He joined the Cal Bear football team in late August, 2008, and three days later handled kick-off duties against Michigan State. He burst onto the scene at Memorial Stadium, unknown to all but a few fans, and first became known as, "Who is he?"
He was - is - 5-8 173 lb sophomore Giorgio Tavecchio, who wears number 40, and who now is engaged in an intense competition with sophomore David Seawright and freshman Vince D'Amato (the latter joining the team this fall) for kicking duties in the 2009 season.
In 2008, Tavecchio played in 10 games and assumed field goal kicking responsibilities after Seawright was injured prior to the October 18th game against Arizona. Tavecchio hit 25 of 25 PATs and 9 of 13 field goals, scoring on average 5.2 points per game. His longest field goal was 42 yards.
Before Cal, Tavecchio attended Campolindo High School in Moraga, CA, and twice made the academic honor roll while competing in two sports - football and soccer. As he describes in the attached video, his tryout for football was on a whim, an idea from a friend that has now become his primary (sports) focus at Cal.
On April 11th this year, in the midst of spring football, we interviewed Tavecchio on the sidelines at Memorial after a practice session. We heard from him about both his history with football and his experiences so far at Cal.
He hails originally from Milan, Italy and has lived in several locations in the United States with his family before settling at Moraga and now Berkeley. His Italian heritage is evident in his description of the events that have brought him now to his competition at Cal for the starting kicking slot.
The attached video is a bit long - about 13 minutes - but very worth watching if readers can make time for it. Tavecchio is an engaging character with a positive outlook on life - a young man who believes he is living at the best possible time and in the two best possible places in the world: Italy and California.
[Editor's note: Because this is a large file, please be patient with the download. We are exploring means of adding Flash videos to this site to greatly diminish download times for future videos.]
The video: click here.
