Cal football receives unexpected donation

A Cal spirit member celebrates a touchdown as the California Golden Bears play the Idaho State Bengals in Berkeley.

Somewhere a grumpy former Cal football player is griping to his kids.

“Why, when I was on scholarship I didn’t have a fancy pod to sleep in between classes. I either crashed on the Memorial Glade and hoped the Frisbee golf team wasn’t practicing, or I slept with the tree sitters.”

Times are changing. According to Bear Insider, “An unexpected but eminently logical donation from Cal grad and donor Kevin Kennedy brought eight sleeping pods designed with enough spaciousness to comfortably sleep large human beings” and five recliners to what is now known as the Bear den.

The gifts, custom designed in Europe, arrived just before the current season.

“When I first got here, you’d go in the lounge and we had these little couches that were about four feet long, more like love seats,” Cal head coach Justin Wilcox told Bear Insider. “And in the year I’d been here, every time you went in the lounge, the lights would be down and the TVS off and the guys were curled up taking naps because of where our stadium is relative to their dorms and apartments and school. They often have just an hour or so between a workout or meetings or class.”

The pods – imagine a beer can on steroids or a bobsled that could accommodate a 300-pounder –close fully, Wilcox said, “with nice pads, with pillows and blankets.”

There are rules, of course. Athletes “have to shower before going in and you bring your own pillow and blanket, and no food and drinks,” Wilcox said. “They’ve been awesome about it. I go down there a couple times a day and walk through there and guys are totally out, which is great.”

Kennedy told Bear Insider that he solicited ideas from former Cal coaches Jeff Tedford (who famously slept in his office multiple nights per week during the football season), Sonny Dykes and now Wilcox.

“I always said, ‘What don’t you have that you need to get to the Rose Bowl? What is it that you’re missing that will help you win the conference?”

Clones of Aaron Rodgers and Desean Jackson would be a nice start.