When legendary Arizona State football coach Frank Kush died last week in Phoenix at 88, the UA put his image on the large video board at Arizona Stadium.
That’s quite a tribute for a man who was 16-6 against the Wildcats, pushing UA football into the background similar to what Lute Olson did to Sun Devil basketball for 25 years.
In my early years in Tucson, I cherished the late nights at Camp Cochise when former Arizona Republic writers Bob Eger and Bob Jacobsen told their best Frank Kush stories.
Did you know he once was so irritated at a delay of a Camp Tontozona workout that he drove a bus through a locked gate?
In 1989, a decade after he left ASU and the Wildcats took command of the Territorial Cup, Kush drove to Tucson to promote the Rillito Park horse-racing season as part of his role with Phoenix’s Turf Paradise.
Kush was 60 then and it was the first time I got to sit alone with him. He had not lost his fighting spirit.
“I used to have a passionate desire to beat Arizona,” he said. “But not any longer. Hopefully, they’ll go to the Rose Bowl.”
I almost choked.
“One of my sons even attended the UA a few years ago,” he said. “I used to get so damn mad at him. He was so impressed with the UA, and it irritated me.”
Kush said he visited Tucson as infrequently as possible but recalled one of his rare trips for anything other than a football game.
In 1972, “They asked me to be the speaker for Lou Farber, who was retiring as the football coach at Pueblo High School. Well, I grew up knowing all about Lou; he had part of the ‘Iron Men’ of Brown team (of 1929),” Kush said. “So I said OK, but I didn’t tell anybody I was going down to Tucson.”
ASU was wise enough to erect a statue of Kush outside Sun Devil Stadium while he was healthy and aware enough to appreciate it. This should be a cue for Arizona to soon do the same for the 82-year-old Olson at McKale Center.
