by Morris Phillips and Michael Duca

BERKELEY–Cal Bears head coach Mike Montgomery announced his retirement to the team on Monday after talking with Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour. Barbour was insistent that he reconsider and stay given what’s going on with the program and with the football program struggling and the basketball team being the bell weather with their successes.

This is something they’ve given a lot of thought to and according to reports as recently as a couple of weeks ago that he was looking towards retirement and this is the way Montgomery is going to go. At age 67 he’s done everything that you could do in coaching and nows the time.

Although Montgomery had bladder cancer he’s comepletely healthy at this point, there weren’t any issues in regards to his health this season and it’s hard to say if the cancer was a part of the reason why he’s retiring. He’s healthy now thank God and if he retires he’ll retire healthy.

Monty could have coached at Cal for as long as he wanted to and in his six year run at Cal he is arguably as impressive as his 18 year run at Stanford. Starting from the first year at Cal he took a team that former Cal coach Ben Braun had a real struggle with and turned them into first year conference champions and obviously Cal hasn’t won a conference championship in years.

Montgomery followed that up with four NCAA appearences, NIT appearences, no losing seasons, he’s got two years left on his contract but I’m sure if he wanted to stay longer he could. This program despertately needs him. They need his energy and his ability to win and draw attention to the university.

He could not be a in a more sucure spot in regards to his situation at Cal, in 32 years coaching at Montana, Stanford, and at Cal he’s compiled a win-loss record of 678-316 and 16 NCAA Tournament appearences. College sports is a constant business as Montgomery retires the university will have to move on.

The University will continue to nationally recruit and also in their own backyard at the local Oakland high school with Ivan Rabb at Bishop O’Dowd a top ranked junior a major national recruit and in order to keep that young man at home their going to need a solid situation and a place that doesn’t include Montgomery and they’re going to want to move forward.

Michael Duca and Morris Phillips covered Cal basketball for Sportstalk radio during the 2013-14 season