Cal Trio Heads 2026 Class of Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

Legendary Cal rugby coach Jack Clark and Golden Bear Olympians Missy Franklin and Eddie Hart have been voted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame,

The five-person class of inductees also includes former Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford and ex-49ers offensive lineman Jesse Sapolu.

All five will be honored at the 2026 BASHOF enshrinement dinner, scheduled for May 14 at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero in San Francisco.

This marks the second consecutive years that three inductees have connections to Cal, following the enshrinement in 2025 of soccer star Alex Morgan, basketball coach Mike Montgomery and civil rights activist and Cal professor emeritus Dr. Harry Edwards.

Clark, now in his 43rd season as head coach since taking over direction of Cal’s rugby program in 1984, has guided the Bears to 30 national championships. His 15s teams have compiled a win-loss record of 732-106-5 (.870) and his 7s squads are 230-23-0 (.909).

Clark has developed 157 collegiate All-Americans, 60 players who combined for 805 appearances with the U.S. national 15s team, a two-time Olympian and six players who went on to earn their “Blues” with Oxford.

He is a former head coach of the U.S. National Team (1993-99), which posted 16 victories (the most in the history of U.S. rugby) during his tenure. In 2014, Clark was inducted into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, followed in 2016 by his enshrinement into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame.

Clark is also the 2016 recipient of The Glenn T. Seaborg Award, named after the former University chancellor and Nobel Prize winner. He was named a Living Legend by Pac-12 Networks in 2015 and was ranked third in an all-time Cal head coaches list by Cal Bears on SI, behind Pete Newell (men's basketball) and Andy Smith (football). Smith, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame whose Cal teams were 44-0-4 from 1920 through '24, is conspicuously absent from the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

Franklin, who enrolled at Cal in 2014, is one of the most accomplished female athletes in swimming history. She is a seven-time NCAA champion, five-time Olympic gold medalist and former world-record holder.

As a freshman at Cal, she helped the Bears win the NCAA team championship. A year later, she was named the 2015 NCAA and Pac-12 Swimmer of the Year while also winning the Honda Award, given to the top female swimmer in the country after winning three individual NCAA titles and two relays that year.

Franklin was just 16 years old when she began her international career, winning five medals — three of them gold —and breaking two world records at the 2011 World Championships. She won four gold medals at the 2012 Olympic Games in London and set two more world records to earn global honors as FINA Swimmer of the Year.

She claimed a record six gold medals at the 2013 World Championships and finished on the podium five more times in 2015, bringing her career medal count to 17.

Hart is a two-time world-record setting sprinter and is the first Cal track and field athlete voted into the Bay Area Hall of Fame. He set Cal program records in the 220-yard dash and the 440-yard relay and in 1970 won 100-yard titles at the Pac-8 and NCAA meets.

Post-collegiately, Hart equaled the 100-meter world record at the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials and was favored to win gold at the Munich Olymics, but missed his race due to a scheduling error. Subsequently, he anchored the U.S. 4x100 relay team to a gold medal and matched the world record in the event.

Hart appeared on Track & Field News' top-10 world rankings three times — twice in the 100 (No. 6 in 1970, No. 3 in 1972) and once in the 200 (No. 7 in 1972). At the 1989 World Masters Athletics Championships, Hart set a men’s 40 age-group world record in the 100 meters and an all-conditions world record in the 200.

Other Cal representatives in the Bay Area Hall of Fame, which opened in 1979, are Matt Biondi, Don Budge, Sam Chapman, Brandi Chastain, Natalie Coughlin, Ann Curtis Cuneo, Walter A. Haas Jr., Helen Hull Jacobs, Jackie Jensen, Kevin Johnson, Joe Kapp, Jeff Kent, Jason Kidd, Mary T. Meagher, Craig Morton, Pete Newell, John Ralston, Pappy Waldorf, Dave Wilcox, and Helen Wills Moody.

For more information on the 2026 BASHOF dinner and induction ceremony, please visit bashof.org. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Special Olympics Northern California.

Follow Jeff Faraudo on Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky

Recent articles:

What the numbers say about Cal's chances of beating Duke

Former Arizona cornerback commits to Cal

Cal transfer LB Cade Uluave commits to BYU

Duke and North Carolina come to Haas Pavilion this week

Cal transfer running back Kendrick Raphael commits to SMU

We update the Cal football comings and going in our transfer tracker

Cal women's basketball scores first ACC win of the season