Mark and Karen Biestman with their son Ross
Celebrating Their Son’s Graduation and Their 25th Wedding Anniversary, Mark & Karen Biestman Believe in the Bears By Anton Malko
K
aren Biestman is wheeling a giant piece of luggage down Bancroft Way. It’s mid-May and not yet time for her 25th wedding anniversary trip; first, she has to grade all the papers inside the rolling archive, give two more exams and attend graduation ceremonies. She looks across to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house, where her older son, Ross, served two terms as president over the past four years, and where husband, Mark, was president when they fell in love as undergrads on the Berkeley campus. There’s barely time to acknowledge that their eldest son is taking his last exam as a Cal student this morning, but Karen’s hectic life seems a happy one, too, and she makes time to sit and talk about Cal Athletics. “Athletics is not only compatible with the mission of the university, but furthers it,” Karen said. Her vantage point as a faculty member and parent of a rugby scholar-athlete offers a particularly informed perspective. The lecturer in American Studies earned her B.A. from Cal and J.D. from the Boalt School of Law before immediately taking a post as a lecturer of Native American Studies in 1983. Her career at Berkeley, also nearing 25 years, has included many academic and administrative leadership positions. Inside a restaurant on the corner of College Avenue, Mark joins the conversation and harks back to their days as Cal students. “Back then, Cal football was still a pretty big deal,” he said of his arrival as a freshman in the fall of 1976. “The Bears were coming off their Pac-8 championship, with players like (quarterback) Joe Roth, (running back) Chuck Muncie and (offensive lineman) Jack Clark.” It was an era of football that wouldn’t be seen at Cal again until recent times.
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cal sports quarterly