JEFF TEDFORD LOOKED out of his office window and saw helicopters circling. Below, a crowd had gathered to watch the last holdouts finally descend from an oak tree beside California Memorial Stadium. TV news vans lined Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley, and rooftops across campus filled with people hoping for a glimpse of what was happening.
Tedford, Cal's most successful coach of the modern era, had grown accustomed to the odd scene. Twenty-one months earlier, activists began a tree-sit in December 2006, with some actually living in trees, to protest the removal of an oak grove next to the stadium, part of a long-planned seismic retrofit and facilities upgrade project.