Cub Is Now a Bear : Gilbertson Used to Study Robinson, Now He Has a Chance to Beat Him

He used to show up on campus in the late 1970s to watch USC football Coach John Robinson lead his powerhouse teams through practice.

The man, a Utah State assistant coach at the time, would take copious notes, soak up the scene and disappear.

“I’m sure Robinson used to say, ‘Why is this guy here all the time?’ ” that coach says now.

When Robinson left USC to coach the Rams, the kid coach followed him to Anaheim, showing up often at Rams Park.

Robinson knew the guy’s name but not much else. They exchanged pleasantries and ideas, but not home phone numbers.

“I’ve always really enjoyed John Robinson,” the coach says now. “I’ve always been attracted to his style of teaching and coaching, and he knows that. I used to spend my share of time at USC when I was at Utah State. I was there a lot. I watched him work, watched him coach. I haven’t copied him, but I was always intrigued with his style.”

The man, Keith Gilbertson, 44, is now the coach at the University of California. And Saturday, for the first time, Gilbertson meets Robinson on the field in a key Pacific 10 Conference matchup at Berkeley.

Gilbertson hopes to show what he learned as he goes guns-out to beat Robinson.

Gilbertson spent years as a leader in waiting, paying his dues, climbing the ladder, all in the hope he would become a head coach and stand next to the fire.

Welcome to the hot seat.

If he has learned anything from Robinson, it is that nothing changes in coaching, except the players.

In his first season on a second tour of USC, Robinson feels the heat after falling short on predictions that USC would return to national prominence this year.

Last week, of course, Notre Dame clobbered the Trojans, winning for the 11th year in a row.

USC is 4-4 under Robinson II, although still very much alive in the Rose Bowl race at 3-1.

Gilbertson, in his second season at Cal, is desperately trying to stave off a collapse similar to last year’s, when his first team started 3-1 and finished 4-7.

Cal began the season 5-0 but has lost consecutive conference games to Washington and Washington State.

Saturday, it might be bowl or bust for the Bears.

Gilbertson, who signed a five-year contract, said he isn’t worried about the pressure.

“Until they put a horse and a noose in your front yard, I guess you like it,” he said.

Gilbertson is more comfortable with this team’s recovery chances than last year, when he came in cold to replace the popular Bruce Snyder, now at Arizona State.

“It’s difficult in the first year to say, ‘Hey, this is your team,’ ” Gilbertson said. “The change in this instance was not wanted by the players. They had some success with the previous guy and didn’t want to change. Change was basically thrust upon them. They didn’t like it. I told them, ‘You don’t have to like this, but give us a chance.’ ”

Much was expected from Gilbertson, who had quite a resume. He arrived at Cal from the University of Washington, where he had been the Huskies’ offensive coordinator on the 1991 national championship team.

In 1988, Gilbertson had led Idaho to a Division I-AA national championship.

But you don’t lose two in a row at Cal and not hear about it.

“It doesn’t happen overnight,” Gilbertson said. “Everybody wants everything right now. Well, that’s not the way the real world works, particularly in college athletics and college football.

“We’ve taken our share of criticism, but hell, we have an idea where we’re going and we like where we’re at.”

You get the feeling Gilbertson won’t break easily. In his coaching career, which began in 1971 with the freshman team at Idaho State, he has taken from some of the best.

Gilbertson learned volumes from Don James at Washington. Before that, he worked under Miami Coach Dennis Erickson, a childhood friend, when both were at Idaho.

But nothing compares with the life experience of having been an assistant coach with the L.A. Express of the defunct United States Football League.

There, he stole from some of the game’s great minds, Sid Gillman on offense and Ray Malavasi on defense.

“I know he was portrayed as a bad head coach, but he was a hell of a football coach,” Gilbertson said of Malavasi. “He was very demanding. Every day wasn’t Chuckles the Clown, but he was a damn fine coach.”

There, he also met organizational chaos, which would harden any aspiring coach.

Gilbertson lost his job after the 1983 season when Coach Hugh Campbell left to become coach of the Houston Oilers.

“I had no money, I did not have a car, I was single and living in Los Angeles,” Gilbertson remembered. “I would have had to hitchhike back to Seattle.”

Luckily, Gilbertson was retained by John Hadl, Campbell’s successor.

Two years later, though, the league folded and Gilbertson was left with only zany memories and a percentage of his salary.

“I settled 10 cents on the dollar,” he said. “I bought some curtains for my new house in Idaho. Or, a curtain. Or a light bulb. It wasn’t enough to buy a good bottle of wine.”