Greg Hansen's top 10 high school boys basketball coaches in Tucson history
- Updated
Dick McConnell, who won 774 games and four state championships as Sahuaro's head coach, tops the list.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Editor’s note: This summer, Star columnist Greg Hansen is counting down the top 10 of just about everything related to Tucson sports. Today’s list: The top 10 high school boys basketball coaches from Tucson.
If you’re putting together a list of Tucson’s 10 leading high school basketball coaches, George Genung is a wild card.
How many games did he win?
“I never kept track and I don’t think anyone else did,” he told me in 1997.
But Amphitheater High School thought enough of Genung to name its gymnasium after him 20 years earlier.
Genung was Amphi’s first basketball coach, hired for $2,700 a year in 1947. His team reached just one state championship game (1949) and the Panthers were never blessed to have a Sean Elliott or a Fat Lever grow up in the school district.
He coached more than 700 Amphi basketball games and a good estimate is that the Panthers won 400. The former captain of the UA’s baseball and basketball teams, who grew up in rural Southern Arizona near the Blue Bird mine near Aravaipa, was a bat boy for Pop McKale’s early 1930s Wildcat baseball teams.
About 20 years ago, Genung invited me to his home near Prince Road to chat about his coaching career. We got sidetracked. He led me to a back room where he talked about his days in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army, World War II.
The Arizona high school Hall of Fame basketball coach opened a trunk and removed a standard-issue Wehrmacht rifle, which he said he “relieved” from a German infantryman when Genung’s unit reached the Elbe River and introduced themselves to Russian soldiers in the spring of 1945. It had “GERMANY FOREVER” inscribed on the barrel.
He also had in his possession the uniform of a Nazi SS officer, with a hand-sewn “ADOLF HITLER” across both armbands.
“We were among the first to see the Nazi death camps,” Genung said.
After that we didn’t talk much about his basketball record.
Genung died in 2006; he was 84. Any list about high school basketball coaching in Tucson is incomplete without his name. Here are my rankings:
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The numbers tell a big story: McConnell’s Sahuaro Cougars won 774 games, a record unlikely to be broken in Tucson. State champions: 1970, 1982, 2000 and 2001.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of McConnell’s players of the early 1980s, Peabody won 442 high school games at Green Fields, Ironwood Ridge and Salpointe. His ’91 Green Fields and ’08 Ironwood Ridge teams won state championships, but his top clubs might’ve been the ’97 and ’99 Salpointe teams that went a combined 59-8 and reached the big schools state championship games.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
With 370 victories, Ferguson — who played for McConnell’s first state championship team at Sahuaro — established his own winning reputation. He coached Santa Rita to state titles in 1999 and 2010, and reached seven so-called Final Fours in Arizona prep basketball.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As a senior at Tucson High in 1940, Genung’s Badgers lost the state championship game to small Duncan High at Bear Down Gym. After the game, in tears, Genung cried until he was comforted by Marion McKale , daughter of UA legend Pop McKale. “I never thought the pain would go away,” Genung said.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
His talent-rich Tucson High teams won state championships in 1943, 1945, 1948 and 1949 and went undefeated — 51-0 — in 1948 and 1949. He died of a heart attack in the middle of the 1955 season after going 395-86 at the school.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
His Rincon Rangers teams played in state championship games in 1975, 1976 and 1978. His 1971 team went 21-1. Although the Rangers didn’t win the state title, Mehle was 244-64 at the school and Tucson’s recognized power school in the ’60s and ’70s.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
With back-to-back state championships at Pueblo in 1977 and 1978 – including a 28-0 club in ’78 – LaVetter moved to Pueblo in 1981 and coached there until 1989, retiring with more than 200 victories.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
It’s difficult to separate the two coaches. Rees won 272 games at Sunnyside, including a perfect 29-0 state title team in 1993, although he stepped away from high school coaching to run the Pima College program in the early 1980s. Utter has won 427 games at Rincon/University as he nears his 30th year at the school, with serious state championship runs in 1995 and 2006.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
His 1969 Tucson High team went 23-1 to win the state championship. His 1962 team (21-0) won it all. He retired with 178 career victories in 1970.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The first boys basketball coach at Canyon del Oro, which opened in the fall of 1965, Tissaw piloted the Dorados to back-to-back state championships in 1977 and 1978 and four title appearances over 13 years.
Editor’s note: This summer, Star columnist Greg Hansen is counting down the top 10 of just about everything related to Tucson sports. Today’s list: The top 10 high school boys basketball coaches from Tucson.
If you’re putting together a list of Tucson’s 10 leading high school basketball coaches, George Genung is a wild card.
How many games did he win?
“I never kept track and I don’t think anyone else did,” he told me in 1997.
But Amphitheater High School thought enough of Genung to name its gymnasium after him 20 years earlier.
Genung was Amphi’s first basketball coach, hired for $2,700 a year in 1947. His team reached just one state championship game (1949) and the Panthers were never blessed to have a Sean Elliott or a Fat Lever grow up in the school district.
He coached more than 700 Amphi basketball games and a good estimate is that the Panthers won 400. The former captain of the UA’s baseball and basketball teams, who grew up in rural Southern Arizona near the Blue Bird mine near Aravaipa, was a bat boy for Pop McKale’s early 1930s Wildcat baseball teams.
About 20 years ago, Genung invited me to his home near Prince Road to chat about his coaching career. We got sidetracked. He led me to a back room where he talked about his days in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army, World War II.
The Arizona high school Hall of Fame basketball coach opened a trunk and removed a standard-issue Wehrmacht rifle, which he said he “relieved” from a German infantryman when Genung’s unit reached the Elbe River and introduced themselves to Russian soldiers in the spring of 1945. It had “GERMANY FOREVER” inscribed on the barrel.
He also had in his possession the uniform of a Nazi SS officer, with a hand-sewn “ADOLF HITLER” across both armbands.
“We were among the first to see the Nazi death camps,” Genung said.
After that we didn’t talk much about his basketball record.
Genung died in 2006; he was 84. Any list about high school basketball coaching in Tucson is incomplete without his name. Here are my rankings:
The numbers tell a big story: McConnell’s Sahuaro Cougars won 774 games, a record unlikely to be broken in Tucson. State champions: 1970, 1982, 2000 and 2001.
One of McConnell’s players of the early 1980s, Peabody won 442 high school games at Green Fields, Ironwood Ridge and Salpointe. His ’91 Green Fields and ’08 Ironwood Ridge teams won state championships, but his top clubs might’ve been the ’97 and ’99 Salpointe teams that went a combined 59-8 and reached the big schools state championship games.
With 370 victories, Ferguson — who played for McConnell’s first state championship team at Sahuaro — established his own winning reputation. He coached Santa Rita to state titles in 1999 and 2010, and reached seven so-called Final Fours in Arizona prep basketball.
As a senior at Tucson High in 1940, Genung’s Badgers lost the state championship game to small Duncan High at Bear Down Gym. After the game, in tears, Genung cried until he was comforted by Marion McKale , daughter of UA legend Pop McKale. “I never thought the pain would go away,” Genung said.
His talent-rich Tucson High teams won state championships in 1943, 1945, 1948 and 1949 and went undefeated — 51-0 — in 1948 and 1949. He died of a heart attack in the middle of the 1955 season after going 395-86 at the school.
His Rincon Rangers teams played in state championship games in 1975, 1976 and 1978. His 1971 team went 21-1. Although the Rangers didn’t win the state title, Mehle was 244-64 at the school and Tucson’s recognized power school in the ’60s and ’70s.
With back-to-back state championships at Pueblo in 1977 and 1978 – including a 28-0 club in ’78 – LaVetter moved to Pueblo in 1981 and coached there until 1989, retiring with more than 200 victories.
It’s difficult to separate the two coaches. Rees won 272 games at Sunnyside, including a perfect 29-0 state title team in 1993, although he stepped away from high school coaching to run the Pima College program in the early 1980s. Utter has won 427 games at Rincon/University as he nears his 30th year at the school, with serious state championship runs in 1995 and 2006.
His 1969 Tucson High team went 23-1 to win the state championship. His 1962 team (21-0) won it all. He retired with 178 career victories in 1970.
The first boys basketball coach at Canyon del Oro, which opened in the fall of 1965, Tissaw piloted the Dorados to back-to-back state championships in 1977 and 1978 and four title appearances over 13 years.
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