Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Bob Steiner Bob Steiner: Oral Histories on the Management of Intercollegiate Athletics at UC Berkeley: 1960 - 2014 Interviews conducted by John C. Cummins in 2013 Copyright © 2017 by The Regents of the University of California ii Since 1954 the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Bob Steiner dated January 27, 2016. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Bob Steiner “Bob Steiner: Oral Histories on the Management of Intercollegiate Athletics at UC Berkeley: 1960-2014” conducted by John C. Cummins in 2013, Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2017. iii Table of Contents—Bob Steiner Interview 1: April 16, 2013 Audio File 1 1 Life before Cal, admission to Cal — Pete Newell — Marv Levy — Brutus Hamilton — Mike Baxter — 1956 Pacific Coast Conference — Censure of Pappy Waldorf — Trouble with UCLA — Athletic Association of Western Universities — Name change to Pac-8 — Clark Kerr named president 1958 — Proverb Jacobs — Earle Schneider — Race: “black athletes were few and far between” — John Erby — Wiles Hallock — Ray Willsey — Isaac Curtis and 1.8 test — Walter Byers, Kent State comment — Work-aid program, athletic scholarships — Herm Selvin — H.D. Thoreau, jobs in sports — More on Pete Newell — Alfred Wright of Sports Illustrated — Forrest Beaty’s recruitment — Newell’s “Big Man’s Camp” — “Responsibility of the Athletic Department was to make it a level playing field” — Sports budget cut — Academic Senate — University Athletics Board — Fundraising, “Keeping the Promise” — Cal Sports Eighties — Donor- centric fundraising — “Normalization of deviances” — Mike White gets fired — David Maggard — Bob Presley — Black student boycott — Rene Herrerias — College basketball as a sport — Struggles of student athletes — Cal’s lack of “academic home” for sports — Cal spirit, past and present [End of Interview] 1 Interview 1: April 16, 2013 Audio File 1 01-00:00:00 Cummins: Okay, this is April 16, 2013. This is the first interview with Bob Steiner, who began working at Cal in intercollegiate athletics as a student in 1957, and then progressed from there to becoming the sports information director and spent a considerable time at Cal, and then moved on to professional sports—and we’ll certainly talk about that. But Bob, why don’t you talk a little bit about your background leading up to Cal and how you got involved with athletics. 01-00:00:40 Steiner: [laughing] Well, I went to high school here—we moved from Chicago in 1948 when I was thirteen. I went to high school here in Los Angeles at Hamilton High School and went into the navy upon graduation in 1953 so I could get the GI Bill and be able to go to college. I wanted to major in journalism, and UCLA didn’t offer a degree in journalism at that time and USC was too expensive. And then they had the panty raids up at Cal and I thought that’s the place for me. [laughter] So I came up to Cal. Interesting—I had to go to junior college to get my grades up, so I applied to Cal and then I never heard from Cal. And late in the summer in 1956 I called, and you get a voice, and I said I hadn’t heard. And she, two minutes later, comes back and says, “Oh, you’ve been admitted. Come on up.” You can’t possibly do that today, get a voice. 01-00:01:55 Cummins: No way. Exactly. 01-00:01:56 Steiner: So I came up and worked on the Daily Cal for a year and got very involved working on the Daily Cal with the athletic news bureau. I’m not sure whether it was right away that Lefty [Hans “Lefty” Stern] left. In any case, they didn’t hire a full-time assistant and they hired a number of students to work in the office and I was one of them. And then in 1958 I was hired as a full-time assistant. 01-00:02:29 Cummins: Great. Now—so talk about those early years and just your view of Cal Athletics, what it was like, what it meant to the students—anything that comes to mind. 01-00:02:44 Steiner: They were at one time a golden era, with Pete’s basketball teams. 01-00:02:50 Cummins: Pete Newell, yeah. 01-00:02:52 Steiner: Pete Newell. Our baseball team won the 1957 national championship. Marv Levy came as a football coach, and I told him that in my first years at Cal we won the NCAA baseball championship in 1957, the NCAA basketball 2 championship in 1959, Rose Bowl in 1959 and set world and American track records – all in my first two years at Cal. He said, “You certainly were a flash in the pan, weren’t you? [laughter] But Marv Levy had been my cabin counselor when I was twelve years old or thirteen years old, in Eagle River, Wisconsin. 01-00:03:11 Cummins: Is that right? Amazing! 01-00:03:16 Steiner: And the next time that I saw him he was named the head coach at Cal to replace Pete Elliott. But they were hard, academically they were hard. Clark Kerr makes a statement, President Kerr makes a statement—“I haven’t looked at a Swarthmore score in thirty years, and Prescott Sullivan says he and I have something in common.” I haven’t looked at a Swarthmore score in—and Prescott Sullivan was a leading sports columnist in the Bay Area at the time. Charles McCabe was writing in the [San Francisco] Chronicle that later, when Marv Levy was hired, he was hired to kill athletics at Cal. And there was a— seemingly, a crack down in athletics. Brutus Hamilton telling the story of a shot putter, Mike Baxter, who his first semester at Cal went down a number of grade points and made up almost all of them the next semester but was dismissed from school. And Brutus, who was also assistant dean of students, and with a high regard for academics, felt that that was very unfair. So there was a seeming rigidity at that time, and after Pete’s Rose Bowl team which was—Pete Elliott’s Rose Bowl team which was— 01-00:04:44 Cummins: Yeah, ’59. 01-00:04:45 Steiner: Fifty-nine, ’58-’59, which was just carried on the back of Joe Kapp, probably in a weak conference. But football was desperate, when Pete [Newell] retired as coach then basketball became pretty desperate. And so—but you had some real shining moments and some great athletes on campus. But there was—it evolved into a gloom in the sixties, from the late fifties which was wonderful— 01-00:05:23 Cummins: Which was a high point. 01-00:05:24 Steiner: —which was wonderful, to a gloom in the sixties, early sixties. 01-00:05:34 Cummins: When you started, in ’56, do you have any recollections of all the turmoil in the Pacific Coast Conference? 01-00:05:44 Steiner: You’ll help me here—only second hand. In ’56 the penalties came down, and SC and UCLA, Cal, to the extent that Jerry Drew was assessed—ineligible for 3 a half semester, a running back at Cal, and there were a little harder penalties at— 01-00:06:05 Cummins: Washington. 01-00:06:06 Steiner: —and SC and UCLA. 01-00:06:07 Cummins: Exactly. 01-00:06:10 Steiner: So the new conference was formed in ’60? Fifty-nine-‘60? 01-00:06:13 Cummins: Yes, ’59-‘60, yes. 01-00:06:16 Steiner: The AAWU. 01-00:06:19 Cummins: Right. Scott Newhall writes this editorial, beginning the ’58 season. It was called the “Obit for the Pacific Coast Conference,” and that was the last year.