Berkeley, Police, and fraught relationships.

Pat Forde thinks Tedford is the highest ranking college coach who is not escorted by a police force of some sort.

The Pac-10 and WAC aren't as into the police presence/college worship that the south is (especially the SEC and Big XII), but I would imagine even if the rest of the coaches in the Pac-10 wanted, Tedford being escorted anywhere by the police wouldn't really fly in Berkeley — even if it was the UC Police.

Police escort means something different here.

But I think the more important factor is the same reason that Cal fans have been bemoaning the lack of sell-outs, the low attendance, the lack of enthusiasm generally for college football in the Bay Area: it's just not that important out here.

We have other things to think about, other interests, other concerns — and not just the NFL. As Forde notes,

Actually, it's only theoretically about safety. In reality, trooper presence is partly about ease of movement through fired-up (or liquored-up) crowds. And it's mostly about status -- for the coach and for the cops, who seem to excel at working their way into the background of TV shots.

Our crowds aren't usually that fired up (too many people have theater tickets on Saturday night, or a concert to get to, or dinner reservations), and we certainly aren't about to accord any sort of celebrity status to our coaches.

(On the anniversay of the Oakland Firestorm, we'd love to give celebrity status to our firemen and police officers, but that would be for doing their jobs, not for escorting coaches.)