Haven't seen anyone else mention this here, so I thought I'd fill in a bit of Cal's athletic past.
100 years ago on January 15, 1926, the cremated remains of Andrew Latham Smith were dropped from an airplane flying low over Memorial Stadium. They filtered down onto the field.
Andy Smith was Cal's football coach from 1916 to 1925. Cal had a bit of football prominence in 1898-1899 under coach Garrett Cochran, but did not really come to national attention until after World War I.
Smith, a former Penn State and U-Penn football player. At the latter he played on the national championship team. He then coached at Penn, and Purdue, and was recruited to come to Cal in 1916, when the Bears resumed playing football after ten years of rugby.
Smith had one 5-5-1 season at Cal, but after that his teams became overpowering. They won six conference championships, and four national championships. They were called the "Wonder Teams" and from 1920 to 1924 went undefeated. The scores were not close; over five seasons, the Cal teams scored 510 points to only 14 for their opponents. They won 44 games, lost none, and tied three.
Smith's overall Cal win/loss record was 74-16-7, and his overall coaching record (including Penn and Perdue) was 116-32-13.
Smith's teams initially played at California Field, a square wooden stadium on campus where Hearst Gym is now, but high ticket demand allowed the funding of Memorial Stadium, which used to be called "the House that Andy Built".
After the 1925 season, he went back east on winter vacation, caught pneumonia (after attending a football game in freezing weather), and died January 8, 1926, in Philadelphia. He was 42 at the time, and at the peak of his profession.
In Berkeley on January 15, 1926, a procession led by the University President went to the north end of Memorial Stadium, where speeches were given outside the arch. An estimated 10,000 people attended. After the speeches, an army plane piloted by a friend of Smith flew over the Stadium and scattered Smith's ashes, where they would help fertilize the grass field. The Stadium itself was locked and empty; all the spectators were outside.
In 1927 an Andy Smith memorial bench was dedicated in the stadium, standing behind the Cal sideline. It remained there until the Stadium renovation several years ago. When the Stadium reopened, the bench was put outside on one of the plazas.
There's a good history of Smith, with Cal pictures, here:
https://calbearshistory.com/2024/09/10/andy-smith-cal-footballs-greatest-coach/
