RIP Roger Theder
(Written by kencraw)
Former Cal football head coach (from 1978 to 1981) Roger Theder died today.
He wasn’t the best most winning head coach Cal has ever had, but he did ensure that John Elway never won the Big Game for Stanford, even in some years where Stanford was believed to be the vastly superior team and denying him (and Stanford) any bowl experiences. He always operated with integrity in a way that made all of use Cal fans proud.
Godspeed coach Theder.
(Update: I didn’t feel comfortable with the 2nd sentence of this post. It’s been bugging me for the last day. I was trying to indicate his teams didn’t win a lot of games without in any way being critical of him. I’ve got a STRONG ‘thou shall not criticize the dead’ policy. So I’ve substituted “most winning” for “best”. After all, sometimes the best coaches in our lives aren’t responsible for the most games won.)
October 3rd, 2016 at 5:08 pm
I played for Coach Theder and served as co-captain along with Ralph DeLoach his first year as head coach in 1978. He was an excellent coach and communicator and more importantly a man of integrity and honesty. A player’s coach as it were. In the world of politics and deception, Coach Theder stood alone as someone a player could count on. May his memory be eternal.
October 3rd, 2016 at 7:20 pm
Duke, thanks for stopping by and for your comments.