Players trying to get peers to go to Memorial
Coming off a season that produced some of the sparsest turnouts in Memorial Stadium history, Cal players are taking the task of boosting attendance into their own hands.
After Tuesday’s practice, many of the players trekked down the hill from the stadium to pass out water and schedules and help students move into their dorms — an effort they hope will make them more relatable and ultimately inspire their peers to attend games.
“A big problem at Cal is trying to get students to games, whether they’re more interested in staying at the pregame parties or just aren’t interested in football,” said redshirt freshman tight end Collin Moore ,a founding member of the campus’ sports business club and someone who has discussed the attendance issue at length with head coach Justin Wilcox. “We talked a lot about painting the football team in a better image.
“... I think there can be disconnect between some of the students and those on the football team, so little things like this can be a huge help.”
Cal drew an average of 36,548 fans per game last season, filling a Pac-12-worst 58.5 percent of its 62,467 seats. Half of the conference schools filled at least 91 percent of their stadiums for home games in 2017, and only Cal and UCLA (60.6 percent) were beneath 75 percent.
Save for an outlier season in 2011, when the Bears played at AT&T Park, attendance numbers at Cal have dropped in nine of 10 seasons since cresting at 64,318 on average in 2006. Cal went 10-3 that year to complete a three-year run that included a .757 winning percentage, three Top 25 rankings in the final Associated Press poll and three bowl berths.
The Bears have made only two bowl appearances during the skid. Passing fancy: Cal’s top returning receivers — Kanawai Noa (undisclosed injury) and Vic Wharton III (personal issue) — progressed to sevenon-seven drills Monday and even some 11-on-11 periods Tuesday.
“They’ve been great teachers, but now they’re practicing and applying what they’ve been teaching,” receivers coach Nicholas Edwards said. “... It helps the group to see what it’s supposed to look like. It helps the quarterbacks to get more timing with the guys they’re actually going to throw to.
“Overall, it helps the team big time.” Spare time: Cal spent Sunday’s off night at Albany Bowl, splitting into 20 teams for a camaraderie-building competition.
Quality-control coach Erik Meyer’s 203 edged offensive coordinator Beau Baldwin by one pin for the best individual score among the staff, and kicker Gabe Siemieniec was tops among the players. A group that included inside linebackers coach Peter Sirmon, tight end Ian Bunting, cornerback Camryn Bynum, running back Patrick Laird, right guard Michael Saffell and inside linebacker Evan Tattersall won the team title.
As for Wilcox’s team, he joked: “We were the team with the most room for improvement.” The next chapter: The youth reading program Laird created in April has gained so much traction that the running back recently got to sit down for an interview with best-selling author Michael Lewis.
Laird wanted to chat about one of his favorite recent reads, “The Undoing Project,” rather than Lewis’ more famous “The Blind Side,” which sparked the conversation’s most amusing line. Lewis asked: “You know it’s about football, right?”