Arizona-Hawaii matchup conjures mixed emotions for Dick Tomey

Forgive Dick Tomey if he’s feeling a bit conflicted this weekend.

Tomey is the winningest coach in the history of Arizona football, the overseer of the “Desert Swarm” defense and the two best seasons in program history.

Before coming to Tucson, Tomey coached at Hawaii. When he left Honolulu, he was the winningest coach in that program’s history. (June Jones subsequently surpassed him.)

Additionally, Tomey’s son-in-law is a Rainbow Warriors assistant coach.

So emotions will be running high for Tomey and his family Saturday night at Arizona Stadium. The ex-coach, 78, recently moved from Honolulu to Tucson with his wife, Nanci. They have four children and eight grandchildren. Tomey is doing some consulting work and public speaking but mostly enjoying life in semi-retirement.

“Great coach, even better person,” current UA coach Rich Rodriguez said. “I’m happy to have him back in town.”

No one is better qualified to talk all things Arizona and Hawaii football than Tomey, and the Star did just that this week. After a morning workout, Tomey sat down for an interview in the lobby at the Westin La Paloma Resort. Here are some of the highlights of that conversation, including whom Tomey will be rooting for Saturday:

What sort of feelings does this game conjure up for you?

A: “I have deep feelings for Hawaii. My experience there was the first head-coaching experience I had. It was a transformative experience. The place to me has seemed like home. It just has. It’s a special place. I had an incredible experience there.

“My connection with Arizona is really profound in terms of the experience I had here, the ‘aloha’ we have for Tucson, the people here. But when it comes down to it, I just have too much feeling for Hawaii. It’s family. It’s deeper than all of that.

“This is an interesting week, but it’s really not complicated. Hawaii’s struggling so much. The win would mean so much to them. In the end I’d love to see Hawaii win, but I know how much of a long shot that is.”

The Hawaii program is down. There are certain inherent challenges in coaching there. What are the biggest ones, and how were you able to have success there?

A: “The thing that struck me so much when I got there was exactly what you said — the fact that everybody knew what all the negatives were. Everybody would just recite a list as long as your arm of all the reasons you couldn’t do a good job, why you couldn’t win, why you couldn’t have a program that you’d be proud of. So I just decided, I don’t want to hear any of that. I don’t care what it is. All I want to concern ourselves with is how we’re going to succeed, not why we can’t.

“I always thought it was more of a cause there than a job. It’s just a little speck in the ocean. It’s a cause that this place can become respected and a good program in major college football. We were working hard to try to make that happen.”

Given the connection you felt at Hawaii, how hard was it to leave when the Arizona opportunity arose?

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A: “It was really hard. When I accepted the job here and went back to tell our team, I remember calling Ced Dempsey, the athletic director (at Arizona). I remember telling him, ‘Ced, I’m having trouble with this. I get back here and look at these guys and realize what they’ve done, what they all mean to me, how much gratitude I feel. I don’t know if I can do this. As much as I should. As much as it makes all the sense in the world and it’s a great next step.’

“I remember calling Ray Nagel (the former AD at Hawaii) and saying, ‘Ray, help me here.’ He said, ‘If you don’t take that job, I’ll never speak to you again. Those opportunities don’t just come along.’ And he was right. And I was so lucky to have come to Arizona. It was a magical time here. A lot of wonderful things happened. We ended up in the national conversation and the nation rankings quite often.”

What kind of state was the program in when you got here?

A: “Larry Smith was the coach. The program was well-run. It was hard to get our players to buy in because we weren’t going to do things just like Larry did. But — and I know exactly when it happened — we finally got the guys to buy in with four games left our first year.”

How could you tell?

A: “I just knew it. We had played terribly at Washington State (a 45-28 loss). I just raised hell with them after the game. I challenged them. I told them we’re going to get back, and we’re going to practice the next morning at 6 o’clock. Sunday morning. Full gear. Anybody misses, they’re gone. We were going to practice. Because we just were.

“It was completely different. The guys came to practice Sunday morning, and they were ready to go. I found that to be at times an emergency problem-solver. But it was appropriate here because the guys had one foot in, one foot out.”

Desert Swarm was one of the best defenses of all time. Arizona is trying to get back to that. How do you put together a great defense without a bunch of four- and five-star recruits?

A: “We had guys that were under the radar. I just felt like the most important thing was to find guys that we wanted, that had a great motor and a great desire to play. You didn’t have to spend your time being concerned about motivating them. They loved to play. They played with a passion that was extreme. It was wonderful to watch.

“We had a lot of guys that were unselfish. They fit together. And they weren’t entitled. They weren’t recruited by the world. They fit together into a system that was really successful for us.

“People said we weren’t very good on offense. We had some good offensive teams, but there was no question about playing great defense, great special teams, win the turnover battle, win the kicking game, win the fourth quarter. Those were the things we hung our hat on.”

What are your initial impressions of this year’s Wildcats?

A: “RichRod and I talked a lot about the BYU game. That was a tough opener. But I think they will be better having opened against BYU and suffering a loss than they would be had they faced a lesser team and won by 40 points. They learned more about themselves. And I thought they showed a lot of character last week (in rallying to beat Grambling State). The defense took the ball away, which is what you’ve got to do.

“The public wants you to be great immediately. But I think there’s good signs. I think Rich has done a tremendous job here.”