Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Salpointe's Wolfgang Weber back, better than ever following surgery
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Wolfgang Weber has coached Salpointe Catholic to 634 soccer victories in his distinguished career. How good is that? No other boys soccer coach in this state has reached 400.
Although no official record is kept nationally, some have estimated that Weber is now No. 9 in history.
Getting to No. 1, which is owned by Missouri prep coach Terry Michler — he surpassed 900 two years ago — isn’t going to happen.
It would probably take another 15 years to hit 900, and Weber is 69. He is, in his own words, “lucky to be alive.”
You would never know he is lucky about anything. When the state 4A playoffs begin Tuesday, the 17-3-1 Lancers open as the No. 3 seed. If they win a seventh state title for Weber in February, few will be surprised.
In late September, while coaching his Tucson Soccer Academy team in Phoenix, Weber felt discomfort in his chest. He took “a little baby aspirin” and resumed his routine. Later that day, the chest pains returned. He took a bigger aspirin.
About a week later he was in the emergency room at Banner-UMC. He was soon undergoing surgery, a triple-bypass for what doctors discovered was a 90 percent blockage of the passages to his heart.
“I escaped, if you will,” he says. “I honestly never panicked, maybe I should have. My mother died of a heart attack when she was 65.”
What’s remarkable is that Weber was out of the hospital in five days and was cleared to attend a much-anticipated Rolling Stones concert in Phoenix two weeks later. When Salpointe’s soccer workouts began shortly thereafter, he was in his customary spot on the sidelines.
“The doctors told me I’m probably good for another 20 years, although I’ll be happy with 10,” he said with a laugh.
Weber’s current Salpointe team has a promising mix of eight seniors and three sophomore standouts: Alfonso Cabrera, who has scored 18 goals; Francisco Manzo, who has 10 goals; and Eric Galindo, who leads the team in assists.
This looks to be the start of another championship-era run for Weber, who is in his 35th year coaching the Lancers.
If ever he was going to retire, it might’ve been in 2013. A few months after the Lancers went 26-2 to win his sixth state championship, his wife of 34 years, Nina, died. That makes the inability to play state tournament games on the Salpointe field this week — it is being fitted with a new artificial turf in time for spring football drills — a minor inconvenience. (Salpointe will play Phoenix Metro Tech at Tucson High School).
“I’m going to keep at it,” he said. “I find it as enjoyable as ever and I think I am still capable of doing my best.”
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Only two UA basketball players have ever hit 50 percent of their 3-point shots in a season (minimum 2 attempts per game): Steve Kerr was at 57.3 percent in 1987-88 and Salim Stoudamire shot 50.4 percent in 2004-05.
Now comes Lauri Markkanen who is shooting 50.5 percent. Of all players in college basketball, only one other man with more than 100 attempts has made more than half of them, Eric Durham of Jacksonville State, at 51.5.
The most clever nickname for Markkanen is “The Finnisher,” created by long-time Tucson sports journalist Steve Rivera, but Markkanen’s more of a Swisher than a Finnisher.
Those who follow draft projections, and thus Markkanen, would benefit from following Mike Schmitz, a UA grad who does a thorough and insightful job for draftexpress.com.
After evaluating Markkanen (and Arizona) last week, Schmitz didn’t simply buy the he’s-a-wonderful-shooter business. He wrote:
“The next step for him offensively is to develop his ability to operate from the mid to low post, improve his ability to drive right, become a better playmaker with the ball in his hands, and do a better job of drawing contact and getting to the free throw line.”
Markkanen won’t turn 20 until May. He’s got time to become a “Finnished” product.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Nothing on the 2016 sports calendar moved me from the sofa more quickly, with blood racing and goosebumps rising, than Tucsonan Bernard Lagat winning the 5,000-meter championship at the USA Olympic Trials. Remember, he was 41. Last week, USA Track and Field was told that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency tested 481 Olympic-hopeful athletes during the year. It tested Lagat 13 times, and obviously he was clean all 13 times. Doesn’t that sound a bit excessive? Only four other track and field athletes were tested more than Lagat, who has retired from his track days with reputation intact and his place in history secure.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of the top sports afternoons at Hillenbrand Stadium this season will be a Saturday, Feb. 11 doubleheader pitting Arizona against Baylor and Northwestern, two national powers. It will also be a homecoming of note; Baylor assistant coach Mark Lumley, a UA grad, coached Flowing Wells High to the 1993 and 1997 state championship games. Northwestern junior catcher Sammy Nettling, who has started 72 games in two seasons at NU, helped Canyon del Oro win the 2011 and 2012 state championships. The games are scheduled to begin at 3 and 5 p.m. Mike Candrea’s Arizona team will be part of an NCAA/Pac-12 attempt to make games shorter in 2017. Umpires will allow only 90 seconds between the end of an inning and the start of the next, and Pac-12 games won’t permit more than six (game-delaying) conferences on the mound or in the infield per game.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott’s media rights deal with ESPN didn’t get anywhere with the baseball people. Of the 135 games ESPNU will broadcast this baseball season, only one — an Oregon State vs. UCLA game — will be on ESPNU. The SEC and ACC will have more than 100 games in that package. Coach Jay Johnson’s Arizona team will be on 20 Pac-12 Networks broadcasts, including the three-game series in Phoenix May 18-20.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
If anything, college football and basketball recruiting is overkill. Oregon-bound quarterback Braxton Burmeister, who twice made a commitment to play at Arizona, told the Eugene Register-Guard last week that he spent five consecutive days talking to Oregon coach Willie Taggart on the phone. “We’d been talking every day for 30 minutes to an hour,” said Burmeister. “I called Arizona and they wanted me to sleep on it, but I pretty much knew at that point.” Five days on the phone, for about three hours total? Brutal.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Recruiting excess isn’t anything new. In 1981, mega-recruit Vance Johnson of Cholla High School was torn between attending Arizona or ASU. He told the Star he talked to ASU head coach Darryl Rogers four times on the phone the day before letters of intent were signed. That night, a Tuesday, ASU track coach Len Miller slept on the couch in Johnson’s living room. Before signing with Arizona the next morning, Johnson, who went on to be a standout receiver with the Denver Broncos and four-year Wildcat starter, told the Star “I’ve changed my mind four times and ASU is hoping they can make it five.” What sold him on the Wildcats? “ASU said I could help them, but Arizona said they needed me.” Johnson also won the 1982 NCAA long jump championship.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Being a college coach doesn’t allow much time for fun. First-year Pacific basketball coach Damon Stoudamire, who worked for workaholic-types Josh Pastner at Memphis and Sean Miller at Arizona, told CBS last week that he was still somewhat surprised by what it entails to be a head coach. “Believe me,” he said, “the time demands. … I never knew.” Stoudamire’s Tigers are 8-15 and just 2-8 in the West Coast Conference.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former Arizona standout Chase Budinger, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in 2007, is out of the NBA. He is an off-the-bench player for Baskonia of Spain’s top EuroLeague. He is averaging 4.8 points and 14.8 minutes per game. In Budinger’s seven-year NBA career, he averaged 7.9 points per game.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Steve Stricker made his Tucson golf debut in February 1992, shooting an 80 in the Northern Telecom Open at Starr Pass. Now a 12-time PGA Tour winner, Stricker turns 50 on Feb. 23 and has committed to make his Champions Tour debut at the Tucson Conquistadores Classic March 17-19 at Omni Tucson National. Stricker’s last appearance in Tucson was the 2012 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at Dove Mountain, when he reached the Sweet 16. His golf skills haven’t noticeably diminished; he finished in the top 10 in three PGA Tour events in 2016.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez long ago offered a scholarship to City College of San Francisco offensive tackle Elliott Baker, a five-star recruit who was also offered by Arizona State, Oregon, Washington State and Oregon State. Instead, Baker, the nation’s No. 1 JC prospect, who grew up in the Bay Area, signed with Alabama. That’s what life will be like for new Bama athletic director Greg Byrne. The Crimson Tide has seven five-star recruits in its Class of 2017, according to Rivals.com. Arizona gets a five-star football recruit once a decade, if that.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
If Cedric Dempsey and Arizona choose to pursue Kansas State athletic director John Currie, who is viewed as one of the industry’s top ADs, it will change the salary market at the school. Currie is paid $775,000 per year, close to what Byrne made at Arizona, but he has a $1.55 million contract buyout at KSU. Even Houston AD Hunter Yurachek, who has created an identity as one of the top young ADs in the business, has a buyout of $350,000.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
ESPN has chosen to make next Saturday’s Kentucky-Florida its basketball “College GameDay” centerpiece, pushing aside the Arizona-Oregon game, which is apt to be an unprecedented game matching 9-0 Pac-12 conference teams for the first time in history. It’s mostly about the ratings and national profile. On Thursday, North Carolina and Virginia Tech drew 985,000 viewers on ESPN while the Pac-12’s top game, Oregon at Utah, drew 194,000 on Fox Sports 1. One good thing: ESPN says it will televise the Feb. 11 Cal at Arizona game at either 4 p.m. or 6 p.m. rather than make it a late night game. ESPN has not yet decided what time the Feb. 25 UCLA at Arizona game will be broadcast.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
From 2005-11, a seven-season period in which Arizona had four head basketball coaches, Washington appeared to be the emerging power in the Pac-12.
Lorenzo Romar’s club went 166-73, better than Arizona’s 156-83. The Huskies played in three Sweet 16s and were so taken with Romar that they gave him a 10-year, $18 million contract in 2010.
Given Seattle’s history as a recruiting hot spot, I would’ve wagered that Washington and the personable Romar had a chance to join Arizona as one of the league’s top two basketball schools, and an elite national power.
But it didn’t happen. Entering Sunday’s game at McKale Center, Washington is just 79-72 with no NCAA Tournament appearances the last five seasons. The Huskies last sold out a game at 10,000-seat Alaska Airlines Arena when they played UA in 2012, and averaged just 6,784 last season.
Washington’s stagnation is a testament to the work Sean Miller has done to revive Arizona’s fragile basketball program eight years ago.
Wolfgang Weber has coached Salpointe Catholic to 634 soccer victories in his distinguished career. How good is that? No other boys soccer coach in this state has reached 400.
Although no official record is kept nationally, some have estimated that Weber is now No. 9 in history.
Getting to No. 1, which is owned by Missouri prep coach Terry Michler — he surpassed 900 two years ago — isn’t going to happen.
It would probably take another 15 years to hit 900, and Weber is 69. He is, in his own words, “lucky to be alive.”
You would never know he is lucky about anything. When the state 4A playoffs begin Tuesday, the 17-3-1 Lancers open as the No. 3 seed. If they win a seventh state title for Weber in February, few will be surprised.
In late September, while coaching his Tucson Soccer Academy team in Phoenix, Weber felt discomfort in his chest. He took “a little baby aspirin” and resumed his routine. Later that day, the chest pains returned. He took a bigger aspirin.
About a week later he was in the emergency room at Banner-UMC. He was soon undergoing surgery, a triple-bypass for what doctors discovered was a 90 percent blockage of the passages to his heart.
“I escaped, if you will,” he says. “I honestly never panicked, maybe I should have. My mother died of a heart attack when she was 65.”
What’s remarkable is that Weber was out of the hospital in five days and was cleared to attend a much-anticipated Rolling Stones concert in Phoenix two weeks later. When Salpointe’s soccer workouts began shortly thereafter, he was in his customary spot on the sidelines.
“The doctors told me I’m probably good for another 20 years, although I’ll be happy with 10,” he said with a laugh.
Weber’s current Salpointe team has a promising mix of eight seniors and three sophomore standouts: Alfonso Cabrera, who has scored 18 goals; Francisco Manzo, who has 10 goals; and Eric Galindo, who leads the team in assists.
This looks to be the start of another championship-era run for Weber, who is in his 35th year coaching the Lancers.
If ever he was going to retire, it might’ve been in 2013. A few months after the Lancers went 26-2 to win his sixth state championship, his wife of 34 years, Nina, died. That makes the inability to play state tournament games on the Salpointe field this week — it is being fitted with a new artificial turf in time for spring football drills — a minor inconvenience. (Salpointe will play Phoenix Metro Tech at Tucson High School).
“I’m going to keep at it,” he said. “I find it as enjoyable as ever and I think I am still capable of doing my best.”
Only two UA basketball players have ever hit 50 percent of their 3-point shots in a season (minimum 2 attempts per game): Steve Kerr was at 57.3 percent in 1987-88 and Salim Stoudamire shot 50.4 percent in 2004-05.
Now comes Lauri Markkanen who is shooting 50.5 percent. Of all players in college basketball, only one other man with more than 100 attempts has made more than half of them, Eric Durham of Jacksonville State, at 51.5.
The most clever nickname for Markkanen is “The Finnisher,” created by long-time Tucson sports journalist Steve Rivera, but Markkanen’s more of a Swisher than a Finnisher.
Those who follow draft projections, and thus Markkanen, would benefit from following Mike Schmitz, a UA grad who does a thorough and insightful job for draftexpress.com.
After evaluating Markkanen (and Arizona) last week, Schmitz didn’t simply buy the he’s-a-wonderful-shooter business. He wrote:
“The next step for him offensively is to develop his ability to operate from the mid to low post, improve his ability to drive right, become a better playmaker with the ball in his hands, and do a better job of drawing contact and getting to the free throw line.”
Markkanen won’t turn 20 until May. He’s got time to become a “Finnished” product.
Nothing on the 2016 sports calendar moved me from the sofa more quickly, with blood racing and goosebumps rising, than Tucsonan Bernard Lagat winning the 5,000-meter championship at the USA Olympic Trials. Remember, he was 41. Last week, USA Track and Field was told that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency tested 481 Olympic-hopeful athletes during the year. It tested Lagat 13 times, and obviously he was clean all 13 times. Doesn’t that sound a bit excessive? Only four other track and field athletes were tested more than Lagat, who has retired from his track days with reputation intact and his place in history secure.
One of the top sports afternoons at Hillenbrand Stadium this season will be a Saturday, Feb. 11 doubleheader pitting Arizona against Baylor and Northwestern, two national powers. It will also be a homecoming of note; Baylor assistant coach Mark Lumley, a UA grad, coached Flowing Wells High to the 1993 and 1997 state championship games. Northwestern junior catcher Sammy Nettling, who has started 72 games in two seasons at NU, helped Canyon del Oro win the 2011 and 2012 state championships. The games are scheduled to begin at 3 and 5 p.m. Mike Candrea’s Arizona team will be part of an NCAA/Pac-12 attempt to make games shorter in 2017. Umpires will allow only 90 seconds between the end of an inning and the start of the next, and Pac-12 games won’t permit more than six (game-delaying) conferences on the mound or in the infield per game.
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott’s media rights deal with ESPN didn’t get anywhere with the baseball people. Of the 135 games ESPNU will broadcast this baseball season, only one — an Oregon State vs. UCLA game — will be on ESPNU. The SEC and ACC will have more than 100 games in that package. Coach Jay Johnson’s Arizona team will be on 20 Pac-12 Networks broadcasts, including the three-game series in Phoenix May 18-20.
If anything, college football and basketball recruiting is overkill. Oregon-bound quarterback Braxton Burmeister, who twice made a commitment to play at Arizona, told the Eugene Register-Guard last week that he spent five consecutive days talking to Oregon coach Willie Taggart on the phone. “We’d been talking every day for 30 minutes to an hour,” said Burmeister. “I called Arizona and they wanted me to sleep on it, but I pretty much knew at that point.” Five days on the phone, for about three hours total? Brutal.
Recruiting excess isn’t anything new. In 1981, mega-recruit Vance Johnson of Cholla High School was torn between attending Arizona or ASU. He told the Star he talked to ASU head coach Darryl Rogers four times on the phone the day before letters of intent were signed. That night, a Tuesday, ASU track coach Len Miller slept on the couch in Johnson’s living room. Before signing with Arizona the next morning, Johnson, who went on to be a standout receiver with the Denver Broncos and four-year Wildcat starter, told the Star “I’ve changed my mind four times and ASU is hoping they can make it five.” What sold him on the Wildcats? “ASU said I could help them, but Arizona said they needed me.” Johnson also won the 1982 NCAA long jump championship.
Being a college coach doesn’t allow much time for fun. First-year Pacific basketball coach Damon Stoudamire, who worked for workaholic-types Josh Pastner at Memphis and Sean Miller at Arizona, told CBS last week that he was still somewhat surprised by what it entails to be a head coach. “Believe me,” he said, “the time demands. … I never knew.” Stoudamire’s Tigers are 8-15 and just 2-8 in the West Coast Conference.
Former Arizona standout Chase Budinger, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in 2007, is out of the NBA. He is an off-the-bench player for Baskonia of Spain’s top EuroLeague. He is averaging 4.8 points and 14.8 minutes per game. In Budinger’s seven-year NBA career, he averaged 7.9 points per game.
Steve Stricker made his Tucson golf debut in February 1992, shooting an 80 in the Northern Telecom Open at Starr Pass. Now a 12-time PGA Tour winner, Stricker turns 50 on Feb. 23 and has committed to make his Champions Tour debut at the Tucson Conquistadores Classic March 17-19 at Omni Tucson National. Stricker’s last appearance in Tucson was the 2012 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at Dove Mountain, when he reached the Sweet 16. His golf skills haven’t noticeably diminished; he finished in the top 10 in three PGA Tour events in 2016.
Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez long ago offered a scholarship to City College of San Francisco offensive tackle Elliott Baker, a five-star recruit who was also offered by Arizona State, Oregon, Washington State and Oregon State. Instead, Baker, the nation’s No. 1 JC prospect, who grew up in the Bay Area, signed with Alabama. That’s what life will be like for new Bama athletic director Greg Byrne. The Crimson Tide has seven five-star recruits in its Class of 2017, according to Rivals.com. Arizona gets a five-star football recruit once a decade, if that.
If Cedric Dempsey and Arizona choose to pursue Kansas State athletic director John Currie, who is viewed as one of the industry’s top ADs, it will change the salary market at the school. Currie is paid $775,000 per year, close to what Byrne made at Arizona, but he has a $1.55 million contract buyout at KSU. Even Houston AD Hunter Yurachek, who has created an identity as one of the top young ADs in the business, has a buyout of $350,000.
ESPN has chosen to make next Saturday’s Kentucky-Florida its basketball “College GameDay” centerpiece, pushing aside the Arizona-Oregon game, which is apt to be an unprecedented game matching 9-0 Pac-12 conference teams for the first time in history. It’s mostly about the ratings and national profile. On Thursday, North Carolina and Virginia Tech drew 985,000 viewers on ESPN while the Pac-12’s top game, Oregon at Utah, drew 194,000 on Fox Sports 1. One good thing: ESPN says it will televise the Feb. 11 Cal at Arizona game at either 4 p.m. or 6 p.m. rather than make it a late night game. ESPN has not yet decided what time the Feb. 25 UCLA at Arizona game will be broadcast.
From 2005-11, a seven-season period in which Arizona had four head basketball coaches, Washington appeared to be the emerging power in the Pac-12.
Lorenzo Romar’s club went 166-73, better than Arizona’s 156-83. The Huskies played in three Sweet 16s and were so taken with Romar that they gave him a 10-year, $18 million contract in 2010.
Given Seattle’s history as a recruiting hot spot, I would’ve wagered that Washington and the personable Romar had a chance to join Arizona as one of the league’s top two basketball schools, and an elite national power.
But it didn’t happen. Entering Sunday’s game at McKale Center, Washington is just 79-72 with no NCAA Tournament appearances the last five seasons. The Huskies last sold out a game at 10,000-seat Alaska Airlines Arena when they played UA in 2012, and averaged just 6,784 last season.
Washington’s stagnation is a testament to the work Sean Miller has done to revive Arizona’s fragile basketball program eight years ago.
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