There is no ZonaZoo at Hillenbrand Stadium. No pep band, no big-head posters of Mike Candrea or Danielle O’Toole, no over-served students who pose for a Kiss Cam and spend seven innings texting buddies at Frog & Firkin.
If you see a UA student at Hillenbrand, he likely got lost on his way to Dirtbags.
A standing-room-only crowd squeezed into Hillenbrand on Friday night as Arizona beat New Mexico State 11-0 in a first-round NCAA Tournament game, and most of those would consider the 61-year-old UA Candrea to be a younger man.
The age demographic at Hillenbrand is its soul; it’s what makes the place so alive, so kinetic, and for the last 24 years, the most feared ballpark for visiting teams in college softball.
If you study the ticket-buying history of the 2,422 who attended Friday’s game, you might find that more than half of them were sitting in the same seats when Jennie Finch pitched her first UA game in 1999.
Their odometers have picked up a few more miles, but the passion remains manifest each time the Wildcats win another big game.
“Many of our fans consider our players their daughters, and part of their family,” Candrea says. “We had a request this week that sums it up: A longtime season ticket holder just passed away and one of her requests was to have an autographed softball buried with her. We recently sent it to the funeral director.”
Hillenbrand Stadium opened in 1993 as college softball’s first state-of-the-art facility. What’s not to like about it? The property is squeezed into what Candrea refers to as a “quaint little space,” similar to the way Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Boston’s Fenway Park were positioned a century ago.
This isn’t a one-way relationship. The UA has more than done its part to merit such bountiful support: The average Pac-12 home game this season was a quick 1 hour 54 minutes, and the Wildcats have won 91 percent of their games over 24 Hillenbrand seasons.
All of those called “nana” and “poppa” in the bleachers can be a bit demanding. (Just like younger fans, except not as loud). Candrea uses the word “ornery” but it’s a good ornery. It corresponds with high expectations.
The baby boomers and those from the Greatest Generation knew they had a good thing 24 years ago and bought in at a time Arizona was the emerging dynasty of college softball.
“I think we get an older crowd because look who we are coached by,” says UA senior left fielder Mandie Perez. “The fans want to stick around because they’ve seen the success from the beginning. They can’t seem to step away; they have a tie to it as much as we do.”
Arizona has led the NCAA in attendance nine times, surpassed in recent years by Southern schools fueled by football money and a Candrea-inspired growth of the sport coast to coast. About the only thing that hasn’t changed since 1993 are the faces in the Hillenbrand crowd.
“I’d say we know a large amount of those people,” says Perez. “They don’t need to heckle or cheer against the other team. They know we can do it with our gloves and our sticks.”
If Candrea has his way — and why wouldn’t he? — the school will soon spend $5 million to restore Hillenbrand among the top two or three softball facilities in America. It will build a media center, from which suites down each baseline and a covered patio will be added. New seats and a long-awaited shade structure, shielding fans from afternoon and early-evening sun, are also expected.
The Wildcats even plan to add bathrooms to the dugout areas. Just like a real stadium.
Not that it seems to matter to those who fill the seats. On Friday, the NCAA allowed Arizona to sell 100 standing-room-only tickets. They were gone in 30 minutes. Only 61 general-admission tickets remained unsold for Saturday’s game.
Candrea is fully appreciative of what it took to get to this build-a-better-stadium point. “Every time I walk on to that field and see this place packed, it’s a special day for me,” he said.
From 2014-16, Arizona played NCAA Super Regionals in Alabama and Louisiana, with robust and raucous crowds of 3,231 at LSU and overflow crowds of 2,693 at Louisiana-Lafayette. Perez, a fifth-year senior, didn’t take long to see the difference between Hillenbrand and places far away.
“They’re nicer here,” she says. “It’s more about us, cheering us on.”
When Arizona lost the Super Regional at LSU in 2015, Tiger fans would follow the PA announcer’s identification of each Arizona hitter by chanting “Tiger bait!”
“When I’d be on deck, they’d be like, ‘Don’t be scared. Don’t blink. Mandie! Mandie! I’m like, ‘How do you even know my name?’”
Perez paused to chuckle. “Where’s my mom?”
At Hillenbrand, Perez and her UA teammates have 2,422 “moms,” day after day and year after year.
