The Ron Rivera Announcement - A meaningful and yet seemingly insufficient step forward

It’s with a mixed sense of relief, excitement, hope as well as confusion and concern that we greet the news that Cal legend and NFL playing and coaching great Ron Rivera returns to Berkeley to be the GM of the football program.

Make no mistake, this has all the hallmarks of a seminal moment in the University’s athletic program, a potential life-line in a tumultuous maelstrom of conference realignment, a disempowered NCAA and student-athlete empowerment via NIL and the transfer portal.  With the appointment of Rich Lyons as Cal’s Chancellor, the University finally has a leader who not only wants athletic excellence that matches Berkeley’s academic prestige but understands its essential role in building and engaging an enduring and generous alumni and fan community around the school.  And eight long months into his tenure, he has ostensibly if not belatedly put his mark on Cal athletics with the appointment of Ron Rivera.

To put this decision in perspective, it’s important to realize that the University’s leadership has historically viewed the athletic department with what can be best be described as a mixture of frustration and not so benevolent tolerance, with the complete absence of vision or understanding of its import and potential to the school’s broader goals.   Chancellor Christ who preceded Rich Lyons, realized that athletics has been treated as a second-class citizen and elevated for the first time the athletic director to the Chancellor’s leadership team and stopped the unfair taxation and financial mining of Cal’s sports teams by the University including taking over the debt for the retrofit of Memorial Stadium.   Beyond that, she was a complete novice to College Athletics and its accelerating complexity and dynamism.   She mistakenly hired a wholly unqualified Athletic Director in Jim Knowlton and gave him the mandate of making sure the revenue sports (Football and Basketball) were “decent” while instead focusing on limiting investment into and the costs associated with running the department.  Beyond that, the goal for Knowlton would be to make sure Cal was a paragon in the eyes of both the toothless NCAA and the academic side of the University.

The net result has seen declining attendance to all major sports events, inarguably the worst seven-year performance of the Men’s Basketball team along with a Football program that hasn’t seen a winning record in conference play since 2009.  Jim Knowlton came to Cal after a short stint as the Athletic Director of the Air Force Academy.   Prior to Berkeley, he had never raised money from a donor base or managed a major conference sports program.  He came from the military where his imperative was not to lead, empower and educate his superiors whose focus and expertise lied elsewhere but rather to without question follow orders.   If there is any school in the country’s whose leadership needed to be educated and informed by their athletic leadership, it’s Cal.  

Since Knowlton has arrived, Cal’s performance in its athletic endeavors have hit an all-time low, donor interest outside of the entirely donor inspired and led Caliber funds and the Cal Legends Collective have been anemic.  What has pervaded the athletic department under Knowlton’s leadership is a culture of “No”.  Knowlton never understood or realized the importance of Football to the success and outright survival of the school’s other sports and instead knowingly and intentionally misled donors who believe they were giving to Cal Football only to disperse those funds to other sports.  The day-to-day operations of sports inside Cal are ones that require coaches to work around the administration or anguish in stifled frustration at the misaligned priorities and complete lack of imagination and creativity.  To be clear, there’s zero chance that Cal would be in the ACC right now and be anywhere close to being competitive in Football and Basketball without donors directly intervening and forcing Jim Knowlton to invest their money in the Bears football program.   And NIL, for all the disruption and discomfort it has caused, has been a literal life saver thanks to the heroic efforts of Kevin Kennedy and its donors.   

Point of fact is that the donors who created the Caliber fund and the Collective have had to fight, scratch and claw every day to overcome an Athletic Department actively standing in their way.  And coaches who have succeeded in Berkeley the past seven years have done so despite rather than as a result of the support of their leadership.

Enter Ron Rivera - Here’s a person who turned down far more money to return to the NFL and who is risking his personal reputation and brand to revive Cal Football and therefore the entire Athletic Department.  He is well aware of the track record of the program and the challenges the Athletic Department is facing and is undaunted and resolute in his belief that he can be a catalyst for positive change.  It’s hard to quantify the upside potential of his appointment and the gratefulness the Cal community must have for his willingness to take on this task.  

Yesterday’s headlines invoked an energy and anticipation that’s been missing for at least 15 years only to find that the press release and subsequent press conference worked to take much of the air of that hopeful balloon.  To not make transparently clear that Ron would have direct and overall responsibilities for all of Cal football creates confusion and sows doubt at a time where bold leadership is required.  To have Cal’s Head Football Coach continue to report to Jim Knowlton defies common sense, logic and at least optically makes it that much harder for Ron Rivera to succeed in his new role.   It’s important to understand that Football success does not start and end with the programs coaching staff.   The marketing team, the medical staff, the stadium and facilities management, the admissions department, the compliance team and so many more people impact the program every day in positive or negative ways.   It is beyond essential for all those people to be rowing in the same direction, to share the same set of priorities and to be led by a single and unified vision.

To be clear, words in press release are more often about managing optics and what we can only guess are hidden tertiary goals.   The reality may well be that Ron Rivera will be overseeing all of Cal football and have the ability to forever change the culture of “No”, to upgrade and empower the broader team tasked with making Cal football as successful on the field as the University is in its academic endeavors.  The real litmus test of Rich Lyons leadership will happen in the coming days as Ron takes on his new role.   While there’s certainly reason for cautious optimism, there’s more than enough of a track record to suggest patient skepticism.  

We’re proud that this community has been an essential part of the aforementioned donor lifelines, with more than two thirds of the caliber donors and almost 90% of the dollars contributed to the Legends Collective coming from the Bear Insider populace.  Each of you needs to come to your own conclusions about the state of Athletic Department and the potential impact of Ron Rivera’s appointment.   For now, we will be refraining from donating to the program and further will not encourage any of you to do so.  Instead, regardless of your feelings, we strongly suggest you reach out to Chancellor Lyons and share how you feel about the state of Cal Athletics, Jim Knowlton as your Athletic Director and how you believe he can best support Ron Rivera as the Cal Football General Manager.  

The Chancellor can be reached at Lyons@berkeley.edu