Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Tucson's Sugar Skulls a refreshing change

Sugar Skulls name and owners are a sweet, refreshing change

Before Tucson Indoor Football League co-owners Kevin and Cathy Guy chose a name for their new team, they rented office space at Kino Sports Complex and signed a deal to run their day-to-day training at Kino.

The only time they will be in the Tucson Arena is for their eight home games next spring.

Then Kevin Guy, who has a 142-44 record as head coach of the indoor league’s Arizona Rattlers, began researching the promotional and marketing opportunities in Tucson.

He knew that promotion-minded minor-league baseball teams long ago moved past traditional nicknames such as the Tucson Toros and Phoenix Giants. He knew this was an opportunity to give the Tucson franchise a singular name.

So he chose Sugar Skulls. What do you think? Home run? Pop-up?

Guy was impressed by minor league merchandising departments, such as the Double-A Southern League, whose team names are, among others, the Biloxi Shuckers, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and the Montgomery Biscuits.

Indoor football isn’t supposed to be Bill Belichick and Nick Saban stalking the sidelines, deadly serious, no fun in the forecast.

Last year, Guy’s Rattlers beat Cedar Rapids 84-83 in Phoenix. That’s the type of fun Guy hopes the Sugar Skulls can exhibit in Tucson. His Phoenix team’s average score was 53-41.

Reflecting Guy’s enterprise, the IFL’s Cedar Rapids Titans last week changed their name to Cedar Rapids River Kings. And the IFL’s other expansion team, in Moline, Illinois, chose the name Quad City Steamwheelers.

Sweet.

The crazy thing about Guy’s involvement with the Tucson Sugar Skulls is that he is going to continue to coach the Rattlers. The Sugar Skulls will be their archrival.

“I’m not going to let off, and I expect to get coach (Marcus) Coleman’s best shot,” said Guy, the man who hired Coleman to coach the Sugar Skulls. “The league approves. Those home-and-home games between the Rattlers and Sugar Skulls should be wild.”

The Sugar Skulls’ home games will probably be Saturdays at 6 p.m. and on Sunday afternoons. This isn’t just an experiment, either.

“We’re looking for a home in Tucson,” said Guy. “Our daughter plans to go to the UA. This market is untapped.”

When Guy and fellow co-owner, Tucson attorney Ali Farhang, told me the nickname would be Sugar Skulls, I had some doubts. I have since bought it.

In my opinion, the best nickname in Tucson sports history has been the Stick Lizards, the Class D baseball team of the early 1930s. Now come the Sugar Skulls.

Home run.

Film on Lute and UA’s ’88 team still in the works

Tucson brothers Sean and Brad Malone began a documentary film “Wild About ’88: The Rise of Arizona Basketball” four years ago.

Their progress was impressive. They interviewed so many basketball figures around the country that they have 53 hours of interviews, from Dick Vitale and Billy Packer, to all of the Wildcat notables: Sean Elliott, Jud Buechler, Craig McMillan and Bruce Fraser. The Malones, who attended Sahuaro High School, went to Maine and Georgia and North Carolina to get insights on UA hoops.

They even got a sit-down interview with Steve Kerr in his SoCal home.

“We hoped to debut the film last November as part of the Loft’s film festival,” said Brad Malone. “But the short story is, we have way too much footage. It wasn’t going to be ready, and we also needed to rearrange our finances.”

Today, the film on Arizona’s climb to basketball prominence is part of a 501(c), nonprofit venture, pursing financial help to hire a professional film editor to finish the project as soon as possible.

“There’s so much good stuff, we just can’t let it go; we are going to finish it,” Brad Malone said. “It’s basically a historical documentary of Lute (Olson)’s rise to glory. We do need some financial help, but we’re not giving up.”

Tucson caddie enjoys victory of a lifetime

Tucsonan Steven Bybee graduated from Virginia Tech with a history degree 21 years ago, but has since followed his passion: golf. He has been a caddie for Jim Colbert, and was on his bag when Colbert won the 2001 SBC Senior Classic. Since then, Bybee has caddied mostly on the LPGA Tour, for Candie Kung and Se Ri Pak, among others. A few months ago, he was hired by 40-year-old Angela Stanford, who appeared to be on the down side of her career. But last Sunday in Evian, France, Stanford won the LPGA’s fifth major, the Evian Championship, her first major in two decades on the LPGA Tour. She cried and cried and cried. If you were watching the roller-coaster finish, you probably cried, too. At day’s end, Stanford presented Bybee with the flag from the 18th pin and on it wrote the score of the previous day’s Ohio State-TCU football game. Talk about a good loser. Stanford’s Horned Frogs lost to Bybee’s beloved Buckeyes 40-28. She was a good winner and a good loser, too.

Palo Verde grad back in the states with Australian team

Tucsonan Bryce Cotton, who helped Palo Verde High School to the 2009 state basketball semifinals, last year led the Australian National Basketball league with a 19.8 scoring average. He has returned to the Perth Wildcats again this season but will open the season next Saturday in Salt Lake City, where he once played for the Utah Jazz. Cotton’s Wildcats will play Utah in the NBA preseason opener for the Jazz before Cotton returns to Australia for an Oct. 11 Aussie season opener.

Drazen Zlovaric could be major asset for Bobby Hurley

Arizona State basketball coach Bobby Hurley didn’t go for the traditional hire when he filled a coaching staff vacancy a few weeks ago. He hired Serbian Drazen Zlovaric to coach the Sun Devils’ big men. Zlovaric played professionally in Turkey after a college career at both Georgia and Tennessee-Chattanooga. He got NCAA coaching experience at Cleveland State before joining the Sun Devils. Given the international presence in college basketball — Arizona has had players from Finland and Serbia of late — it seems like a smart move. Arizona State begins official basketball practices this week and is generally predicted to finish ahead of Arizona in the Pac-12 for the first time since the James Harden days.

Cunningham cashes in on Canadian tour

Tucsonan George Cunningham completed a dream-like first year in professional golf last week. After he was named a second-team All-American for coach Jim Anderson at Arizona, Cunningham qualified for Canada’s Mackenzie Tour, which is under the umbrella of the PGA Tour. Not only did Cunningham post six top-10 performances, he earned $102,167, and was No. 2 on the Canadian money list. The top five money winners earn status on the Web.com Tour in 2019. It’s like jumping from a baseball Rookie League to Triple-A in three months. What’s more, Cunningham qualified for the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open, finished 29th and earned another $37,742.

Kevin Ginkel, Shelley Duncan reunite with D-backs affiliate

Former UA pitcher Kevin Ginkel ran into a familiar face when he was promoted to the Double-A Jackson Generals this summer: Jackson’s manager is Shelley Duncan, Arizona’s career home runs leader. Last week, with Ginkel as the Southern League’s most dominant closer, the Generals won the Southern League championship. Ginkel’s statistics were off the charts: a 5-0 record with 60 strikeouts in 42 2/3 innings, and a save in the title-winning game. It was Duncan’s second minor-league championship in just three years in the Diamondbacks system. His rookie league Hillsboro (Oregon) Hops won the 2015 Northwest League title.

Red Sox reward minor-leaguer Bobby Dalbec

Arizona’s 2016 All-Pac-12 third baseman Bobby Dalbec last week was named the Boston Red Sox’s offensive and defensive Minor League Player of the Year. In 129 games split between Single-A and Double-A, Dalbec hit 32 home runs with 109 RBIs. He has returned to Tucson to work out with coach Jay Johnson’s Wildcats during fall camp.

Wildcats lose out to Purdue for ACC diver of the year

UA swimming coach Augie Busch hoped to have the Atlantic Coast Conference Diver of the Year, Greg Duncan, on his roster this year. But Duncan changed his mind and instead transferred to Purdue after leaving North Carolina. Busch rebounded nicely; he successfully recruited Peruvian swimmer Jose Neumann from a Peruvian-British co-educational school in Lima, where he was coached by ex-UA All-American Luis Rojas. Neumann is viewed as one of the top recruits in swimming’s Class of 2018.

Grass still green at closed Vistoso course

The Golf Club of Vistoso in Oro Valley, which shut down in June, remains closed, although an employee continues to water the greens on the once-grand Tom Weiskopf-designed course. In August, Phoenix-based Parks Legacy Project was prominently mentioned as a potential buyer, but there has been no purchase, although talks continue. The Canadian financial firm that owns Vistoso simply stopped operating the course. Bankruptcy has not been filed.

My two cents: Rich Ellerson's Desert Swarm 'D' was the result of years of tinkering

Longtime Arizona defensive coordinator Rich Ellerson will be inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 21 at the DoubleTree Hotel as part of the Class of 2018. (Tickets for the banquet are available at 520-244-8907).

Ellerson, 64, is out of coaching; he retired last year. The Salpointe Catholic grad, an all-city defensive player in 1972, is usually the man given credit for the defensive scheme that greatly helped Arizona’s Desert Swarm defenses of 1992-94 burst onto the national scene.

“The scheme we used was actually an amalgam of a lot of ideas,” he said at the hall’s press conference last week.

It might be traced to Ellerson’s defensive coordinator Don Matthews of the Canadian Football League’s BC Lions in the mid-80s. Matthews coached five Grey Cup champions and is a CFL legend.

Matthews got his defensive ideas, in part, from former Oregon State “Great Pumpkin” head coach Dee Andros when Andros was coaching at Idaho and Matthews played for the Vandals.

After Ellerson worked with Matthews and was hired at his alma mater, Hawaii, by Dick Tomey, Ellerson said “we worked out the kinks” of the Desert Swarm’s unique double-eagle flex scheme. It required a lot of planning; the CFL deploys 12 players; Ellerson diagrammed the new defense with 11.

At Hawaii, he blended his ideas with those of Larry Mac Duff, who became the UA’s defensive coordinator, one of the best in Pac-10 history.

So, after about 20 years and a lot of trial and error, Tomey, Mac Duff and Ellerson — blessed with defensive All-Americans Tedy Bruschi, Sean Harris, Tony Bouie and Rob Waldrop — put Desert Swarm on the field.

“Dick and Larry had the courage to implement this new defense,” said Ellerson. “It was a very special thing.”