Ron Rivera Describes How He Became Cal Football General Manager

Ron Rivera took some time on Tuesday describe exactly how he became the Cal football general manager. Here is what he said:

“What happened is Cal for the first time has a chancellor [Rich Lyons] who was an undergrad [at Cal]. So now we have this new chancellor, so when ESPN came and did what they did as far as GameDay and the experience that we had it really ignited everybody’s excitement and appetite to see Cal really be successful in football. So he got the message. He got the feeling of it. And my wife [Stephanie] is on the board of trustees. So he reaches out to my wife and said, 'I'd love to talk to Ron about some things that I need to know more about.'

“So I get this phone call, and he starts asking me these questions about general manager. And he explained to me what it’s all about. I explained to him how a general manager works in the NFL.”

Rivera was then asked whether he thought at this point the chancellor was going to ask him to be Cal’s general manager?

“No. So as we’re talking, I say, ‘Let me write you a job description.’ So I write this job description as I think it would impact college football, and that again is working with donors, working with alums, working with the university, the faculty, trying to create this new atmosphere that is conducive to bring successful in football in an academic world. And some of the duties in terms of personnel  and coach support.

“So he and I go back and forth with this, we’ve kind of set this up. And then he says to me, he says, ‘You know I’m trying to figure out how I can make Cal relevant, how we can bring this excitement, how we can do this every week.' So I said, ‘How can I help?’ [He says] ‘Your’re the guy.’

“So I went back home and Stephanie and I talked about this. She looked at me and said, ‘You know, we’ve been all over, done everything we can, why don’t we just go home and do it.’ And that’s how it came about."

As GM, Rivera will certainly be involved in player acquisition and retention in recruiting and the transfer portal as well as working out the specifics of player payments through revenue-sharing.

But Rivera is a two-time NFL coach of the year who has the power to hire and fire Cal’s football coach, so the question is this: To what extent will he be involved in the running of the team on the field? He has not decided exactly where he will be situated on game day.

“I’m not going to look over Justin’s shoulder, that’s the last thing he needs,” Rivera said. “I may be on the field, I may be up in the box, but I’m not going to go down into that coaches’ box and tell him what he needs to do. I’m going to let him coach.”

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