Cal's Top-12 Stories of 2021, Part 1: Deep Shots, Big Throws and Giant Steps

Three pros, a coach, a powerful junior and a courageous graduate made headlines in '21.

The big stories aren’t always good news. But the very biggest often can inspire, and in 2021, with everything that complicated our lives, we surveyed the good and the bad while compiling a list of the top-12 stories involving Cal sports. 

Today we count down from No. 12 to No. 7, the first half of our complete list. It begins with a baseball player who wasn’t necessarily expected to thrive so soon in the majors and wraps up with the most heroic performance of the year by anyone with ties to the Golden Bears.

Our top six stories were unveiled on Saturday. Here are the first half dozen:

Andrew Vaughn / Photo by Mark J. Rebilias, USA Today

12. Andrew Vaughn earns his place with the White Sox

Drafted third by the Chicago White Sox in 2019, Andrew Vaughn had no traditional 2020 season after the pandemic shut down minor league baseball.

But the White Sox invited Vaughn to spring training this year, hoping the 23-year-old could make the roster as a designated hitter. He did way more than that.

A first baseman through his career at Cal, where he was college baseball’s Golden Spikes award winner in 2018, Vaughn showed surprising versatility, playing four positions plus DH for a team plagued by injuries early this past season. He became the full-time left fielder after starter Eloy Jimenez tore a pectoral muscle during spring training and he committed just two errors in 95 games at that foreign position.

He also hit 15 home runs in his rookie campaign, and during a 34-game stretch from late June through mid-August batted .336 with a .578 slugging percentage for a team that went on to win the AL Central title by 13 games with a record of 93-69.

Camryn Rogers at Oregon's Hayward Field / Photo courtesy of Camryn Rogers

11. Camryn Rogers hammers all college rivals

Junior Camryn Rogers continued her domination of the collegiate hammer throw scene. She set a collegiate record of 247 feet, 9 inches while defending her 2019 NCAA hammer throw title (there was no outdoor track season in 2020), and remained unbeaten against collegiate competition for more than two calendar years.

Then, as the youngest among 11 Olympic finalists, the 22-year-old Canadian placed fifth in the event at the Tokyo Games this summer with a throw of 243-11. That made her the highest finisher from the western hemisphere and matched the best finish by a female Cal track and field athlete in Olympics history.

Jared Goff / Photo by Raj Mehta, USA Today

10. Jared Goff gets demoted . . . from L.A. to Detroit

Two years after helping the Los Angeles Rams to the Super Bowl and being named to the Pro Bowl for the second time, Cal’s record-setting quarterback lost the confidence of his coach and was shipped to NFL purgatory — Detroit.

Goff was 24-7 in the regular season as a starter for the Rams in 2017 and ’18, throwing 60 touchdowns and just 19 interceptions. But he failed to produce a touchdown in a 13-3 Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots, and the Rams slumped to 9-7 last season, prompting a QB swap that sent veteran Matthew Stafford to Los Angeles.

The Lions began this season 0-9-1 before Goff threw a touchdown pass on the final play of the game to lift Detroit to a 29-27 win over Minnesota early this month. He missed last week while in COVID protocols. but Goff actually has had a statistically solid season with 17 touchdowns, just eight interceptions and a 67-percent completion rate.

Alex Morgan / Photo by Jack Gruber, USA Today

9. Alex Morgan and Team USA run out of steam

Alex Morgan and her American teammates arrived at Tokyo hoping to become the first women’s soccer team to simultaneously own both the World Cup and Olympics titles. It didn’t happen.

Team USA and Morgan, 32 and now a mother, were shut out three times in their first five Olympics matches. Canada ended a 36-game winless streak against the Americans, beating them 1-0 in the semifinals.

The Americans earned a bronze medal by beating Australia 4-3, but Morgan played just nine minutes off the bench. She has scored 115 goals in 190 appearances with Team USA, but Morgan netted just a single goal in six games at Tokyo, and her career on the sport's worldwide stage may be over.

Justin Wilcox / Photo by John Heft, USA Today

8. The transfer portal is busy, but Justin Wilcox stays put

The advent of the transfer portal several years ago helped facilitate player movement in collegiate sports. Cal has felt the impact just like so many other programs, and has lost at least eight players with remaining eligibility to the portal, including starters McKade Mettauer, Christopher Brooks, Nikko Remigio, Jake Tonges and JH Tevis.

For a couple of days earlier this month it appeared the Bears might sustain an even more significant loss after coach Justin Wilcox interviewed for the vacant head coaching position at Oregon. The Ducks have been the dominant program in the Pac-12 North and Oregon is Wilcox’s alma mater.

Oregon offered Wilcox the job (no doubt with a raise in pay) . . . and he surprised folks in his hometown of Eugene, Oregon, by saying no thanks, he would remain in Berkeley.

Wilcox explained his decision a week later, suggesting he has unfinished business at Cal. "If we continue along this path, we can do some great things here," he said, "and things that haven't been done before.”

If Wilcox can eventually get the Bears to their first Rose Bowl since the 1958 season, his decision to turn down Oregon in favor of Cal will vault him to icon status with Old Blues.

Robert Paylor at Cal's graduation

7. Robert Paylor defies the odds and walks

Left paralyzed after suffering a spinal cord injury in May 2017 while playing for the Cal rugby team, Robert Paylor was never supposed to walk again. Doctors weren’t even sure he would survive the injury.

But on Aug. 30, before a crowd of more than 6,000 at the Greek Theater, the 24-year-old rose from his wheelchair and walked on the stage to receive his Cal diploma. More than 1,400 graduates celebrated that day — a ceremony delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. No one had greater reason to celebrate than Paylor and his family. “He is an inspiration to me every day,” said his mother, Debbie Paylor.

Paylor has become a motivational speaker, but he needed no words to energize the crowd at the Greek Theater, which gave him a standing ovation after he gripped his walker, stood and took more than a dozen steps.

"There was a time I was laying in a hospital bed and I couldn’t move anything. I couldn’t feel anything,” he said backstage after the ceremony. “I’m fighting for my life and the thing that was getting me through that moment was the eventual dream that I had to be able to walk across the stage and to be able to share this story with thousands — I hope millions — of people across this world.

“I hope when they saw me walk across that stage they saw themselves overcoming their own challenges.”

*** Tomorrow: The Top-6 Cal stories in 2021

Cover photo of Robert Paylor during graduation ceremonies at the Greek Theater

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo