This feature originally appeared in the 2019 Fall edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.




Andy Deane '76 and his wife, Debbie, are paying forward the powerful pull of Cal Athletics, having committed over half a million dollars to cultivate the culture of camaraderie in the Cal community. Their participation nurtures a spirit that enamored Andy as an undergraduate and continues to inspire the couple's support of the Golden Bears.
 
Growing up in Merced, Calif., Deane pondered whether to pursue a degree at UCLA or Cal as a high-school senior in 1971. Both parents were Cal graduates who had witnessed three Rose Bowls, and his older brother was already enrolled at Berkeley, so it would have been a significant pivot for Andy to become a Bruin.
 
"You ought to come up for a football game," George Deane told his deliberating younger brother about the Bay Area. "It's a blast."
 
A blast it was, and four years later, Deane was enjoying the 1975 football season as a senior business administration major at Cal, where one of his Theta Delta Chi fraternity brothers, Chuck Muncie, was having a great season on his way to the National Football League.
 
"Football was important," Deane said of football Saturdays in and around California Memorial Stadium. "We would enjoy getting together as a big group, and we were able to get great seats, west side, dead on the 50-yard line. We always did a big tailgate. And it was as much social as a way to see people as it was to see the Bears in action."
 
Deane had started out in Letters & Science when he first enrolled at the University, intending to major in economics. As a teen, he was allowed to ride his Honda 90 motorcycle using his driver's permit for work purposes and worked outside his hometown in a vast peach orchard owned by Del Monte Foods. At Cal, Deane gravitated to a class in agricultural economics. But his interest in that specialty was deflated when he learned that such a degree would require him to transfer to UC Davis.
 
"That wasn't going to work," Deane said of the prospect of transferring. "I wanted to be at Cal." Instead, he confirmed the courses he had already taken would count toward a new degree, and declared a major in business administration with an emphasis in finance.
 
College summers saw Deane return to Merced, where he would resume working for Del Monte and rise to a supervisory role while still an undergraduate. After graduation, Deane considered his options and realized he would be best off returning to his roots.
 
"All through high school and college I worked for Del Monte," Deane said, "and after I graduated I interviewed with traditional business employers – banks, places like that – but I like being outside as opposed to behind a desk. So I went back."
 
Somewhat surprised to see Deane return to the farm following graduation, the person in charge encouraged him to enroll in the company's management training program, which launched a career that spanned almost 40 years.
 
Relocating several times, Deane worked in the Northern California region and the company's San Francisco headquarters before finally settling in Pleasanton. Following the Bears' trip to the Citrus Bowl in 1992, the Deanes and their two children, Allie (then age 2) and George (5) relocated to the Philippine city of Cagayan de Oro, about 500 miles south of Manila, where Andy directed pineapple operations.
 
It was a vast distance not just for his family, but for Andy, who had never been out of California before college. Amid the change, the Deanes kept their Cal connection consistent, returning to the States every year to enjoy the Big Game.
 
By 1995, the Deanes moved again, this time to Mexico City, where Andy became Del Monte's president and general manager for Latin America. Everywhere Deane's career took him, the confidence of his University degree came along.
 
"Cal taught me critical thinking skills and a confidence to search for answers," Deane said. "People would ask where I went to school and when I told them, I was instantly qualified in their minds. That was the seal of approval."
 
Back in Berkeley after returning the family to the United States in 1997, Deane continued to enjoy Cal football games and tailgates with an ever-expanding network of friends that emanated in part from the new generations of undergraduates at Theta Delta Chi.
 
To ensure future generations could continue to enjoy Cal Athletics events as much as they had, the Deanes directed donations to the renovation of Memorial Stadium, naming a football locker in honor of Muncie, becoming members of the Endowed Seating Program, giving to the Haas Pavilion Fund to renovate that venue and holding season tickets to men's basketball.
 
Then in 2013, Andy suffered a major stroke. While his recovery has left him with less mobility, it has not dampened his gratitude of a Golden Bear Saturday.
 
"I wasn't thinking about having a stroke when I got ESP tickets. I just wanted the stadium brought up to seismic safety standards. But in the process, they've put all those elevators in, so it's paid off," Deane said with a laugh.
 
Most recently, the Deanes made a six-figure gift to softball, continuing a philanthropic strategy that includes the University more broadly in their estate planning while directing gifts that will have more instant impact on Intercollegiate Athletics.
 
"Cal Athletics is a place that we enjoy focusing our philanthropy and we want to help in ways that have immediate impact," Deane said. "This donation to softball represents our confidence in Chancellor Carol Christ and Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton."
 
In addition to his appreciation for the University's current leadership under Christ and Knowlton, Deane endorses an environment that values communication, a skill he honed at Cal and found so important in his international career.
 
"I appreciated my professors' emphasis on communication skills. That gave me confidence to search for answers," Deane said. "I want today's and tomorrow's students to get those skills at Cal and build the same camaraderie that we continue to enjoy today."
 
The intercollegiate athletics experience at the University of California continues today and into the future thanks to the generosity of donors like the Deanes, whose commitment ensures the ongoing vitality of the Cal spirit.
 
Around the world and back in the Bay Area, that spirit can be summed up in two words: Go Bears.