDaniel told NCGA Golf earlier this year. “When I went to the hospital in June (2023) and found out things were happening again with the cancer, she was the person there. She was my eyes and ears when things were getting emotional. She was there asking the questions.”

Last fall, Walker created the Player for Her campaign to support breast cancer research.

“My best friend has cancer, and I looked myself in the mirror and said: ‘What the hell are you doing, Anne?” Walker told NCGA Golf. “You’re hosting a tournament in the middle of October, no women’s golf tournament had any presence on the topic . . . we need to model the way and bring awareness.”

And so the Stanford Intercollegiate tournament, which is held in October during Breast Cancer Awareness month, became a platform for making a difference. McDaniel came out to watch and smiled at all the golfers dressed in pink.

“It felt like we were all on the same team,” McDaniel said of the magical weekend in October at Stanford. “We were all playing for something bigger, and playing on a team called golf.”

In 2018, McDaniel received the Kim Moore Spirit Award for her great spirit and positive attitude within the game of golf and her success as a role model by demonstrating great mental toughness in the face of challenges. McDaniel was inducted into the Northern California Golf Association’s Hall of Fame on Oct. 16 as one of four members of the Class of 2024. Husband Jay accepted the honor in the Lifetime Achievement category on her behalf during a ceremony held at Silverado Resort in Napa.

“The impact Nancy has made on Cal and collegiate golf is immeasurable. She is truly a pioneer whose legacy will be felt for a long time,” Cal Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. “Not only was Nancy a terrific golf coach, she was a role model to the countless women that came through our program for the past 29 years.”

Washington draft choice and Super Bowl QB dies at age 85

Joe Kapp had quite the story, and he was Ron Rivera’s college head coach.

Did you know the only quarterback to lead teams to a Rose Bowl, Grey Cup and Super Bowl was actually drafted out of college by the then-Washington Redskins?

He would later go on to become the college head coach of now current Washington Commanders head coach, Ron Rivera.

Joe Kapp who died Monday at age 85, was actually drafted by the Redskins in the 1959 NFL draft, the 209th overall selection. Twenty-three years later he became the head coach of the Cal Bears (1982-86) and one of his better defensive players was a linebacker, Ron Rivera. Rivera would play well enough as a Cal Bear he was drafted 44th overall by the Chicago Bears in the 1984 NFL Draft.

Back to Joe Kapp, the relationship between Kapp and Washington ended strangely, quite strangely. Here goes an attempt at it.

The quarterback for Washington during the previous 1958 season had been Eddie LeBaron. Perhaps Washington felt that having LeBaron they didn’t need the reigning Pacific Coast Champion Cal Bears quarterback, Kapp.

So, strange as it may seem, the legend is that after drafting Kapp, the Washington administration determined to not invite him to training camp, to not attempt to sign him. As bizarre as it sounds, it seems Washington decided to not even contact Kapp at all!

How in the world do you determine to not contact a player you drafted? What’s more when he had proven himself, leading his team to Pacific Coast Conference championship his senior season?

Consequently, Kapp pursued an opportunity to play in the Canadian Football League and play he did, making it to two Grey Cup title games, winning once.

When he returned to the NFL, it was to the Minnesota Vikings, where he led them to a 12-2 1969 record, playoff wins over the Los Angeles Rams and Cleveland Browns, before losing to the Kansas City Chiefs (23-7) in Super Bowl IV.

Back to the Redskins, two years after determining to not contact the quarterback they had drafted, Washington struggling without a good quarterback, drafted Norm Snead with the second overall selection in the 1961 NFL draft.

But after three seasons of Snead, Washington traded the former Wake Forest quarterback to Philadelphia for another quarterback you may have heard of …. Sonny Jurgensen.

Jurgensen played for Washington from 1964-74, set franchise and NFL records, and earned himself a place in the NFL Hall of Fame (class of 1983).

If Washington had contacted Kapp, perhaps might we have never enjoyed Sonny Jurgensen as a player or team radio broadcaster.

Bay Area bloodbath: chances of Stanford and Cal firing basketball coaches are soaring

It’s becoming increasingly harder to see how Stanford and Cal can continue with their current head coaches. That and more in this #Pac12 notebook.

It’s getting late very early in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stanford and Cal basketball are facing the very real possibility that they might have to fire their head coaches.

We can talk about how the pandemic hurts recruiting and the transfer portal. We can talk about how Cal has limited resources and will need UCLA to pay some money to Berkeley when the Bruins leave for the Big Ten. New media rights dollars will help cover the costs for the Bruins, so that Cal has more cash on hand to keep the lights on. We can talk about so many other things which limit Stanford and Cal basketball right now. Yet, none of this can be viewed as remotely tolerable.

One would have to think that in Palo Alto and Berkeley, changes are about to come. Two programs can’t be this dead, this adrift, this lifeless, this flat.

Stanford — which led by four points with 3:45 left — didn’t make another field goal in the remainder of regulation time and lost to Colorado to fall to 5-8 for the season, 0-3 in Pac-12 play.

Cal scored just 43 points and lost by 15 to Utah. Cal and Stanford are the only two Pac-12 teams to be 0-3 through three conference games. Cal has won only one game this season.

It’s not as though Jerod Haase of Stanford and Mark Fox of Cal are new coaches, either. Haase has been at Stanford since 2016. Fox has been in Berkeley since 2019.

Even with limitations existing at both schools, it’s hard to see how either coach will be around for the 2023-2024 college basketball season.

Let’s look at other notes around the Pac-12 in both basketball and football:

USC football: the state of the program entering November

We had a lot to discuss with @MarkRogersTV at the @VoiceOfCFB. We also had Cal insider @JakeCurtis53 to talk about the Golden Bears.

It’s the month of November. We got past October and Halloween and trick-or-treating. More than 60 percent of the college football season has been completed. If we aren’t in the home stretch, we are certainly getting close.

We have a weekly USC show at The Voice of College Football with host Mark Rogers. Our live broadcast Monday night tackled a lot of different topics. We invite you to subscribe to, like, and share Mark’s USC channel where we air this show plus our USC postgame show after every Trojan game during the season.

We will share the video of our show below, which — near the end — had a segment with California Golden Bear insider Jake Curtis of the Cal Sports Report before this week’s USC-Cal game.

Here’s a rundown of all the topic we hit on in this broadcast, which took stock of the USC program at the start of November:

Where did the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown go to college?

The Celtics All-Star was a 5-star recruit out of high school.

If you clicked on this headline, chances are you’re like the rest of us on the East who refuse to stay up late for Pac-12 basketball. And that’s your first hint as to where Boston Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown went to college.

The answer is he went to University of California (Berkeley), otherwise known as Cal. A five-star recruit from Georgia and McDonald’s All-American, the explosive athlete only needed one year of college — another reason you might’ve missed him.

Brown started all 34 games for Cal in 2015-16, helping lead the Bears to a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. He was the team’s second-leading scorer and rebounder at 14.6 points and 5.4 rebounds per game.

Brown struggled in the team’s first-round loss to Hawaii, scoring just four points on 1-of-6 shooting before fouling out. That was his final college game, as he entered the 2016 NBA Draft and the Celtics selected him third overall. The following year, the team landed Jayson Tatum at the same spot in the draft, forming the dynamic duo that has now led the Celtics to an NBA Finals.

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Collin Morikawa announces engagement to Katherine Zhu: ‘My love, forever’

Zhu is a former college golfer at Pepperdine with a champion tennis player for a father.

November 30, 2021, will be a day Collin Morikawa remembers for a long time.

The 24-year-old didn’t earn one of his five PGA Tour wins, four DP World Tour wins or two major championships on that day. Rather, it was the day she said, “yes.”

Morikawa got engaged to girlfriend Katherine Zhu, a former college golfer for Pepperdine, on Tuesday night, and took to social media to announce the news.

“11.30.2021 My love, forever,” wrote Morikawa, while Zhu shared, “A lifetime together forever.”

With a win at this week’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, Morikawa would become the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking. If so, he’d reach the mark in just his 61st start and be the second quickest to do so behind Hero host Tiger Woods, who reached No. 1 in just 21 starts.

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Cal Bear Collin Morikawa charges into contention at PGA Championship

Morikawa, 23, tied for the low round of the day at TPC Harding Park to give himself a chance to win his first major.

Fourteen months ago, Collin Morikawa was finishing up his college career at the University of California-Berkeley, just a short trip across the Bay Bridge from TPC Harding Park, site of the 102nd PGA Championship. Morikawa figures he played the jewel of the Bay Area’s municipal courses at least a dozen times during his college career. So, how much has that familiarity helped him this week?

“Other than knowing how to get here off the freeway without my phone and not get a ticket by the police, no, it has not helped me at all,” Morikawa said.

On Saturday, the 23-year-old SoCal native didn’t need to rely on any local NorCal knowledge because he played with the calm of a steely-eyed veteran, making seven birdies, including three of his final four holes to shoot 5-under 65 at TPC Harding Park.

“He played the kind of round today that I woke up thinking I’d like to play,” said former Masters champion Adam Scott, who played alongside him. “It was really incredibly solid. He was in complete control, really, of all parts of his game.”

With two wins under his belt, most recently at the Workday Charity Open in July, Morikawa, ranked No. 12 in the world, already has lived up to his advancing billing coming out of Cal. His ball-striking is sublime – he ranks T-4 in driving accuracy and third in approach proximity – and has served him well as he climbed up the leaderboard. Morikawa, who tied for the low round of the day, improved to 7-under 203, tied for fourth and just two strokes behind leader Dustin Johnson.

The difference this week has been Morikawa’s molten putter. If there is an Achilles’ heel in his game, Morikawa has struggled on the greens, most notably when he missed a 3-foot putt on the first playoff hole to lose to Daniel Berger in the Charles Schwab Challenge in June.

Morikawa credited his caddie, J.J. Jackovic, for helping him with his putting mechanics and learned from watching superb putters Steve Stricker, with whom he played a practice round Tuesday, and Zach Johnson, his playing competitor in the first two rounds. Morikawa’s putter remained fiery on Saturday, as he gained more than four strokes on the field on the greens and h now ranks fourth in Strokes Gained: Putting this week.

Morikawa made a pair of 22-foot birdie putts early at the third and fifth holes and a 7-foot birdie at 7 to shoot 3-under 32 on his opening nine. He tacked on a short birdie at 10 before hitting a road bump with bogeys at Nos. 12 and 13. But Morikawa wasn’t done yet. He rattled off three birdies in a row beginning at 15, and capped by sinking an 18-foot birdie putt at 17.

Could Morikawa nab his first major title in just his second start in one of golf’s Grand Slam events? Scott, for one, wouldn’t be surprised at all.

“He played major championship kind of golf today, and you know, it’s easy to say he’s got all the credentials, but he’s kind of proving it,” he said.

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First bowl game cancellation for 2020 college football season

It was only a matter of time until we started to learn the fate of some of college football’s postseason bowl games and Friday brought news that the annual bowl game played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California won’t be played this winter. …

It was only a matter of time until we started to learn the fate of some of college football’s postseason bowl games and Friday brought news that the annual bowl game played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California won’t be played this winter.

The game, most recently known as the RedBox Bowl was canceled on Friday and was first reported by Brett McMurphy.

The game matches up Big Ten and Pac-12 teams each year. Last year it was Cal beating Illinois, 35-20.

Since debuting in 2002 the game was played from 2002-2013 at AT&T Park in San Francisco before moving to Levi’s Stadium in 2014 and remaining there since.

The game has had a handful of names over the years: San Francisco Bowl, Emerald Bowl, Fight Hunger Bowl and Foster Farms Bowl before being named the Red Box Bowl in 2018.

The college bowl schedule now sits at just 41 games.

A safety prospect for the Jaguars in top-3 round of the 2020 NFL Draft

The Jags need help a CB but could use a starting safety out of the draft, too. Here are three names at the position who they could look at.

The 2020 NFL Draft will be next week and it will mark a crucial time for the Jacksonville Jaguars who have 12 total picks and need more talent on their roster. Over the last couple of days, we’ve been looking at some of the top prospects at their positions of need and now it’s time to evaluate the safety position.

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Here are three names at the position in which the Jags could be eying in the top-3 rounds:

(AP Photo/Sam Craft)

Round 1 – Xavier McKinney, Alabama

The trend of mocking a safety to the Jags in Round 1 is declining, however, when one is mocked to them it’s Alabama’s Xavier McKinney. At 6-foot-0, 200-pounds, he started in 13 games for Nick Saban last year and was a third-teamer on the Associated Press’ All-American team and a first-teamer on the All-SEC team.

Simply put, scouts like a lot about McKinney including his football IQ, coverage skills (89.2 coverage grade, per PFF), and versatility — playing in and outside the box, as well as in the slot. None of that is surprising when considering how Saban coaches the defensive side of the ball.

McKinney would probably be a reach at the No. 20 overall pick, however, if the Jags trade into the late first-round he’d make a ton of sense.

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Meet Evan Weaver, Cal’s unbreakable LB prospect

Check out Draft Wire’s exclusive interview with Cal linebacker prospect Evan Weaver

They say availability is the best ability, and if that’s true, then plenty of NFL teams should be looking to add Cal’s Evan Weaver to their defense.

One of the most durable linebacker prospects in the 2020 NFL draft class, Weaver recently spoke exclusively with Draft Wire about his career with the Golden Bears, his experience at the NFL Scouting Combine, and what he’ll bring to the next level.

JM: What a career you had at Cal. You played in 49 out of a possible 50 games. How have you been able to stay so healthy over the years?

EW: I think a lot of it has to do with good genetics, to be honest. I’ve been blessed. Both of my parents were athletes that competed at high levels, and they were incredibly durable, as well. Knock on wood (laughs). I’ve been able to carry that over to my football career. I take good care of my body. I’m always putting in extra work throughout the week of preparation. I have a pretty good routine after the game and I stick to it. It’s been working.

JM: You’ve also been such a productive tackler. You posted over 400 tackles during your four-year collegiate career, including 181 total tackles this past season. That’s just ridiculous. What is it about your game that led to such tackle production?

EW: My ability to diagnose plays has been the biggest factor in my tackle production. I always understand what’s going on around me. My instincts are also highly developed. I feel like those are the traits that have really brought my game to another level. It’s transferred over to the field.

Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

JM: What was your experience like at the NFL Scouting Combine?

EW: It was awesome. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s definitely something that I had been thinking about for a long time. Being able to participate in something like that was a dream come true. Every kid dreams about going to the combine. I was happy with the numbers I put up. I proved that I can play football at the next level. It was a blessing.

JM: What do you think is the overall impression that you left out there?

EW: I think I made a good impression out there. I think I surprised a lot of people with my 40-yard dash and agility times. I finished in the top two of the agility drills at my position. A lot of people thought I was gonna run a 4.9 out there but I quieted a lot of the critics with that 4.76. It’s all good.

JM: What’s your favorite part about playing the linebacker position?

EW: I love the contact. The contact and being able to command a defense. I love being the guy that has to make the play-calls on defense. I get to sit in the middle of the defense and take control. I love that. It’s my job to tell everybody what to do and to make sure they’re lined up. I absolutely love to hammer someone into the ground.

JM: Did you have many formal or informal interviews at the combine?

EW: I had a bunch of informals. I probably met with every single team informally. I didn’t have any formals. A lot of teams told me that we didn’t have to waste our time with the formals. They feel great about my production and my knowledge of the game. I guess they’re pretty comfortable with me. They didn’t need to put anything up on the white board to see if I knew it, they already know that I do.

Gabe Mayberry-USA TODAY Sports

JM: Do you have any private visits or workouts lined up, or will all of that be scheduled after your pro day?

EW: I have two private visits already lined up with the Bengals and Cardinals. We’re planning to take a few more visits after the Pro Day which is on March 20th. We’ll see what the availability looks like. A few more teams plan on getting me up there after the 20th.

JM: What was the strangest question you were asked at the combine? We always hear reports of a getting guy asked an off-the-wall question.

EW: I had one team ask me how competitive I was. When I told him that I was extremely competitive, he asked me to prove it by staring at the wall for as long as I could without blinking (laughs). That went for about two minutes and then he finally asked me to stop. He was like, “Okay yeah, that’s good, we’re just gonna stop here.”

JM: You’ve played against some great competition throughout your time at California. Who are some guys that stuck out to you?

EW: Justin Herbert definitely comes to mind. Sam Darnold was another one. I played against Christian McCaffrey during my freshmen year. He had to be the toughest running back I’ve ever played against. He was a tough tackle, but I was pretty happy that I got him once in the open-field on a punt return (laughs).

JM: When a team uses a draft pick on Evan Weaver, what kind of guy are they getting?

EW: I think they’re getting a winner, first and foremost. I’m a leader both on and off the field. You’re never gonna have to take me off the field. I’m gonna show up every week ready to play. They don’t have to worry about me. There’s a lot of Ferrari’s out there that are good when they can play, but when you only get them for eight games a year, they only give you a chance to win those eight. I’m gonna give you a chance to win all 16.

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