Top 50 Cal Pros: No. 35 -- Ron Rivera, Two-Time NFL Coach of the Year

Rivera was head coach of the Carolina Panthers team that reached the Super Bowl in the 2015 season

Ron Rivera as the Carolina Panthers head coach in 2019 / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

We are counting down Cal’s top 50 athletes based on their careers as post-collegiate professionals. Their performance as Golden Bears is not factored into the rankings.

35. RON RIVERA

Years at Cal: 1980 through 1983

Sport: Football

Pro teams: Chicago Bears (player); Carolina Panthers and Washington Football Team (head coach)

Age: 63

Hometown: Born at Fort Ord, California, and moved around as a member of a military family, attended high school in Marina, California.

Why we ranked him here: Although Rivera was a decent NFL player, his accomplishments as an NFL head coach are what boosted him to this spot on our list.  Rivera was a linebacker for nine seasons with the Chicago Bears, and he was a prominent backup of the Bears’ 1985 team that won the 1986 Super Bowl and is considered perhaps the best defensive team in history. Rivera became a starter in 1988 and started 62 NFL games, including eight postseason games. He finished his playing career with 392 tackles, nine interceptions and 7.5 sacks. Rivera was an NFL head coach for 13 seasons, and one of just 13 men who have been named NFL coach of the year more than once since AP started issuing that award in 1957. Rivera won the coach of the year award twice, which is more than Bill Walsh or Vince Lombardi or Andy Reid. Rivera won his first coach of the year award in 2013 when he guided a Carolina Panthers team that had gone 7-9 the previous season to a 12-4 regular-season mark despite starting the season 1-3. His second coach of the year honor came in 2015, when he directed the Panthers to a 17-2 record, including a berth in the Super Bowl, and featured the MVP, quarterback Cam Newton. Rivera had a 76-63-1 record in nine years with Carolina, and was 26-40-1 in four seasons with Washington. Earlier, Rivera had been the Chicago Bears defensive coordinator from in 2004 through 2006, and the Bears led the NFL in scoring defense in 2005 and reached the Super Bowl in the 2006 season.

Ron Rivera while at Cal / Photo by Geoff Burke

At Cal: One of the greatest defensive players in Cal history, Rivera was Pac-10 co-defensive player of the year and a first-team All-America selection in 1983, when he had a school-record 26.5 tackles for loss and 13 sacks. He finished his Cal career with 336 tackles, 47.5 tackles for loss and 22 sacks. His most famous play came in the 1983 opener, when he tackled a Texas A&M ballcarrier in the end zone for a safety with 57 seconds left to give Cal a 19-17 victory.

Other: Rivera was named the general manager of Cal’s football program on March 20, 2025 . . . In August 2020, Rivera was diagnosed with skin cancer and underwent treatment while he was the head coach of the Washington Football Team. He continued to coach and missed only a few practices, and in October 2020, he was declared cancer-free. 

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