SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Montgomery was officially enshrined into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame this week following a remarkable college coaching career. But close to 40 years ago, he encountered an issue at the start of his tenure at Stanford.
In his first year on The Farm in 1986, Montgomery took the files of about 50 prospective students — the best in the country, he said — to Stanford’s admissions office and walked out with four that the school said they’d consider.
“I said, ‘Well, that’s nice,’” Montgomery said about the school’s rigorous academic standards. “We’ve got problems here.”
Montgomery’s challenges then — ones he clearly overcame — seem simple compared to the ones college basketball coaches face now, with constant roster churn through the transfer portal, the enormous impact of name, image, and likeness (NIL), and the increased travel demands due to conference realignment.
The changes have left college sports almost unrecognizable to Montgomery, who left coaching after his 2013-14 season in Berkeley with 676 career victories.
“College athletics right now has sort of got me in a funk, with what’s going on,” said Montgomery, part of a BASHOF class that included former 49ers defensive back Eric Wright, Oakland A’s outfielder Joe Rudi, former Cal soccer standout Alex Morgan, and renowned sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards.
College asketball coach Mike Montgomery is honored during the 2025 Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
“With the transfer portal and NIL and everything, it’s not the same kids that you had the year before. You really don’t have time to teach the fundamentals and the things you’d like to do. The game’s changed so much. Unfortunately, you’ve got to have a pretty big war chest if you’re going to compete with the big boys.”
Montgomery pointed to this year’s men’s NCAA Tournament in which all of the top seeds – Auburn, Florida, Duke, and Houston – advanced to the Final Four.
“They had the biggest payrolls,” Montgomery said.
Cal and Stanford just finished their first seasons in the ACC and will likely face enormous challenges — financial and otherwise — going forward.
The Bears men’s basketball team, now led by Montgomery protégé Mark Madsen, hasn’t had a winning record since 2016-17 or made the NCAA tournament since 2015-16. It’s also mostly been a decade of darkness at Stanford, which just had its first winning season (21-14) in five years under first-year coach Kyle Smith but still hasn’t made the tournament since 2014.
How can these teams start to compete on a national stage?
“They’re going to have to figure out what it takes,” Montgomery said of each school’s administration. “Sports is serious in the southeast … and they do what they have to do. They always have. Now it’s just legal.”
2025 Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame Inductees Alex Morgan, Eric Wright, Joe Rudi, Mike Montgomery and Dr. Harry Edwards are honored during a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Cal’s leading scorer from this past season, 6-foot-7 guard Andrej Stojakovic, entered the transfer portal and signed with Illinois. Over half a dozen other Cal players followed suit. Stanford’s second-leading scorer this past season, 6-5 guard Oziyah Sellers, also entered the portal.
Both Smith and Madsen have taken steps forward with their teams, but it seems like it will be a while before they compete for conference titles.
“Cal and Stanford are going to have to decide what it is they want,” Montgomery said. “How are we going to do it? Right now, you’ve got to raise money. Unfortunately, that’s a big, big part of the game. (Madsen’s) talked about the lack of a practice facility (at Cal). They’re going to have to get a practice facility, they’re going to have to show they’re serious about men’s basketball and to get kids to want to stay.”
Over 18 seasons, Montgomery became the Cardinal’s all-time winningest coach, going 392-168, with four regular-season Pac-10 championships, 12 NCAA Tournament berths, and one Final Four appearance in 1998.
Montgomery didn’t get the BASHOF nod because of his time coaching Golden State, where he went 68-96 from 2004 to 2006. But he said his time at Cal, where he went 130-73, helped him finish his career on a positive note.
“It’s incredible that I’m here,” Montgomery said on stage inside a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero. “Unlike most of you here, I wish the hell I was a better player. I would have much rather been an athlete than a coach. But if you can’t play, you coach, so here I am. But this is quite an honor.”
Former San Francisco 49er Eric Wright is honored during the 2025 Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Wright, who spent his entire nine-year career with the 49ers from 1981 to 1990, was honored to be in the same BASHOF class as Edwards, a fellow East St. Louis native whose social activism work has spanned six decades.
Wright, 66, knew Edwards, 82, but didn’t meet him until 1985, when Bill Walsh and the 49ers hired him.
“Doc has always been a mentor,” Wright said. “The one thing about Doc is he’s gonna get you the straight shot. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. But he’s always been a mentor to guys in the locker room, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Edwards, who is battling both bone cancer and advanced prostate cancer, was a longtime professor at Cal and mentored and became close with several of the 20th century’s more notable athletes, including Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Arthur Ashe, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Wilma Rudolph.
“Jackie Robinson said that the importance of a life is in its impact on other lives, and it could not have been put more elegantly or more precisely,” Edwards said. “That’s what I look at. I look at impact. Did I have an impact? Was my contribution a worthy one? Can somebody look back and say that I’m glad that he passed my way?”
2025 Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame Inductee Alex Morgan waves to her daughter Charlie while speaking from the stage at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
After starring at Cal from 2007 to 2010, Morgan, 35, became one of U.S. Soccer’s most successful and visible athletes during a 15-year professional career, including winning an Olympic gold medal in 2012 and FIFA Women’s World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019.
Still, Morgan’s work off the pitch was just as impactful, as she helped lead the fight for equal pay for women’s soccer. The U.S. women filed a lawsuit in 2019 that led to an agreement in 2022 that provided the team with pay equitable to what U.S. men’s players received.
“It was a second job, and it took a lot of time away from other enjoyable things we could have been doing,” Morgan told Bay Area News Group about the legal challenges. “But it was also one that transcended women’s soccer and women’s sports globally. It had the butterfly effect that we only hoped we could achieve.”
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Rudi, 78, was a three-time all-star, a three-time Gold Glove winner, and integral to the A’s three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to 1974.
Rudi’s most memorable plays included his leaping catch against the wall to rob Denis Menke of a hit in Game 2 of the 1972 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds and his solo homer in the bottom of the seventh, which gave the A’s a 3-2 lead over the Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1974 World Series.
“I was amazed,” to be named to the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, Rudi said. “I followed it a little bit. The names of the people who went in before me .. The (Joe) Montanas, the (Jerry) Rices, and Reggie (Jackson) and Rollie (Fingers) and on and on and on. Very humbling, really, to be included in that group.”
Former Oakland Athletic Joe Rudi, right, is honored by Rollie Fingers during the 2025 Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)