A former Cal Poly quarterback was named the head coach of an NFL team over the weekend. Well, kind of. The Washington Redskins named Jim Zorn as their head coach Saturday night.
He is perhaps best known as the former All-Pro Seattle Seahawks quarterback who passed for more than 20,000 yards and 100 touchdowns while forming one of the NFL’s all-time most feared connections with wide receiver Steve Largent.
But before that, Zorn, 54, set 10 school records while quarterbacking at Cal Poly Pomona from 1973-75. In 1973 he led all of Division II with 272.7 yards of total offense per game. He was inducted into the Cal Poly Pomona Athletics Hall of Fame in 1987.
Cal Poly Pomona, whose football program folded in 1982, went just 1-13-1 against the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo we all know and love.
During Zorn’s tenure at Cal Poly Pomona, the Mustangs beat the Broncos 41-0 in 1973, tied them 14-14 in 1974 and crushed them 44-6 in 1975. The Pomona football program put nine other players in the NFL over the years, and from 1980-82 was coached by former NFL MVP Roman Gabriel.
Today, the Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo) football media guide contains a first-page clarification proclaiming:
“When referring to the university, please use ‘Cal Poly’ only. We are NOT Cal Poly SLO or Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or Cal State Poly or any other derivative — just Cal Poly. No hyphen. The NCAA agreed to delete ‘SLO’ and ‘San Luis Obispo’ in 1994 and has used just Cal Poly in all statistics, releases and record books since then.”
Whoever wrote that better not have seen ESPN’s “NFL Live” host Trey Wingo once refer to Chris Gocong’s alma mater as something along the lines of “Cal San Poly State Luis Obispo” upon being lectured to by Mel Kiper, Jr.
Now, Wingo, and other NFL commentators, will have plenty of new opportunities to pronounce “Cal Poly” to the world.
Of course, it’s not as if the 3,128 youngsters belonging to the Facebook group “Pomona? No, I go to the REAL Cal Poly” can’t stand to brush up on a little history themselves.