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Hailing a True Blue & Gold

Even after Robert O. Briggs '51 retired from his 24-year run as a beloved Cal bandleader, he would show up at Memorial Stadium band practices with a cup of coffee and a morning bun from Bette's Diner.

"He was always part of the picture here and always a welcomed guest," says current Cal Band Director Robert Calonico '76 about his teacher, mentor, and friend. Although Briggs died in 2008 at age 81, Calonico says the band director is "here in spirit."

"It's hard because now I have a group of students who never met him," says Calonico. He notes that Briggs (Berkeley's first and only "band director emeritus") is always discussed at band camps to ensure that each generation of Golden Bear musicians learns of the man who marched in four Rose Bowls.

More than 50 students and alumni visited Briggs in the hospital in the days before he died — sometimes serenading him with band favorites — and many more sent cards. "He was truly overwhelmed by the love shown from his Cal friends," says Erin Proudfoot '97, a clarinet player and Alumni Band drum major.

In the first football game following his passing, the Alumni Band placed his uniform hat atop a ladder during "Hail to California" — the song Briggs traditionally conducted on Alumni Band Day. Football players wore "BB" for Bob Briggs on the back of their helmets.

The band was his family Briggs grew up in Modesto, California, and was the great-grandson of the town's co-founder. He attended Modesto Junior College before transferring to UC Berkeley in 1947. While a student, Briggs played the cornet and French horn in the heyday of Cal football under Lynn O. "Pappy" Waldorf — when Berkeley went to the Rose Bowl three times. "The University became a permanent fixture of his life," says Dan Cheatham '59, a Cal Band historian and drum major in 1957.

Although Briggs had left Berkeley after graduation to serve in the Army band during the Korean War and then to direct Fairfield's Armijo High band, bandleader James Berdahl invited him back to Cal to help fill out the band's ranks by marching at the Brussels World Fair in 1958 and in his fourth Rose Bowl in 1959. "I am the only Cal bandsman to have done that many," said Briggs of his Rose Bowl stints. "It was always my goal to conduct at one of them, and we almost did after the '75 season. But UCLA went!"

Cheatham says Briggs's rapport with colleagues and most significantly with students defined both his tenure at the University and his continuing relationship with campus. "The rehearsals were down to business, but not necessarily all business," says Cheatham, explaining that Briggs might work with one instrument group while other musicians talked quietly. "But when he'd go 'tap tap,' all side chatter would stop."

In his earlier days as director, Briggs was more reserved with students and was always addressed as "Mr. Briggs." In later years, friends say he developed a more casual style and became known to band members simply as "Bob." When Berkeley band members married (a fairly common occurrence), Briggs enjoyed driving them to or from their nuptials in one of his many classic cars.

"The Cal Band students were his family," says Proudfoot. "He would remember the name, hometown, and instrument of every single Cal Band member, and even after many years of not seeing someone, he would surprise them by remembering many facts about them."

After graduation, Proudfoot says she would invite Briggs to her BBQs and game-watching parties. "He would always attend, bringing the sangria!" she says. Even those who knew Briggs personally may not know that he generously contributed to Berkeley. He established the Robert O. Briggs Scholarship, awarded annually to support a student brass player, and the Robert O. Briggs Family Scholarships for upper and lower woodwind players and a percussionist. Briggs also bequeathed his IRA and annuity accounts to Berkeley to support the Cal Alumni Association scholarships, athletics, Cal Performances, and, of course, the Cal Band.

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