Something along the lines of “let me check with Andrew” seems to be the most common response to almost any question that arises regarding Cal football. Nobody knows the program inside and out quite like Andrew McGraw, the Golden Bears’ top football administrator.
While coach Justin Wilcox is ultimately responsible for making final decisions on the field, he works hand-in-hand with McGraw to make comparable decisions off of it.
“I communicate with Andrew a number of times daily,” Wilcox said. “There are so many different things that go into operating a football program — from training table to travel, recruiting, equipment, academics and so much more. Andrew essentially touches everything that has to do with our football program that’s not Xs and Os.”
McGraw has always had the innate ability to see the big picture and still be able to focus on all the details needed to be successful. And for nearly three decades, Cal’s football program has benefitted tremendously from his extraordinary skills.
Growing up in a Cal family, McGraw was meant to bring his skills to Berkeley. His mother, Regina, was a pom-pom girl at Cal in the 1960s and passed that love along to her family, including a young Andrew.
“Oski is a household name in our home,” Regina said. “We are a Cal family, and I always joke around that Andrew’s blood is blue and gold, and it has been since birth.”
If McGraw’s blood wasn’t blue and gold the day he was born, it turned Cal’s colors one famous Saturday afternoon in November of 1982 when a then 9-year-old McGraw got a bird’s-eye view of arguably the most famous play in college football history from one of its most iconic places — high above California Memorial Stadium on Tightwad Hill.
“That pretty much did it,” Regina said.
It also foretold of an incredible journey to come as McGraw has moved methodically to the top of the Cal football administrative food chain to his current dual role as assistant athletics director for football administration and interim sports administrator for football.
In the fall of 1990, nearly a decade after witnessing The Play, McGraw was an accomplished quarterback at Santa Cruz High — though at well under 6-foot, a lightly recruited one. But after one particularly good game during his final prep season, he was approached by a man in a UCLA jacket.
“I assumed it was a coach,” McGraw said. “I had played a good game, but I wasn’t sure why UCLA would want a 5-10 quarterback.”
McGraw was right about his suspicions.
“Have you ever thought about joining the UCLA music department?” the man, who turned out to be UCLA’s band director, asked McGraw, who was also an accomplished drummer.
“USC and UCLA have band football teams, and he said that if he could get me to be their band’s quarterback that they would win that game for the next four years,” McGraw said with a laugh.
But McGraw also received a competing offer from the band director at Cal. There was no football team to quarterback with the Bears, but the choice was easy and the next fall he was at his dream school.
McGraw focused primarily on his musical and academic endeavors during his first few months in Berkeley but missed the gridiron. During the spring of his freshman year, he took a walk up the hill from his Unit 3 dorm on Durant Avenue to Memorial Stadium.
When he got there, McGraw knocked on the door of the equipment room. He may not have known it, but his professional career was underway.
McGraw started as a student equipment manager and soon after added scout team quarterback to his resume. By the time he graduated from Cal in 1995, he had developed tremendous relationships and made important connections within the football program.
Steve Mariucci became the first of many to realize McGraw’s invaluable contributions when the coach took over in 1996. Mariucci hired McGraw as a recruiting assistant and, after Mariucci left following a single season at Cal, his successor Tom Holmoe signed on McGraw as a defensive quality control coach.
In the years since, McGraw has likely had more roles and responsibilities than anyone in Cal football history. He has worked in recruiting, football operations, player personnel and administration, among other areas.
“He’s invaluable,” Wilcox said. “Andrew understands the program as well as anybody — from the actual logistics of how we do things and what it takes to operate our program to the scope and all the details of it. We are fortunate to have him. He’s seen it all and he’s somebody that understands what it takes.”
“You would be hard-pressed to find someone that cares about the University of California and the athletic department more than Andrew McGraw,” said Mike McHugh, who served as the program’s Director of Football Operations throughout the Jeff Tedford era and was a mentor for McGraw. “He has devoted his entire adult life to making Cal a better place.”
McGraw’s best memories include plenty of victories, but he says his involvement in the recruitment of current NFL standouts Alex Mack and Aaron Rodgers is also right at the top.
“Believe it or not, I actually felt like I had won the Draddy Award when Alex won it,” McGraw said, referring to the honor known as the academic Heisman earned by the lightly recruited player he helped unearth out of the Santa Barbara area.
He also vividly recalls his significant role in Rodgers’ recruitment.
The story of Cal discovering Rodgers while looking at tape of his Butte College teammate tight end Garrett Cross has been well-documented, but some of the details involving McGraw’s involvement have typically escaped the story.
“Coach Tedford asked me to scour the country for a junior college quarterback because he was concerned about our depth at the position knowing that Kyle Boller would be moving on to the NFL after that season,” McGraw said. “When I popped Garrett’s tape in, I couldn’t stop noticing these missiles being thrown by the quarterback. This guy is also running all over the field and making plays with his feet. I immediately go into Coach Tedford’s office and say, ‘Pop this tape in, we’ve got to watch this’. He says ‘Alright the tight end — yeah, he’s good and we’ll take him, but the quarterback, whoa.’ We kind of pump our fist and hope that this isn’t too good to be true.”
McGraw and Cal football staff legend Kevin Parker would eventually become a formidable recruiting duo that spearheaded the recruiting efforts of many of Cal’s top players, including Parker’s fellow Oakland native Marshawn Lynch.
“We had a good run,” Parker said. “Andrew cares for every young man that comes through the Cal football program. We knew we could recruit players that would turn the Cal program around and we did.”
And at age 44, McGraw has big plans for the future.
“Justin Wilcox is one of the brightest head coaches in college football and I know he loves it here,” McGraw said. “He has a plan to build Cal into a national championship contender, and we’re not alone in thinking that’s very attainable. We are in one of the most desirable places to live in the Bay Area and at the No. 1 public school in the world. We can bring in the type of special student-athletes we need to make this program thrive. There are some really exciting things on the horizon.”
It’s a horizon McGraw first got a glimpse of from high above Memorial Stadium more than 30 years ago and has been focused on reaching ever since.
This article is reprinted with permission and originally ran on CalBears.com.