Gilby Situation Latest Chapter In Cal’s Laughable Grid History

Just in time, the problem with California’s football program has been solved.

Now comes the problem with California’s football program.

As long expected, Keith Gilbertson won the Publishers’ Clear Out Sweepstakes Monday. Four years plus a bowl game, and his reward was the horse’s head and a terse memo from Operations asking him to leave the key to the executive film room.

And if we are to believe the bleatings of the wronged alumni at Cal, the firing was well justified.

Of course, most of the alums also believe that having Gilbertson on the arm for three more years means the birth of a grand new era in Cal football. The ninth since Pappy Waldorf rode into the Eisenhower sunset back in the mid-‘50s.

Waldorf is also the last Cal coach to leave under his own volition. That was in 1956, for God’s sake.

Since then, there has been a steady stream of coaches deemed unworthy to lead the Bears to sixth place. Marv Levy won eight games in four years (and another 125 in the NFL, which is almost as good). Then came Ray Willsey, who evaded alumni radar for eight years by having only two losing seasons. Then Mike White for six, before he fell afoul of the powers that ran the foundry. Since then, the coaches have been a blur.

And now, Gilbertson. Promised seven when he signed a five-year extension two years ago, and now skidding on the snow after four.

Which is why nobody should be all that excited for Gilbertson’s expulsion, or for the hiring of his successor. Because there seems no reason to believe that the next guy will be able to combat the athletic department’s endless reservoir of impatience.

Consider - there is only one school in the Pac-10 that has hired more coaches since Waldorf retired, and that is Stanford.

Every other conference school, even Oregon State, has gone to the employment well less often, and every school has had at least one coach who got more years on the job than Willsey. And in case you wondered what this meant, Cal also has the second-worst record in the conference since Waldorf retired. Four decades, and all they have to show for it a lousy T-shirt that reads, “Better Than The Beavers.”

Then again, every other school has a clear vision of what it expects from its football program and what it is willing to chunk in to make it happen. Cal? No idea then, no idea now.

And no idea when the new guy is hauled up in a few weeks to explain how his regime will be different.

It is odd to consider that the same day that Gilbertson was losing the last three years of his contract, Bill Curry was being retained at Kentucky despite finishing 4-7, because it would have cost the university a cool million to whack him. Cal wriggled off the Gilby hook for less than 300K.

Thus, Truth One: Cal doesn’t pay like a school that wants to win.

Football costs money, and lots of it. Cal lost Bill Snyder because it waited so long to make him an offer, and has spent the last four years cursing him for his disloyalty.

But Snyder and White also moved on unhappily because they unnerved the powerful. White, by trying to operate independently of his athletic director. Snyder, because his boys talked smack after every big play.

They were winning, but not quite the right way. They were also the only coaches to escape Berkeley with winning records.

Thus, Truth Two: Cal wants to succeed at football until it actually does, then it gets nervous about its success. The school that gave you Mario Savio gripped by gridiron Calvinism - beautiful, bleedin’ beautiful.