Changes

Cal has a terrific two-part, for now, video of the return of Cal Football on their website. "Back in Berkeley" is very well done and gets my Cal blood bubbling. For some reason the housing of the football players for training camp in Bowles Hall surprised me. I'm not sure why it would surprise as Bowles is right next to the facilities and very close to the practices at Witter Field. Once I was over my ridiculous surprise I was excited to see my first glimpse of the sparkling new High Performance Center. It's for all the student athletes but the football team has obviously made it their home. Cal's facilities were so antiquated that they must have appeared as some kind of a joke to many recruits. "Ok, where's the real stuff at?" Compared to their Pac-12 foes, Oregon in particular, it was a joke. But the facilities sure were quaint in a 1920's kind of way. Now, they are spectacular. The recruiting playing field is a little more level. Cal's had some terrific recruiting classes under head coach Jeff Tedford. Future classes could be even better. More important, and the real reason for the new facilities, is better performance on the football field.

Another little nugget shown in the "Back in Berkeley" video was the custom helmets. In my day I was just tossed the next helmet on the pile. Obviously this is a different century and a much greater level of football but it was quite interesting to see the custom fitting of the helmets. The helmet itself was fitted and padded particular to the individual player. Then a facemask was selected from dozens on shelves. That incredible selection amazed me the most. Picking your own perfect facemask. Brilliant! Then of course you have to select the perfect chin strap. That wasn't as exciting as your own personal facemask but it was still pretty neat.

Cal really did put together a nice video of the football team getting started at training camp. The Flea Flicker says "check it out" if your a fan of Cal or a fan of college football in general. Nice stuff.