Roger Theder (September 22, 1939 – October 1, 2016) was a former American football player and coach. Theder, coached at Cal for a decade, first under former head coach Mike White as an assistant and then as head coach for four years from 1978 to 1981. He served as the head fo
otball coach at the University of California, Berkeley from 1978 to 1981. During his time in Berkeley, Theder worked with star quarterbacks such as Steve Bartkowski (the NFL’s No. 1 pick in 1975), Vince Ferragamo, Joe Roth and Rich Campbell. Theder also brought the “script Cal” in that is now the primary logo for the Cal Bears.
Theder’s most successful season at Cal came in 1979, when the Golden Bears finished 7-5, including 5-4 in the Pacific 10 Conference. That team played in Cal’s first bowl game since in 21 years, the Garden State Bowl, where the Bears lost to Temple 28-17.
Theder’s greatest victory, however, may have come in the 1980 Big Game, when a 2-8 Cal team upset Stanford 28-23 despite having to use a backup quarterback, J Torchio,
in place of injured starter Campbell, who went on to be a first-round draft pick of the Green Bay Packers. Stanford was 6-4 with a quarterback named John Elway and would have gone to the Peach Bowl if it had beaten the Bears.
Theder started his career in college football as an assistant under John Ralston at Stanford from 1968-71 where he was the quarterbacks and receivers coach for the 1970 and 1971 Rose Bowl-winning teams and worked with Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett.
Theder was later an assistant coach for the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts and the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League (NFL). He and his family were even part of the Colts overnight move fr
om Baltimore to Indianapolis. His last coaching stint was as the offensive coordinator at San Jose State under John Ralston in 1993-96.
Theder, who has three grown children, found a new calling in the late ’90s: training quarterbacks from the middle school level through college. A former quarterback himself – at Western Michigan University from 1960 to 1962 – he is nationally known as a “quarterback guru” for both amateurs and pros.
A number of big-name football players trained with Theder, including Colin Kaepernick, Ken Dorsey, Trent Edwards, Drew Olsen, Josh Johnson, Sam Keller, Eric Crouch, Dennis Dixon, Bradlee Van Pelt and many more. Theder has coached at both Cal and Stanford, trained players who went on to both schools, and his son, Rick, played defensive back for Stanford.
Theder was a 1963 graduate of Western Michigan, where he played three seasons of college football and baseball as a quarterback and catcher, making two trips to the College World Series and winning three conference titles on the diamond. He earned his master’s degree from Bowling Green State in 1964 after serving as a graduate assistant football coach for the 1963 season. He then spent one campaign coaching at Lima Shawnee High School in Ohio in 1964 before beginning his collegiate coaching career with three seasons as an assistant at Northern Illinois (1965-67).
Roger Theder died on Saturday, October 1, 2016 at the age of 77. He is survived by his wife of 54 years and high school sweetheart, Marie. They had three children, Rick, Denae and Monique, and six grandchildren.