(This is the fourth and final post in a four part series taking stock of just how momentous Saturday’s opening game against Nevada will be, coming home to the newly renovated Memorial Stadium. Read the previous ones here: Part I, Part II, Part III)

Today is game day! The day we’ve all been waiting for. The day that’s been 23 years in the making, or at least 10 years, depending on what you want to start with.

And there’s only one thing to finish my 4 part series with: A thank you to the man who made it happen, Jeff Tedford. There’s just no other way to say it, the new California Memorial Stadium complex with the Simpson Center is the house that Tedford built.

I know for some of you who have been unhappy with Tedford’s performance, it’s hard to see it in that light. Similar to how Protestants often have trouble accepting the term ‘Mother of God’ for Mary because of their aversion to the Catholic view of her, you need to get over the aversion. Just as if you accept Jesus as God (as Protestants of course do) and Mary as her mother, there’s no getting around ‘Mother of God’ being accurate, there’s no getting around there is one and only one person who’s responsible for the events of the last decade.

This IS the house that Jeff Tedford built. He demanded it when he arrived. He stuck around when the going got tough, even when the enticing call of other jobs, even in the NFL, came his way. He persevered, doing his best to keep his team focused on winning even when there were smelly hippies in the trees beating their drums. He did his best to keep the team focused when they were homeless, both when the Simpson Center was being built and when they had to play away from home at AT&T.

So… as much as I’m expecting the Bears to win tomorrow and am optimistic about the season (particularly if Maynard makes the leap that we are hoping for), Tedford can no longer do wrong in my eyes. His place as one of the greatest coaches in Cal history is secure.

The Bears could face-plant tomorrow and have a disastrous 2 or 3 win season, and I think he deserves another year in 2013. The man that built Memorial Stadium deserves one more year. He could repeat that performance in 2013 and likely be released by the University (as would be appropriate at that point) and he will ALWAYS have a fond place in my heart.

This will always be the house that Tedford built.

Continuing down my theoretical timeline, Sandy could replace Tedford with an unknown assistant coach named What A. Bonanza for a small salary and take us to the Rose Bowl, winning the conference, in his first year, and this would still be the house that Tedford built. It would be the one of the greatest moments in Cal football history. New blogs would be started, “BonanzaIsGod”, “AnotherRoseBowlWithBonanza”, yet it would still be the house that Tedford built.

‘What’ could take the team to a national championship game and win the following year in 2015, securing a place in Cal football lore that could never be taken away from Mr. Bonanza, but it would still be the house that Tedford built.

Point being, it doesn’t matter what happens to Cal football from this moment forward, Tedford has accomplished something remarkable, something that many, many people thought could never be accomplished in Berkeley. He managed to change the culture not just of the football team but of the campus. While in many ways the campus was ready to finally stop living in the shadow of the 60’s and embrace a richer, ironically more diverse existence, it was the football team that brought that issue to a head.

See, the way I see it, the tree-sitters where never about the trees. They were about the culture of Cal. It was a battle for the heart and soul of Cal: Was Cal a campus that was trapped in the late 60’s and would be perpetually in protest? Or would it be a campus that moved on, even while embracing that history as an important time, even something to be proud of, but that times had moved on and it was a new era at Cal?

Somehow, Tedford managed to take on the semi-impossible task of being the leader of the movement the reclaimed Cal to something bigger than just the protest. In many ways, he was just a football coach and was just the catalyst. It’s even unfair to him to put that much weight on his shoulders.

But even just as a catalyst, it was a key moment for Cal. California Memorial Stadium will be forever changed, will forever be a symbol of the ‘new Cal’.

And it IS the house that Tedford built.