The Cal 100: No. 75 -- Ron Fimrite
We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.
No. 75: Ron Fimrite
Cal Sports Connection: He was a Cal graduate who was sports editor at the Daily Cal
Claim to Fame: Fimrite was a respected sports writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated who wrote a number of books, including one about the history of Golden Bears football.
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Ron Fimrite is considered one of the best sports writers of his era, but what separates him from other topflight writers from Cal is that some of Fimrite’s finest work focused on Golden Bears athletics.
His 1983 Sports Illustrated article with the headline The Anatomy of a Miracle, looks into the five-lateral kickoff return that gave Cal a victory in the 1982 Big Game and is considered by many to be the definitive piece about “The Play.”
It begins with this paragraph.
It is now called, simply, The Play. There is no need for further explanation, because there has never been anything in the history of college football to equal it for sheer madness.
Fimrite wrote a number of books on sports, all injected with his wry humor, and his book on the history of Cal football titled Golden Bears: A Celebration of Cal Football's Triumphs, Heartbreaks, Last-Second Miracles, Legendary Blunders and the Extraordinary People Who Made It All Possible, has become a trusted reference for Cal football.
He also was the editor of a book on Cal football titled Pappy’s Boys: The Rose Bowl Years, 1948 – 1949 – 1950.
Ron Fimrite. Photo courtesy of the Fimrite family.
He attended Cal during the late 1940s and early 1950s and became the sports editor at the school newspaper, the Daily Cal.
Fimrite began his professional journalistic career at the Berkeley Gazette and became famous for his work at the San Francisco Chronicle. His ability to turn a phrase or add humor as a columnist made him famous, part of the Chronicle’s noted stable of columnists that included Herb Caen.
His reputation earned him a job at Sports Illustrated as one of its finest writers. He and Frank Deford and Dan Jenkins were among the group of writers during Sports Illustrated’s heyday as a sports publication.
Fimrite covered covered 16 World Series, two Olympics and several Super Bowls. He wrote historical portraits of Bay Area legends such as Max Baer, Jackie Jensen, Hank Luisetti and Billy Martin.
Fimrite died in 2010 at the age of 79.
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