November 16, 2009

A.W. Prince
BearTerritory.net Senior Writer

There are a number of ways to describe Jeff Tedford, especially on the recruiting trail. Without a doubt, he's one of the most likeable guys on the planet. The moment you meet him is the moment you root for him. Some people seemly have that undeniable likeability to them and "JT" is one of them. It isn't hard to notice the reaction from recruits too. You can talk to guys who go to Cal or opt to go to other schools, and the response is very similar. However, his impact on others is what defines him.

"He's the most honest, down-to-earth coach I've ever met," said current Cal sophomore Marvin Jones. "He's a real cool guy too. You want to play for him the moment you meet him."

"I kind of bounced back and forth in the recruiting process, you know, meeting some other coaches. But every time I met him I went right back to realizing he's the guy I wanted to play for. Like I said, he's as cool as cool."

That's a pretty typical reaction from the players who signed with Cal over the past decade. Recruits hear so many things from so many different programs. There are multiple coaches putting in their own 15 minutes of info, and since recruits have to evaluate schools against each other, the truth of the matter is that personality weighs a lot more than most fans realize. If a potential recruit instantly loathes a coach, you can pretty much mark it down that nothing is going to get done in the recruiting process between that player and that program.

In all the years I've covered Cal recruiting, I've never heard a prospect tell me he didn't like Jeff Tedford. Never. That's a significant amount of recruits too. And the impact he's made on some players that have never even played for him is dramatic.

"He cares about his players. That's something that definitely stands out about him," current Fresno State freshman quarterback Derek Carr said. "That was really obvious growing up around him, and I was lucky to kind of have that opportunity because of my brother (David). I also got to talk to him as a recruit as well.

"I also respect his knowledge of the game. I mean, the guy is really an offensive genius. And his resume of quarterback's speaks for itself."

There are a lot of Derek Carr's out there as well. Carr was a young kid who simply had a gifted and talented older brother, and instead of simply focusing every practice on David, JT would have Derek do the same drills.

"It was so cool, as just a little kid, to kind of have that relationship," Carr added. "It is something I'll never forget."

Coach Tedford has made a tremendous impact on a number of people, both on and off the field, whether they have played for him or not. He's also helped a number of people in a way that would be tough to describe, and that list includes my staff and team.

The development and direction of BearTerritory.net is just one example. When we first started this site on the Rivals.com network, there was really no fan-base whatsoever. A number of publishers had come and gone; I think the number was 9 to be exact. There was already a large competitor, and additional sites and news sources were plentiful.

We understood that challenge, but wanted to find a niche that could evolve and work for us. And around Cal, there was no greater example of meeting and exceeding a challenge than the rise of Golden Bear football under Jeff Tedford. To see what his staff accomplished in a short period of time was impressive to say the least. You didn't even need to be a fan to see it.

There are obviously a lot of differences between building and running a successful college football program and running a growing media organization however, after meeting various players and coaches, plus speaking to a handful of recruits, the one thing we knew was that we wanted to be like that. We wanted to treat people like they did, and we wanted to have a connection with recruits and fans in a similar fashion.

We talked to him briefly about our goals, and the desire we had to develop customers based on hard work in recruiting as well as a credentialed media source for Cal. That was nearly 5 years ago now. Since a large portion of that work involved meeting the young men he was recruiting before they arrived in Berkeley as student-athletes, I wanted him to know that we would be a group of professionals when it came down to the work we put forth. There's an important trust issue there, as you do indeed go into the homes of recruits.

You meet the parents. You develop your own relationships, but the common denominator is that these are his potential players and their families. Our bottom line was that if we could impress him - a head coach who felt like a lot of other coaches in the business that the development of most recruiting sites and the people who worked for them was that they evaluate players without any basis and credibility - we knew we could be successful. The fans would follow.

After that first year, when we presented our signing day material to him at an after Signing Day function, it was a tremendous feeling to not only hear his feedback on our work, but to see his eyes light up at some of the stories, photography and video segments that we developed for his future players. We also heard the stories about how he had gone into homes after we had been there in some cases and the positivity those families felt regarding our work.

Before the function started that night, we didn't really tell Coach Tedford that we were setting up, instead simply printing off a number of recruiting class photo-bio magazines, plus putting together an extremely large free-standing poster of his entire recruiting class on display. At this particular function, when he walks into the room the spectators typically don't let him make it 10 feet into the door before they line up to meet him. So before he spoke, he never saw our display.

But it didn't take more than 5 minutes into his speech before he noticed our set-up. During his speech, he couldn't tell from about 20 yards exactly who the photos were of, but he knew that he recognized a lot of them.

So after his words, he made a beeline for the display. And he stood there for about 10 minutes, basically alone, just thumbing through the magazine, looking at each picture and reading. You could see from afar how impressed he was, and that's a moment I'll never forget. Afterwards, it was awesome to hear from some of the other coaches in attendance, plus their families and a lot of the recruits friends and families spend a good portion of signing day watching the site and enjoying our presentations. That included Coach Tedford's family.

But as I've always wanted to say to him, the whole premise of our site was based on what he had done with Cal football, and to treat others - whether they are going to be future Golden Bears or not - with respect.