Cal Gives Game Worn Jerseys Old College Try

Think pro teams are the only ones who turn throwback uniforms into collectors items (and make a nice little chunk of change in the process)? Think again. Cal's recent foray into a special football past has resulted in some serious bidding.

The University of California may not have quite the tradition of some college football powerhouses, but during the 1970s, the Bears were big-time, thanks in part to an inspirational quarterback.

To honor the memory of Joe Roth--and create a little excitement among players and fans-- the school's athletic program got together with Nike and ordered a lockerroom full of complete throwback uniforms they wore in the USC game earlier this season.

Now, the game-worn uniforms--jerseys, pants and helmets-- are being sold on the school's website. There's a charitible side to the whole thing.

The story of how it all came together is a little more complicated than you might think:

When the Cal football team took the field against USC in its Joe Roth-era, mid-70s retro jerseys, it brought a big smile to long-time Cal fans who have fond memories of royal blue jerseys and the outstanding Bear teams of 1974 and 1975. And with the helmets and jerseys now available via auction through Monday, November 19th, Bear fans can own a little bit of history.

By going to Cal's official online auction site, one can find a range of game-used jerseys/pants and helmets that will be available November 19, 2007 at 10 a.m. PST, with the caveat that bidding may continue past the deadline until a period of three minutes goes by without a bid.

As of early Friday, aside from the #12 jersey/helmet/pant combination that has an opening bid of $1,000 dollars, the jerseys that have been the target of the most intense bidding thus far have been the #4 -Offense jersey (worn by Jahvid Best) at $970, followed by the #1 - Offense jersey (worn by DeSean Jackson) at $680 and the #56 - Defense (worn by Zack Follett at $640).

The decision to use the throwback jersey was such a closely guarded secret, that not even the players knew that they would be worn for the USC game until a week before the game, and even reporters who got a glance at the helmets during a Tuesday practice were sworn to secrecy.

With the jersey now out, and with replica #12 jerseys now available at shops in and around campus, it's now safe to tell the story about the planning that went using the royal blue and gold jerseys.

Equipment manager Ed Garland, who was largely responsible for helping manage the process, spoke about it.

"Last year,during the season, as we were switching over to Nike to have them do all of our sports, Nike sent over a design team," said Garland who in his third year as equipment manager after coming from the University of Oregon. "They got together with a few players about what they we'e going to do and they talked about bringing the past to the present.  They did a site inspection and walked through campus to see what's important and what our traditions were. Then they met with a group of players and sat down and brainstormed for 2 1/2 to 3 hours."

As ideas were being tossed about, one quickly surged to the forefront.

"Nike came back to us with a bunch of ideas. One being that Joe Roth was a big part of Cal football, and we've always done a Joe Roth game against the southern California team that we're playing.  So they asked how about a throwback? Throwbacks are always popular.  Nike went to the drawing board and said this is what we've got - this is what a Cal Bear should look like, and they showed us a bunch of designs, one of which was the Roth throwback and the guys loved it."

While the Roth-era throwback was one of the jersey ideas that was considered, others included new versions of Cal's standard home and away jerseys. One of the designs that did not make the final cut was an early prototype that showed up on eBay that had yellow lines on the side. Someone who bid at the jersey and won it, appeared at one of head coach Jeff Tedford's eastern speaking engagements.  Tedford asked the fan about the jersey. The fan replied that this was the jersey that Cal would be wearing during the upcoming season. This led a puzzled Tedford to call Garland shortly thereafter.

"Ed, are we getting new uniforms next year?"

"Coach, I don't have that kind of power."

As the choices were being narrowed down, schedule issues and production turnaround times needed o be addressed

"We looked at the design and in February they looked at the schedule and tried to figure when they could be unveiled.  For a uniform you need several months to be able to produce it. We looked at the schedule and saw that USC was the last home game, and Washington and Stanford were on the road. They didn't want to launch a new jersey on the road. It also would have been tough to get those jerseys done on time, but they would be able to do the Joe Roth jersey in time. With the possibility of Joe Roth movie, a chance to make a tribute to the parents, it seemed like the Roth jersey would be the better way to go."

Roth holds a special place in the hearts of older Bear fans. He was the quarterback of the 1975 Pac 8 co-championship team. That year's team started off slowly, but by the end of the year had a decisive win against USC on national TV, followed by another big win over Washington where he threw for 380 yards on a game that was shown to most of the nation, and was followed in a few weeks by Chuck Muncie's monster of a game in a 48-15 Big Game vistory over Stanford where accounted for running, receiving, and passing touchdowns.

By the end of the year, the Bears were playing as well as anybody in the country, but were denied a shot at the Rose Bowl due to some curious decision making by USC John McKay in their game against UCLA. As the quarterback of that team, Roth showed the leadership, the poise and the physical ability that caused people to compare him favorably with Cal's previous quarterback, Steve Bartkowski, who was an All-American during his senior year and ended up being the NFL's #1 draft choice.

Roth, who had already recovered from cancer prior to coming to Cal, began to suffer a relapse during the 1976 season.  Yet he fought through it and continued to play.   Very few people knew the severity of his condition and it wasnt until after the season did people know that he played the last half of the season with melanoma. Roth passed away on February 19, 1977.

His #12 jersey is the only Cal football jersey that's been retired, there's a graphic on the signing along Memorial Stadium's west side, and each year's home game against a Southern California opponent is the Joe Roth Memorial Game.

With all of this in mind, there was always going to be a sentimental push to commemorate this year's game with the jerseys used in their mid-70s styling.

"In March, Nike sent a sample of clothing, so we could get a look at the fabric, .his was a special Dri-Fit fabric for Nike promo schools like FSU and USC. It was a better, more durable fabric and it didn't retain water.  Thank God we had them last weekend."

After getting a few samples and trying them on and estimating sizes for the upcoming year's roster, the order was placed.  At this point, players have been trying on different jerseys but they haven't been told what jersey will ultimately be chosen and when that jersey will make its debut..

"On May 15th, we gave the go ahead and everything was in the works. We ordered jerseys for all of the numbers, 1 through 99, but we weren't sure what we're going to do with the helmet.  We've got a game helmet and a practice helmet, and we were thinking about painting the practice helmet."

Although using the helmet with the block C would appear to be an obvious choice, making that decision was, like everything else during this planning process, something that had to be reviewed, studied and agreed upon. Helmets aren't of the one-size-fits-all, and great care was needed in not just choosing the color scheme, but making sure all of the different parts for the helments were all of the same color.

"Once we started going through two-a-days, we settled on the helmet, want the pants would be, the face masks would be white.  (Head manager) Norman Mo was phemonenal in keeping track of everything during this process. The helmets were going to be Green Bay gold and we were going to have white parts on the helmet. We had them shipped to San Leandro over to Riddell All-American.and they were going to paint them with a gold flake that would give the helmets an extra sparkle under the lights.  If we were going to auction them off, we wanted to have them look nice."

The decision to auction off the throwbacks was made early in the process, and was guided by storage and financial considerations.

"When we decided to do it, we thought about what we were going to do with them afterwards.  We didn't have any place to store them," said Garland.   "Doing something like this is probably a once every 10 years sort of deal, and then we asked ourselves where's the money to pay for this coming from and how are we going to pay this back?"

"Around July or August we went to marketing, and we told them what we were doing, and how we wanted this to be a surprise and we needed a marketing plan. (Assistant Athletic Director of Marketing and Promotions) Matt Terwilliger contacted a lot of schools, like Florida and they'd auctioned them off. So we had to decide which auction house to use, and we saw that CSTV had done it for Tulane, which was doing an auction in the aftermath of Katrina. We had a working relationship with them so we decided OK, let's do it."

There was also a question about how to auction off the items.  The detail and quality of a jersey and helments that are used in games is substantially different than the replicas that are available in and around campus, so the decision was to peg the opening price at a little higher than their original cost.

"At first there was some thought about bundling the helmet, jersey and pants together for an opening bid of $500, but then we thought that might be a little high and that maybe people didn't want everything. Maybe some people just wanted the helmet, or maybe others just wanted the jersey, so we thought we'd separate them and leave an opening bid of $250."

While the decision to go ahead with the throwback jersey and helmet was made, it was kept as a surprise from the team.  Occasionally, there would be questions from the players, but those were usually met with shrugs of the shoulders and denials.

"All year long, players kept asking, 'when are we going to do the throwback?"

With the various boxes of equipment and supplies coming in and out of Memorial, stashing away a few boxes of uniforms weren't going to be a problem.  Working on the helmets was going to require creative logistics.  Besides getting the painted helmet, each helmet needs a face mask put on it and a chin strap.  A large shipment of 100+ helmets wouldn't be easy to hide and would certainly arouse suspicions.

"Under the cover of darkness, we took the helmets first to my garage, and then we created an area down in the stadium in an area we call the popcorn room. Moose (Equipment Manager David Moosman) cut some plywood and built this area, We wouldn't let anyone in there other that me, Moose, Norman and Brett (Assistant Equipment Manager  Brett Flores).

"There we worked on the mask and the helmet. We brought them in early and got the face mask and parts of the helmet on and completed them, and boxed them up. This was a very gradual process.  On the Sunday before the USC game, we still had six helmets to make.  We wanted to get them ready so we'd be able to introduce them to the team at the 2 o'clock meeting."

With helmets, pants and uniforms in place, it was now time to figure out how to let the team know they would be wearing the new jerseys. 

"We talked to Coach (Tedford) and said we needed to get a uniform model.  Joe Roth's roommate was at the meeting and he talked to the team, and we gave out our awards for the Washington State game. Coach then said, "To honor Joe Roth, we're going to have you guys wear the uniform." And when coach said that and Tony Felder came down the stairs, dressed head to toe in the helmet, pad, and pants, the guys went nuts."

"The next challenge was how to keep it a surprise from everyone else. In this day of the Internet, message boards and social networking sites, secrets aren't kept for very long.  While the players tested the helmets for fit during the Tuesday practice, some thought was given to closing practice to keep the surprise.  While practice was eventually opened up for media and family members, media relation representatives went to each reporter twice, asking them to not report on the helmets.

"And while suspicions were certainly aroused by the sale of the royal blue Joe Roth #12 jersey at the ASUC Store and Bancroft Clothing, and the Bank of the West promotion giving away caps with the block C and a loose rumor could be found here and there, no official word from anybody associated with the team or anybody privy to decision let it slip out.

Come game day, there was an extra buzz as those who showed up early would see one player, and then another, come out of the north tunnel wearing the royal blue jerseys.   The new jerseys were not without incidents, though.  With a new jersey, a slightly different cut, and a tighter fit, they weren't sized like the uniforms that the players had worn during the previous nine games.

"Before the game, I was walking around the field and I get an emergency call and they tell me they need me in the locker room right away," said Garland.  "So I run up there and everybody's in a panic because DeSean can't get his pants on.  They're a little tighter and you can't just jump into the time. You have to step into them and work them up slowly."

Even after a rough game with USC, the uniforms and helmets emerged in fine shape.   The uniforms held up well and with the game being played on Memorial Stadium's Momentum Turf, there were no issues with staining.  A couple of helmets might have gotten a few light dings during the course of the game, but they all held up well.

Aside from the special packages that combine the #12 uniform, jersey, and pants, everything featured in the current auction has been game-worn.  A subsequent auction will take place for the uniforms of players who didn't dress for the game.  A complete set of helmets, pants, and jersey will be set aside for athletic director Sandy Barbour, the Roth family and coach Tedford.  A few other items will be set aside for the Gridiron Classic and also major gifts.

Although Garland and Moosman have gotten some calls from curious collectors, don't worry about some mega-collector swooping in and buying up the whole lot, thus nullifying everybody's bid.

"If somebody tried to do that, I'd hang  up on them."