The Cal 100: No. 91 -- Andy Wolfe
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. 91: Andy Wolfe
Cal Sports Connection: Three-time all-conference guard for Cal's basketball teams in 1945-46 through 1947-48
Claim to Fame: He was the Bears' first career 1,000-point scorer and helped the program to its first Final Four appearance
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Andy Wolfe was Cal basketball’s first career 1,000-point scorer. He was the leading scorer on the first Golden Bears’ team to reach the Final Four, albeit before it was called by that name. And over the three seasons he played, Cal won 75 games — most of any three-year stretch in program history.
Nibs Price, who coached Wolfe from 1945-46 through 1947-48, described the 6-foot-1 guard as “a clutch player, nothing much he couldn’t do perfectly, an inspirational leader and an All-American in the true sense of the word.”
Wolfe probably blushed a bit at that kind of praise. He understood basketball was a team game and in 2013 when he was presented the Pete Newell Lifetime Achievement Award at halftime of a Cal victory over UCLA at Haas Pavilion, Wolfe shared the credit. “The three years I played here we won 75 games,” he told the crowd, “so you know I had a lot of great teammates and coaches.”
Andy Wolfe (top row, second from left) and Cal's 1946 Final Four team
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
Without question, Wolfe is one of Cal’s greatest players, their first star of the post-World War II era. He averaged 13.4 points as a sophomore in 1945-46, when the Bears won a program-record 30 games and beat Colorado 50-44 to advance to the national semifinals. Their championship quest ended there with a 52-35 loss to eventual champion Oklahoma A&M and star big man Bob Kurland, who went for 29 points.
Wolfe, who came to Cal from Richmond High School, was a three-time All-PCC Southern Division first-team pick. He was a consensus second-team All-American as a senior, when the Bears were 25-9 and won their second PCC Southern title in three years.
Selected by Philadelphia in the ninth round of the pre-NBA Basketball Association of America draft, Wolfe chose instead to play AAU ball for Stewart Chevrolet while working toward a law degree that set him up for for a career as an attorney in the East Bay that spanned more more than three decades.
Andy Wolfe dribbles past a defender.
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
Cover photo of Andy Wolfe courtesy of Cal Athletics
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
