The value of a Cal degree didn't completely click with Jordan Rigsbee until his junior year following a conversation he had with his older brother and former Cal football player, Tyler.
Hearing about all the success his brother is having as a stockbroker made Jordan realize that getting a degree from the No. 3 university in the world and the No. 1 public university in the country opens up many opportunities to excel in rewarding careers even if playing football at the professional level does not work out.
Rigsbee and the rest of the Cal football student-athletes who are on track to graduate this year, including 14 at the end of the fall semester, have been provided a strong foundation to begin their own successful careers after their time at Cal.
When Cal head coach Sonny Dykes arrived in Berkeley in December of 2012, he made it a point of emphasis from the first day that he met with the team that success in the classroom is just as important as - and leads to - success on the football field.
His players listened.
“I'm really proud of how many student-athletes we have who are graduating and getting their degrees,” Dykes said. “I'm excited to see what they're going to do with their lives after getting a degree from this university and what it means to them. They've had to work incredibly hard to do this. To balance football and academics at a place like Cal is really impressive. I can't say enough great things about their work ethic, their level of commitment, their unselfishness and their character. A lot of these guys have been through a lot with things like coaching changes and bad seasons, so I'm really proud of them for how they've grown up while they were here. Getting a degree from this university is awesome. This has been a really fun group to work with and I feel blessed to have been able to coach and educate them.”
The 14 current Bears expected to graduate this fall are Todd Barr, Nathan Broussard, Jeffrey Coprich, Trevor Davis, Brian Farley, Jalen Jefferson, Jonathan Johnson, Trevor Kelly, Kyle Kragen, Daniel Lasco, Puka Lopa, Stefan McClure, Rigsbee and Joel Willis.
Davis perhaps put it best when he reflected on what earning a degree from Cal means to him.
“It's surreal,” he said. “You get into a groove here and you forget that you're getting a degree from the best university in the country. When you step back and think about it, you feel blessed. Getting a degree from a place like Cal is the best feeling ever.”
For some players, such as Lopa, who grew up in a low-income area of Sacramento, receiving a degree from a prestigious university like Cal means the world to their family and their community. Lopa's success could serve as inspiration to those around him to reach for their own goals.
Lasco said academics were the most important factor for him back when he signed his letter of intent in high school. Since moving to Berkeley, he has realized even more the influence that academics can have, especially after taking some classes that have made him rethink the way he looks at the world.
One of those, a writing course that focused on Hurricane Katrina hit home for the Houston-area native because he had a lot of friends who moved to Houston from New Orleans after the storm.
“I'm from the South, so I knew everything that was happening over there, but I still didn't really understand the impact and the political side of it,” Lasco said. “That class really helped open my eyes. I saw more clearly the struggles people went through during that.”
Some of these Bears will try their hand at playing professional football, while others will go directly into different areas of interest in pursuit of a fruitful career. But one thing they all agree on is how much the support they received from the Cal football program's academic advisors helped with coordinating and managing schedules and putting them in a position to succeed in the classroom.
One of those academic advisors was Director of Student-Athlete Development, Johnna Strenchock, who emphasized that one of the most important aspects of her job is to help build relationships between student-athletes and professors. Her goal is to help the professors understand what it means to be a student-athlete at Cal, while encouraging the student-athletes to be comfortable enough to approach the professors and develop their relationships directly.
“We are building a culture that puts academics at the forefront of what we do,” Strenchock said. “That was instilled by Coach Dykes, and that is what our student-athletes do. We want to educate the professors who may not be buying into our program so they will support the fact that what we're saying is really what we're doing.”
As Kragen put it, it's not a matter of who is going to graduate and who isn't, but rather that everybody is expected to get good grades and graduate.
“I don't know what it was like before, but now it seems like it's a given that everybody is going to get their schoolwork done and everybody is going to graduate,” Kragen said. “There's just a real focus on academic success here.”
One of the biggest tools Jefferson learned during his time at Cal is time management. He said that while time management is the key to every student-athlete's success at Cal, it also somewhat differentiates student-athletes with the rest of the Cal student body. When a long practice is over and players walk off the field exhausted, they know it's time to start hitting the books.
Following graduation, Jefferson hopes to go into criminal justice and become a private investigator.
Barr is another individual who has his post-Cal plan in place, pursuing a career in law enforcement beginning with entry to the police academy.
Cal's Director of Career Development, Ron Coccimiglio, helped Barr get connected with the academy, just like he's helped countless current and former Bears get started on their postgraduate paths.
“I'm trying to join the police academy and I'm going through the process right now,” Barr said. “I'm a legal studies major, and I've always wanted to do something with law. My dad was in law enforcement. Ron Coccimiglio got me connected with the academy, and they're trying to get more African-Americans into the academy, so everything fell into place at the right time.”
There's no doubt that earning a degree from Cal is a challenge, but these 14 Bears have embraced that challenge like so many before them. If future players follow McClure's advice, plenty of Cal football players will be in caps and gowns come graduation day.
“It may seem hard at first and you may feel like you're never going to make it, but keep working hard and give it your best effort,” McClure said. “Use your resources, keep your head down working hard, and when you look up, you'll see that you're a senior and you have 90 of your 120 units needed to graduate. You'll be on the verge of reaping the benefits of all that hard work.”
