Netflix Visits Laney College, Which Gave Cal CJ Anderson, Marcel Dancy

The Netflix doumentary "Last Chance U" highlights the Bay Area this year, with the 2019 football season of Oakland's Laney College being the subject of the eight-episode series that starts this week for those who subscribe to Netflix.

Longtime Laney College coach John Beam spent some time talking to us about the documentary on the community college that sent two important running backs to Cal -- C.J. Anderson, who played for Cal in 2011 and 2012 and rushed for more than 1,000 for the Broncos in 2017, and Marcel Dancy, who is ran for 248 yards for the Golden Beats in 2019 and is expected to contribute even more in 2020, if there is a college football season.

Beam discussed how Anderson influenced Dancy's decision to attend Cal in the video atop this story.

In the video below, Beam talks about how Laney came to be chosen as the most recent "Last Chance U," and in the latter part of the video, he talks about how Anderson and Dancy came to Laney on their way to Cal.

One issue facing Laney College this year is that the football season has been moved to the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beam explains in the video below that he does not think that move will affect the players that want to move on to a Division I program:

The documentary about Laney College comes on the heels of the Season 4 Last Chance U series that focused on the 2018 season of Independence Junior College, the Kansas JUCO where current Cal linebacker Kuony Deng made a name for himself before becoming a standout for the Golden Bears.

Deng was not one of the featured players in that series, appearing only occasionally. The most intriguing character in that series was the Independence coach, Jason Brown, whose personality, comments and actions stole the show.

Beam notes in the video below that similarities between him and Brown are minimal:

Scott Ostler of the San Franisco Chronicle wrote a long column about Laney College's Netflix series. Click here to read Ostler's column.

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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