The "good" firsts all relate to his recruiting accomplishments. No other coach in the history of the sport ever had a recruiting run comparable to Cal's the first half of his time here To have NINE future NBA players on one college roster (as we did in 2015), to have a future NBA superstar never start even a single college game (ie. Devin Booker) ...these are the sort of things never seen before or since.
But, of course, the "bad" firsts relate to how poorly some of his teams underachieved with all that talent. For example, the 21 team somehow managing only a 9 win season with a roster loaded with at least a half-dozen five star recruits and four guys still in the NBA. No team ever did less with more.