Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Arizona Wildcats have little to lose with signing of Donavan Tate
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
I consider quarterback Willie Tuitama the most significant Arizona football recruit of the last 15 years.
The quarterback from Stockton, California, delivered the Wildcats and this community from evil – last place in the Pac-10 – and was the single biggest factor in keeping Arizona from spiraling into a decade (or more) of bad football.
Before Tuitama became a starter late in his true freshman season (2005) the Wildcats had lost 38 of their last 50 games.
Tuitama set school records in passing yards (8,727) and touchdown passes (67) and to rousing victories over No. 7 UCLA, No. 8 Cal and against No. 17 BYU in the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl, Arizona’s first bowl appearance in 11 seasons.
In Tuitama’s sophomore year (2006) Arizona averaged 55,798 fans at Arizona Stadium, a virtual season sellout.
By the time Tuitama left the QB job to Nick Foles and Matt Scott, the Wildcats had restored their reputation as a winning program and regained the community’s confidence.
Now, all these years later, Arizona is again at pre-Tuitama lows. But it’s possible that Rich Rodriguez has recruited a Tuitama-like program-changer.
When RichRod last week announced that soon-to-be 27-year-old QB Donavan Tate of Cartersville, Georgia, will enroll at Arizona, it came off as total desperation. Donavan hasn’t played football since 2008.
The former minor-league outfielder was twice been suspended for substance abuse and treated for addiction issues during his baseball career. He also had a series of injuries: a concussion, an Achilles tear, shoulder problems and a sports hernia.
Why add this man to your football roster?
First, RichRod has little to lose. If Tate is a bust, so what? The San Diego Padres are paying his tuition.
Second, this isn’t new territory for RichRod. He has been a bring-me-your-poor-huddled-masses outlet for bounce-back QBs, among them Jesse Scroggins of USC and Jerrard Randall of LSU. Scroggins rarely played; Randall was at times electrifying, rushing for 702 yards in 2015.
There is precedence that this might work, and not just work, but over time revive Arizona’s football program.
In 1997, Florida State added 26-year-old ex-minor-league baseball player Chris Weinke to its football roster. He had played six years in the Toronto Blue Jays system. After learning the FSU offense in 1997, completing just seven passes, Weinke became a star, passing for 9,757 yards in three years. He won the Heisman Trophy in 2000.
In 2007, Oklahoma State added 24-year-old ex-baseball player Brandon Weeden to its football roster. He redshirted in ’07 and rarely got off the bench in ’08 and ’09. But in 2010-11, Weeden passed for 9,004 yards and 71 touchdowns. After he turned 27, Weeden led the Cowboys to a 23-3 record.
Tate has a football pedigree; his father, Lars Tate rushed for 71 yards and scored Georgia’s only touchdown in a 1985 Sun Bowl tie against Arizona. In addition to a pedigree, Donavan Tate now has a second chance.
There are, of course, many variables that must work: Tate must adapt to RichRod’s scheme, stay healthy and walk the straight and narrow.
It could be nothing. Or it could be the football story of the year in Tucson.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
After being part of 598 softball games at Pima College and helping Flowing Wells High School win state championships in 1999, 2000 and 2002, Gene Gonzales is retiring.
You wonder how he found the time and energy, but there’s no wondering about his impact as an assistant coach.
“I asked Gene to join me when I became the JV coach at Flowing Wells in 1995,” said Pima College softball coach Armando Quiroz. “We’ve been together 22 years. Gene is like a brother to me.”
Gonzales graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1971 and served 30 years in the Tucson Police Department, retiring as a sergeant after a remarkable career in which he worked as an undercover officer, in the gang unit, at the 911 center, as a patrolman and on the vice-squad and bomb unit.
Somehow Gonzales found time to coach softball at the highest level, helping PCC to two NJCAA World Series appearances and, of course, being part of Flowing Wells’ three state titles.
Some of the top softball players in Tucson history played on those teams: Desiree Williams, Ashley Monceaux, Yvette Alvarez and Rebekah Quiroz.
Gonzales and Armando Quiroz met while playing in the Tucson semi-pro baseball league in 1972 at Santa Rita Park. Their friendship rolls on.
“My grandkids are now playing softball and golf and tennis, and I want to see them play,” said Gonzales. “It’s been a great time with ’Mando. It was rewarding to watch the girls mature from year to year and become wives and mothers. It has been like another family for me, a very big family. I loved it.”
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Canyon del Oro High School will play for its ninth state softball championship Tuesday night at ASU’s Farrington Stadium. Coach Kelly Fowler’s Dorados (29-4) will engage an old familiar friend: Peoria Sunrise Mountain coach Jody Miller-Pruitt. She was Arizona’s catcher when Mike Candrea coached his 1991 and 1993 NCAA championship teams. Miller-Pruitt coached Sunrise Mountain in the 2012 state title game where she lost to CDO, then coached by Stephanie Nicholson. Fowler, who coached CDO to 2005 and 2011 state championships, had a busy weekend. She flew to Lincoln, Nebraska, to watch her daughter, Arizona’s 2011 Player of the Year, Mattie Fowler, receive her MBA degree at Nebraska. Mattie, whose 35-1 team of 2011 is possibly the best in state history, gets her-post college days started this week: She takes 20 Cornhuskers students to Nicaragua to help build three schools as part of a “Seeds of Learning” program.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
CDO senior Turner Washington completed his singular track and field career last week, winning another state championship in the discus. His last throw (218 feet 7 inches), was his career best, another state record. When Washington arrives at Arizona next year, things will change a bit. The discus in high school sports weighs 3.3 pounds; it is 4.4 pounds in college. It’s not likely to take long for Washington to pursue the UA discus record of 209-7 set by Adam Kuehl in 2006.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Washington’s CDO teammate, Cameron Crandall, won the state high jump with an eye-opening jump of 7 feet. Crandall’s jump puts him in the territory of UA freshman Justice Summerset, who won the state title for Mountain View last year at 7-2½. Summerset will compete in his first Pac-12 meet next weekend at Oregon’s Hayward Field. Track and Field News ranks Summerset No. 2 in the Pac-12 and No. 10 nationally.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Sarah Macdonald swept state championships at 1,600 and 3,200 meters as a Pusch Ridge in 2012 and 2013 (she also won the 2012 state cross country title.) Now a senior biology major at Seattle Pacific, Macdonald has spent time in the off-season working at an orphanage in Brazil. Macdonald has earned her first college All-America award for track and field. She recently became an All-American by helping the SPU 4,000-meter distance relay team finish eighth at the NCAA Division II indoor finals.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When UA junior outfielder Cal Stevenson hit a walk-off home run to beat Washington 5-4 Friday night at Hi Corbett Field, it was a bit of a surprise. In 2014 at Nevada and 2015 at Chabot Junior College in California, Stevenson had 453 at-bats without hitting a home run. Nor did he hit a home run in his senior season at John F. Kennedy High School in Fremont, California. Stevenson, however, ended his long homerless streak in a home victory over Arizona State on April 4. Stevenson’s home run Friday, which broke a tenuous six-game Pac-12 losing streak, was needed so badly by the struggling Wildcats that it might come off as “The Shot Heard ’Round the College Baseball World.”
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As Arizona’s AD, Greg Byrne was paid $735,000 in his final year. He forfeited a $2.1 million (or thereabouts) retention bonus to be paid in 2020. But Alabama has now signed Byrne through 2022 in a five-year, $5 million deal. There’s more: Alabama paid Byrne’s $50,000 buyout at Arizona, gave him a $200,000 relocation fee, a $400,000 no-interest loan for down payment on a house in Tuscaloosa, two cars, a country club membership and $25,000 per year for personal expenses. He also has a chance to earn $200,000 per year in bonus money. The money flows in Tuscaloosa: last week Byrne raised the pay of ’Bama offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to $1.2 million per year, and gave defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt $1.3 million per year. The Crimson Tide plays a money game with which Arizona is not familiar.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Salpointe Catholic senior-to-be Matteo Mele, an offensive lineman of note, last week visited the Oregon Ducks’ campus. He has also been offered a scholarship by Arizona. The Wildcats have increased their pursuit of many of the West’s leading Polynesian football prospects, offering scholarships to Salt Lake City guard Sione Angilau, SLC defensive end Tennessee Pututau and SLC tackle Paul Maile. Unfortunately, Angilau has also been offered by Alabama and Texas, and Pututau, who has three cousins on the Utah roster, has been offered by ASU, Tennessee and Boise State.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As of Saturday afternoon, the AIA had not moved Wednesday night’s Class 4A baseball semifinals from Tempe Diablo Stadium to Tucson’s Hi Corbett Field even though it seems the only fair place to play the doubleheader. No. 1 seed Nogales will play No. 4 seed CDO in the 6:30 p.m., nightcap. The 4 p.m. opener matches No. 2 Salpointe against No. 6 Tempe Marcos de Niza. Arizona will play at Hi Corbett Field on Tuesday against ASU and then leave town to play at College of Charleston for the week.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Follow the bouncing ball and connect ex-UA basketball players Dennis Latimore and Chance Comanche.
Latimore was one of Lute Olson’s top recruits in the Arizona Class of 2001. But he averaged just 2.4 points and made one start for the Wildcats before leaving the team late in the 2003 season. Latimore transferred to Notre Dame and played one season, averaging 7.1 points. He then jumped to the pros, but was not drafted.
Last week, Latimore agreed to become head coach at Chino Hills High School in California. That’s the team of LaVar Ball’s sons: Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo. Only LaMelo, who will be a junior at Chino Hills, has high school eligibility remaining.
Can that be a good thing, given LaVar’s history of meddling?
Latimore was the coach at View Park High School in Los Angeles, which in 2013-14 featured center Comanche, before he transferred to Beverly Hills High.
Comanche, who will not return to Arizona in 2017-18, was probably wise to leave Arizona. He likely wouldn’t have increased his playing time, 19 minutes per game, with De’Andre Ayton and Dusan Ristic expected to occupy the inside starting positions.
But I think Comanche would’ve served his future better had he chosen to transfer to a program like Gonzaga or UNLV, sit out a season, and then play as a junior in 2018-19. By then, given two more years to develop, Comanche might’ve been a first-round NBA draft pick.
But patience and college basketball are not often words used in the same sentence.
I consider quarterback Willie Tuitama the most significant Arizona football recruit of the last 15 years.
The quarterback from Stockton, California, delivered the Wildcats and this community from evil – last place in the Pac-10 – and was the single biggest factor in keeping Arizona from spiraling into a decade (or more) of bad football.
Before Tuitama became a starter late in his true freshman season (2005) the Wildcats had lost 38 of their last 50 games.
Tuitama set school records in passing yards (8,727) and touchdown passes (67) and to rousing victories over No. 7 UCLA, No. 8 Cal and against No. 17 BYU in the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl, Arizona’s first bowl appearance in 11 seasons.
In Tuitama’s sophomore year (2006) Arizona averaged 55,798 fans at Arizona Stadium, a virtual season sellout.
By the time Tuitama left the QB job to Nick Foles and Matt Scott, the Wildcats had restored their reputation as a winning program and regained the community’s confidence.
Now, all these years later, Arizona is again at pre-Tuitama lows. But it’s possible that Rich Rodriguez has recruited a Tuitama-like program-changer.
When RichRod last week announced that soon-to-be 27-year-old QB Donavan Tate of Cartersville, Georgia, will enroll at Arizona, it came off as total desperation. Donavan hasn’t played football since 2008.
The former minor-league outfielder was twice been suspended for substance abuse and treated for addiction issues during his baseball career. He also had a series of injuries: a concussion, an Achilles tear, shoulder problems and a sports hernia.
Why add this man to your football roster?
First, RichRod has little to lose. If Tate is a bust, so what? The San Diego Padres are paying his tuition.
Second, this isn’t new territory for RichRod. He has been a bring-me-your-poor-huddled-masses outlet for bounce-back QBs, among them Jesse Scroggins of USC and Jerrard Randall of LSU. Scroggins rarely played; Randall was at times electrifying, rushing for 702 yards in 2015.
There is precedence that this might work, and not just work, but over time revive Arizona’s football program.
In 1997, Florida State added 26-year-old ex-minor-league baseball player Chris Weinke to its football roster. He had played six years in the Toronto Blue Jays system. After learning the FSU offense in 1997, completing just seven passes, Weinke became a star, passing for 9,757 yards in three years. He won the Heisman Trophy in 2000.
In 2007, Oklahoma State added 24-year-old ex-baseball player Brandon Weeden to its football roster. He redshirted in ’07 and rarely got off the bench in ’08 and ’09. But in 2010-11, Weeden passed for 9,004 yards and 71 touchdowns. After he turned 27, Weeden led the Cowboys to a 23-3 record.
Tate has a football pedigree; his father, Lars Tate rushed for 71 yards and scored Georgia’s only touchdown in a 1985 Sun Bowl tie against Arizona. In addition to a pedigree, Donavan Tate now has a second chance.
There are, of course, many variables that must work: Tate must adapt to RichRod’s scheme, stay healthy and walk the straight and narrow.
It could be nothing. Or it could be the football story of the year in Tucson.
After being part of 598 softball games at Pima College and helping Flowing Wells High School win state championships in 1999, 2000 and 2002, Gene Gonzales is retiring.
You wonder how he found the time and energy, but there’s no wondering about his impact as an assistant coach.
“I asked Gene to join me when I became the JV coach at Flowing Wells in 1995,” said Pima College softball coach Armando Quiroz. “We’ve been together 22 years. Gene is like a brother to me.”
Gonzales graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1971 and served 30 years in the Tucson Police Department, retiring as a sergeant after a remarkable career in which he worked as an undercover officer, in the gang unit, at the 911 center, as a patrolman and on the vice-squad and bomb unit.
Somehow Gonzales found time to coach softball at the highest level, helping PCC to two NJCAA World Series appearances and, of course, being part of Flowing Wells’ three state titles.
Some of the top softball players in Tucson history played on those teams: Desiree Williams, Ashley Monceaux, Yvette Alvarez and Rebekah Quiroz.
Gonzales and Armando Quiroz met while playing in the Tucson semi-pro baseball league in 1972 at Santa Rita Park. Their friendship rolls on.
“My grandkids are now playing softball and golf and tennis, and I want to see them play,” said Gonzales. “It’s been a great time with ’Mando. It was rewarding to watch the girls mature from year to year and become wives and mothers. It has been like another family for me, a very big family. I loved it.”
Canyon del Oro High School will play for its ninth state softball championship Tuesday night at ASU’s Farrington Stadium. Coach Kelly Fowler’s Dorados (29-4) will engage an old familiar friend: Peoria Sunrise Mountain coach Jody Miller-Pruitt. She was Arizona’s catcher when Mike Candrea coached his 1991 and 1993 NCAA championship teams. Miller-Pruitt coached Sunrise Mountain in the 2012 state title game where she lost to CDO, then coached by Stephanie Nicholson. Fowler, who coached CDO to 2005 and 2011 state championships, had a busy weekend. She flew to Lincoln, Nebraska, to watch her daughter, Arizona’s 2011 Player of the Year, Mattie Fowler, receive her MBA degree at Nebraska. Mattie, whose 35-1 team of 2011 is possibly the best in state history, gets her-post college days started this week: She takes 20 Cornhuskers students to Nicaragua to help build three schools as part of a “Seeds of Learning” program.
CDO senior Turner Washington completed his singular track and field career last week, winning another state championship in the discus. His last throw (218 feet 7 inches), was his career best, another state record. When Washington arrives at Arizona next year, things will change a bit. The discus in high school sports weighs 3.3 pounds; it is 4.4 pounds in college. It’s not likely to take long for Washington to pursue the UA discus record of 209-7 set by Adam Kuehl in 2006.
Washington’s CDO teammate, Cameron Crandall, won the state high jump with an eye-opening jump of 7 feet. Crandall’s jump puts him in the territory of UA freshman Justice Summerset, who won the state title for Mountain View last year at 7-2½. Summerset will compete in his first Pac-12 meet next weekend at Oregon’s Hayward Field. Track and Field News ranks Summerset No. 2 in the Pac-12 and No. 10 nationally.
Sarah Macdonald swept state championships at 1,600 and 3,200 meters as a Pusch Ridge in 2012 and 2013 (she also won the 2012 state cross country title.) Now a senior biology major at Seattle Pacific, Macdonald has spent time in the off-season working at an orphanage in Brazil. Macdonald has earned her first college All-America award for track and field. She recently became an All-American by helping the SPU 4,000-meter distance relay team finish eighth at the NCAA Division II indoor finals.
When UA junior outfielder Cal Stevenson hit a walk-off home run to beat Washington 5-4 Friday night at Hi Corbett Field, it was a bit of a surprise. In 2014 at Nevada and 2015 at Chabot Junior College in California, Stevenson had 453 at-bats without hitting a home run. Nor did he hit a home run in his senior season at John F. Kennedy High School in Fremont, California. Stevenson, however, ended his long homerless streak in a home victory over Arizona State on April 4. Stevenson’s home run Friday, which broke a tenuous six-game Pac-12 losing streak, was needed so badly by the struggling Wildcats that it might come off as “The Shot Heard ’Round the College Baseball World.”
As Arizona’s AD, Greg Byrne was paid $735,000 in his final year. He forfeited a $2.1 million (or thereabouts) retention bonus to be paid in 2020. But Alabama has now signed Byrne through 2022 in a five-year, $5 million deal. There’s more: Alabama paid Byrne’s $50,000 buyout at Arizona, gave him a $200,000 relocation fee, a $400,000 no-interest loan for down payment on a house in Tuscaloosa, two cars, a country club membership and $25,000 per year for personal expenses. He also has a chance to earn $200,000 per year in bonus money. The money flows in Tuscaloosa: last week Byrne raised the pay of ’Bama offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to $1.2 million per year, and gave defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt $1.3 million per year. The Crimson Tide plays a money game with which Arizona is not familiar.
Salpointe Catholic senior-to-be Matteo Mele, an offensive lineman of note, last week visited the Oregon Ducks’ campus. He has also been offered a scholarship by Arizona. The Wildcats have increased their pursuit of many of the West’s leading Polynesian football prospects, offering scholarships to Salt Lake City guard Sione Angilau, SLC defensive end Tennessee Pututau and SLC tackle Paul Maile. Unfortunately, Angilau has also been offered by Alabama and Texas, and Pututau, who has three cousins on the Utah roster, has been offered by ASU, Tennessee and Boise State.
As of Saturday afternoon, the AIA had not moved Wednesday night’s Class 4A baseball semifinals from Tempe Diablo Stadium to Tucson’s Hi Corbett Field even though it seems the only fair place to play the doubleheader. No. 1 seed Nogales will play No. 4 seed CDO in the 6:30 p.m., nightcap. The 4 p.m. opener matches No. 2 Salpointe against No. 6 Tempe Marcos de Niza. Arizona will play at Hi Corbett Field on Tuesday against ASU and then leave town to play at College of Charleston for the week.
Follow the bouncing ball and connect ex-UA basketball players Dennis Latimore and Chance Comanche.
Latimore was one of Lute Olson’s top recruits in the Arizona Class of 2001. But he averaged just 2.4 points and made one start for the Wildcats before leaving the team late in the 2003 season. Latimore transferred to Notre Dame and played one season, averaging 7.1 points. He then jumped to the pros, but was not drafted.
Last week, Latimore agreed to become head coach at Chino Hills High School in California. That’s the team of LaVar Ball’s sons: Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo. Only LaMelo, who will be a junior at Chino Hills, has high school eligibility remaining.
Can that be a good thing, given LaVar’s history of meddling?
Latimore was the coach at View Park High School in Los Angeles, which in 2013-14 featured center Comanche, before he transferred to Beverly Hills High.
Comanche, who will not return to Arizona in 2017-18, was probably wise to leave Arizona. He likely wouldn’t have increased his playing time, 19 minutes per game, with De’Andre Ayton and Dusan Ristic expected to occupy the inside starting positions.
But I think Comanche would’ve served his future better had he chosen to transfer to a program like Gonzaga or UNLV, sit out a season, and then play as a junior in 2018-19. By then, given two more years to develop, Comanche might’ve been a first-round NBA draft pick.
But patience and college basketball are not often words used in the same sentence.
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