Let’s just say that Bozeman and Cal Berkeley weren’t a good match. Here’s why.
Todd Bozeman, a men’s college basketball coach, started at Cal as an assistant under coach Lou Campanelli. When Campenelli was fired in mid-season 1993, Bozman took over the program and coached through through 1996. His time in Berkeley is still remembered, and his official record during two of those seasons–0-27 (0–18 Pac-10) in 1994-95 and 2–26 (2–16 Pac-10) in 1995-96–tells you why he is remembered, but it doesn’t tell the what happened. The “what” was a scandal and NCAA sanctions that followed.
The issue was paying a player, Jelani Gardner, to play for Cal and Bozeman. When Bozeman cut Gardner’s playing time, Gardner’s parents informed university officials about the payment. But that wasn’t all. Bozeman was also accused of making lewd and threatening phone calls to a Cal student.
The NCAA investigated and issued several sanctions against the program and Bozeman personally, including vacating wins, vacating an NCAA tournament appearance, reducing the number of scholarships, and imposing an eight-year conditional college coaching ban on Bozeman.
During this time away from the court, Bozeman had various jobs, including several stints with NBA teams.
But what happened at Cal didn’t end Todd Bozeman’s college coaching career. After serving his ban, he re-surfaced at Morgan State as the Bears head coach from 2006-2019. There, Bozeman’s teams went to the NCAA Tournament twice, and he was a three-time Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
After Morgan State, Bozeman served for a time as an assistant coach at Rhode Island, his alma mater, where he had played guard for the Rams in the mid-80s.
Scandal hasn’t been a stranger in college athletics over the years (men’s basketball in particular), and Bozeman’s story at Cal is one chapter in a lengthy book.
