How do you put Ray Smith’s third knee injury and subsequent departure from the UA basketball program in context?
The five most devastating health issues in UA sports history:
1. Button Salmon’s death in 1926. The UA’s starting quarterback, baseball catcher and student-body president triggered the “Bear Down” legend, but at the time it spawned overwhelming grief in Tucson.
2. Shawntinice Polk’s death in 2005. The most dominating women’s basketball player in school history died two months before her senior season. The women’s basketball program has not yet recovered, going 131-220 since, with one winning season in 11 years.
3. Art Luppino’s crippling knee injury, 1956. The two-time NCAA rushing champion ripped up his knee in training camp, ruining a potential NFL career and sending Arizona on a downward spiral in which it went 12-27-1 over four seasons, firing two head coaches, as ASU’s Frank Kush began a 20-year reign over the Wildcats.
4. Kevin Long’s ankle injury at the 1989 NCAA baseball regionals. Long, a second-team All-America center fielder, hit third in a lineup that went 23-7 in the Pac-10, the school’s best-ever conference record. After his ankle injury, the No. 1 Wildcats lost two games to Long Beach State despite having a dominating team that included future major-leaguers Trevor Hoffman, J.T. Snow, Alan Zinter and Scott Erickson, possibly the most talented team in school history.
5. Kenzie Fowler’s back and shoulder injuries ended her UA softball pitching career prematurely, in 2014, after she had pitched Arizona to the 2010 College World Series championship game as a freshman. (She was even sidelined after being hit in the face by a line drive in the UA dugout.) The UA hasn’t returned to the World Series since Fowler’s freshman season.
Arizona, as with most college athletic departments, has a long history of knee injuries to top athletes. Many return to play; UA receiver Richard Dice played with a torn ACL in a compelling 1995 comeback victory at Arizona State; Arizona center Kevin Flanagan overcame ACL surgery to help the Wildcats to the 1994 Final Four; linebacker Jake Fischer, out with an ACL tear in 2011, returned a year later to make 119 tackles.
One of the few elite Tucson athletes to have as much misfortune as Ray Smith was Flowing Wells High School and Pima College basketball player Abyee Maracigan.
She tore her right ACL twice and required five total knee surgeries, including one on her left knee. She went on to play two seasons at Idaho State, led Flowing Wells to the 2008 state championship, and was PCC’s star point guard when the Aztecs finished fifth and seventh in the nation in 2009 and 2010. (She also broke her wrist.)
Maracigan’s story has a happy ending. She is a math teacher in the Amphitheater School District and a part-time youth league coach. Let’s hope Ray Smith similarly gets through this difficult period.
