Former Cal football player Tony Smith, who was named the of the Oakland Unified School District in 2009, is featured in today's Contra Costa Times for "helping to mobilize a fractured system under the constant threat of education funding cutbacks" as the publication described.

Smith was a four-year letterwinner at Cal from 1986-89. The offensive lineman was a team captain and earned honorable mention all-conference honors as a senior. Smith received his B.A. in English from Cal in 1992, before going on to add Master's and Doctorate Degrees in Division of Language and Literacy from Cal's Graduate School of Education in 1993 and 2002, respectively.

Click here to read the full story on Smith in this morning's paper.