Roses from the Ashes: Breakup and Rebirth in Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletics

Roses from the Ashes: Breakup and Rebirth in Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Athletics
Glenn T. Seaborg with Ray Colvig. Foreward by Clark Kerr, 422 pp, Book # 394X, $25

In 1952, less than a year after he traveled to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Glenn Seaborg agreed to serve as the faculty athletic representative of the University of California, Berkeley. He thought it would be a breeze: attend a few meetings and go to lots of athletic contests (one of his favorite activities). He soon learned there was much more to it. The nine faculty representatives were the governing body of the Pacific Coast Conference. Their word was “law”—and the law was being broken. As widespread scandals were uncovered, the PCC cracked down with the most severe penalties that college sports had yet known.

Working with Ray Colvig and drawing from his own meticulous journals and other sources, Seaborg tells in Roses from the Ashes how the uncontrolled activities of outside booster clubs led to blatant systems of “salaries” and no-work “jobs” for entire football teams—with the connivance of coaches and their staffs. He describes the agonizing struggles that took place behind the scenes as the wrath of judgment fell upon UCLA, Washington, Southern California, and California, Berkeley. He explores the increasingly tangled relationships and clashes of personalities among the faculty representatives and the presidents and chancellors of the nine PCC institutions. When the cracks could no longer be mended and the PCC disintegrated, Seaborg led the efforts to design a new grouping—the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU). As chancellor at Berkeley (1958-61), he saw Cal’s Golden Bears return to the Rose Bowl as the last PCC champions, and he cheered Cal’s cinderella basketball team as it won the NCAA tournament to become the national champions. In the 1960s, former PCC members joined the AAWU and became the Pac-8. With the addition of Arizona and Arizona State in the 1970s, it became today’s highly successful Pac-10 Conference—“The Conference of Champions.”