What’s up, Fam? It’s been a couple of weeks since I was here – long for me – but I’m good and we’re back. I don’t know if you heard but there were some things that transpired in Los Angeles recently. I can’t lie, it was hard as hell to focus on sports while fires were raging.
Case in point, I literally stopped a mentally unstable person from committing arson an hour ago. Let’s just say it’s real down here. But you know that. I guess I’m both making an excuse and saying the truth as to why I’ve been out of the loop for the last week and a half. I don’t know how it’s going outside of the scores. I’ll do a video about the NC State game, though.
Anyways, this isn’t a big hoops breakdown as much as a check-in. I wanted to do this 10 days ago, but then boom. Fire. Then I was trying to move next month and had to change that to now to avoid price gouging. Besides life delays, emotionally I had no choice but to take my time. On any given day this could be too joyful, sad, mean, or biased.
But we’re good now. Let’s begin.
A few days ago I got a call from Eric Beegun. If you’re an OG, you might remember him as the tight end from back when I was in school. We don’t speak often, but I’ve run into him at Cal events. He’s always been open ears as it pertains to the Cal culture I’d like to build.
Anyways, he calls and asks if I’m okay. I tell him I am, safety-wise. He then goes on to talk about the community of Cal football alumni in LA looking to come together to support fire victims. I’m slightly taken aback because I wasn’t expecting him to say that or to include me in the conversation. I let him speak.
Uninterrupted, he continued talking about how they got over 20 guys together for the LA Bowl. How they’ve started to build a new community down here and how excited he is to try and bring more alumni together. The fires have given him new resolve to find and connect with everyone.
“Here’s the problem, Rod,” he said as he ended his monologue, “I reached out to Cal about what they’re doing to support and I was told they’re sending out swag packs.”
“Swag packs?”
“Swag packs.”
“I love the initiative,” I said, “but I’m unsure what a package full of cal shirts does right now. I get that people need clothes, but where do they even mail the packs?”
“Rod. Exactly.”
We spent another few minutes on the phone as Eric explained his plans to create a hub for fire victims at his own damn house. Since then he’s locked in a date to host a support event.
When: Monday, January 27th, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Where: The home of football alum Eric Beegun, Class of 2006
What: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches by Albino Fuentes (manager of Cafe Vida Palisades), drinks & sweets
I’ll take this time to say if you know him, reach out. If you want to help support what he’s doing and you don’t know him, reach out to me and I’ll connect you. The man really cares.
Okay. All of that is a precursor. I’ll now ask a question that I asked him: why is it his responsibility to do any of this at all?
If you listened to the Mendoza podcast, you know how strongly I believe in the alumni and our ability to do things differently. The coolest thing about the time that has followed that podcast is that alumni from all spaces have called, emailed, DM’d, or Tweeted me trying to connect. But, still, we all know one thing for sure: if we’re building anything, we’re building it alone. And yes, every single athletic alumni I’ve ever spoken to - like EVERYone - is tired of that.
I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I’m going to try something entirely different. If you’ll allow me to pivot:
Since I don’t know who to talk to on an official basis, I wonder if we can pull something off. I’m unsure how many of you are aware or considerate of the fact that the NBA All Star game is coming to San Francisco next month. I’ve been talking to all kinds of people about how Cal can be involved in activities. TBH, maybe Cal reps are doing the same thing, but if so, we haven’t talked to the same people.
One such possibility, which I lightly mentioned before, is bringing The Hoop Bus to Berkeley. The bus will be in the Bay area for over a week visiting schools, painting courts, doing murals, and hosting official NBA All Star events, with Mistah FAB, LaRussel, and others. And that’s just on the Oakland side.
The CEO, Nick, called me to ask what ideas I have for Berkeley specifically. I mentioned potential former Peoples Park murals on the construction perimeter, courts, and above all, a HOOPBUS pull up to the Wake Forest game on Feb 8. I also told him I was thinking that the women’s teams play two games closer to the date of the All Star game, and maybe we could work together to bring them some spotlight too. He was feeling all the ideas, and asked a simple question: “Is there any way to do this officially? Like in coordination with the program?”
I told him I have no idea. I told him I can’t even get the basketball staff to sit down for an interview after a year and a half. I told him nobody gets back to my emails unless I’m replying to them. I told him I’m tired cause it’s hard as hell trying to do this from afar while broke. BUT I still told him I’d try, because despite all that I keep showing back up. Just like all the other alumni I know. Maybe that’s what binds us more than anything.
For real though, if there was a way to work with Cal in an official manner, we’d be the only school in America with that kind of access. I told Nick that Cal is poised to become a big brand and that the bay area is hosting a ton of major events in the future that could take it to the next level. He agreed.
But like I said, I’m starting to flame out a bit. It’s hard to try to have this conversation with ten different people alone, without support, and hope for the best. So, here’s my ask. Anyone got ideas? Connections? Even a random thought? It would be crazy if we got the bus out, got some local legends (or even like Jaylen Brown or anyone else in town for All Star) to come out, and did some sort of art project to honor guys on the team or the legends or both. I know it’s late in the game, but even with just a few weeks this can be pulled off, as most All Star events come together at the last minute anyway. These are things Nick does with ease at other schools. For whatever reason he hit me up about Cal and here we are.
Maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. But to me there’s a world where we have big stuff like this loaded up and coming down the pipeline with regularity, changing our brand image and how our community functions. And with All Star this year, the World Cup next year, and the Super Bowl, All star, and Olympics coming to LA, we have a chance to do something special and create an environment that speaks for itself. And the cool thing is that people want to work with us.
Let’s get it done, Bear fans.
