Greg Hansen's top 10 high school coaches in Tucson history
- Updated
Sunnyside wrestling coach Bobby DeBerry, whose teams won 14 consecutive state championships, 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 coaches in Tucson history.
This is the most difficult of 65 Top-10 lists I’ve written this summer. Who’s No. 1? I put a star next to seven coaches and thought “this is the one.”
So it took a bit to put them in numerical order, rewriting and reworking the list for several days. Ultimately, I realized there are 10 who could/should be No. 1. Fortunately, it’s just one man’s list and has no official bearing, but if I (or anyone) does this again in 2027 or 2047, I wouldn’t be surprised if No. 8 is No. 1 or if 10 new high school coaches in Tucson jump ahead of my Top 10.
But in a Tucson perspective, that’s like thinking the Yankees will some day come up with better outfielders than Ruth, DiMaggio and Mantle.
I chose Sunnyside’s Bobby DeBerry as the top high school coach, any sport, in Tucson history. The case for the Tucson High grad is remarkable.
The numbers come first: DeBerry’s Blue Devil wrestling teams won 14 consecutive state championships from 1998-2011, and 15 overall. In the two years he didn’t win the state championship, he was No. 2.
In one stretch, his teams won 421 consecutive dual meets.
It’s true that DeBerry inherited high school wrestling’s equivalent of the Rockefeller fortune: Predecessors Don Klostreich and Richard Sanchez combined to win 14 state championships over 17 years. The culture of wrestling at Sunnyside is probably Tucson’s richest vein in sports history, producing state wrestler-of-the-year types from Thom Ortiz and Eddie Urbano to Nick Gallick and Eric Larkin and far beyond.
But DeBerry took the Blue Devil wrestling teams to a higher level, as impossible as that sounded 20 years ago.
Here are my rankings
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
After graduating from Tucson High, DeBerry found work at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, teaching P.E. to inmates as he struggled to find a career path. He ultimately enrolled at Pima College, earned a degree at Arizona and was hired to be Canyon del Oro’s wrestling coach in 1986. He retired from Sunnyside at 50, his legacy secure.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
There’s little debate that Weber is the “Father of Soccer” in Tucson, a culture-changing coach who arrived from his native Germany in the mid-’70s to become the person most responsible for the growth of soccer at the high school level. Along the way, Weber has won six state championships, spread from 1985 to 2013, and triggered Tucson’s reputation as one of the leading soccer cities in America.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
It’s not just his three state championships at Sabino, or the way he turned an 0-10 Santa Rita program into a 12-1 state championship finalist, or the way he transformed Catalina Foothills from 20 years of mediocrity into a state-championship game team last year. It’s all of the above.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The numbers tell a story: state championships in 1970, 1982, 2000 and 2001. In the final decade of his career, he seemed to surpass a milestone every other season: 500 wins, 600 and finally 700. And he did it with dignity and class.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
This is a perfect game to a coach: In six seasons as the boys and girls swimming coach at Foothills, Sayers went 12 for 12. She won six boys championships and six girls championships before retiring to move to California with her husband, Mike, who became the USA Cycling coach in the 2012 London Olympics. The Wisconsin native dabbled in soccer, cycling and coaching the Hillenbrand Aquatics club team before her flawless Foothills career.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The pre-1950s coaches at Tucson High had limited opposition in Tucson and statewide. But Van Horne was the most prolific and consistent, winning 13 state championships (and finishing second eight times) between 1927-53. True, he was blessed with the Batiste brothers — Joe, Frank and Fred, probably the top athletic family in Tucson history — but Van Horne won big before and after the Batistes.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
He retired in 2011 with 331 victories after 36 years wearing the Panther green. He was unsurpassed as a leader of young men.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Kendrick inherited a state championship legacy at Foothills, but he took it up a notch, winning seven state titles in nine years, 2005-13, which included a 72-game winning streak and a hard-to-believe seven state titles in eight appearances.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Part I: Sanchez led the Blue Devils to five consecutive state wrestling championships. Part II: He retired from wrestling and rebuilt a long-struggling Sunnyside football program and turned it into one of the five or six top operations in Arizona, winning 2001 and 2003 state championships and finishing second in 2002. He did more with less than almost any coach of the last 50 years.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Others have won more state championships than Fowler, who was No. 1 in 2005, 2011 and 2017, returning to CDO twice after her initial “retirement” from prep coaching. But, much like Weber, Fowler helped to further the culture of softball in Tucson as much or more than any prep softball coach in state history.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Hank Slagle coached Tucson High to 10 state baseball championships between 1942-54, establishing the Badgers as the state’s top baseball school.
Billy Lopez coached Sahuaro to six state softball championships, and five in six years, from 1988-93.
Flowing Wells wrestling coach Dave Thomas was the heavyweight in his sport before the Sunnyside dynasty, coaching the Caballeros to seven state championships between 1972-84.
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 coaches in Tucson history.
This is the most difficult of 65 Top-10 lists I’ve written this summer. Who’s No. 1? I put a star next to seven coaches and thought “this is the one.”
So it took a bit to put them in numerical order, rewriting and reworking the list for several days. Ultimately, I realized there are 10 who could/should be No. 1. Fortunately, it’s just one man’s list and has no official bearing, but if I (or anyone) does this again in 2027 or 2047, I wouldn’t be surprised if No. 8 is No. 1 or if 10 new high school coaches in Tucson jump ahead of my Top 10.
But in a Tucson perspective, that’s like thinking the Yankees will some day come up with better outfielders than Ruth, DiMaggio and Mantle.
I chose Sunnyside’s Bobby DeBerry as the top high school coach, any sport, in Tucson history. The case for the Tucson High grad is remarkable.
The numbers come first: DeBerry’s Blue Devil wrestling teams won 14 consecutive state championships from 1998-2011, and 15 overall. In the two years he didn’t win the state championship, he was No. 2.
In one stretch, his teams won 421 consecutive dual meets.
It’s true that DeBerry inherited high school wrestling’s equivalent of the Rockefeller fortune: Predecessors Don Klostreich and Richard Sanchez combined to win 14 state championships over 17 years. The culture of wrestling at Sunnyside is probably Tucson’s richest vein in sports history, producing state wrestler-of-the-year types from Thom Ortiz and Eddie Urbano to Nick Gallick and Eric Larkin and far beyond.
But DeBerry took the Blue Devil wrestling teams to a higher level, as impossible as that sounded 20 years ago.
Here are my rankings
After graduating from Tucson High, DeBerry found work at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, teaching P.E. to inmates as he struggled to find a career path. He ultimately enrolled at Pima College, earned a degree at Arizona and was hired to be Canyon del Oro’s wrestling coach in 1986. He retired from Sunnyside at 50, his legacy secure.
There’s little debate that Weber is the “Father of Soccer” in Tucson, a culture-changing coach who arrived from his native Germany in the mid-’70s to become the person most responsible for the growth of soccer at the high school level. Along the way, Weber has won six state championships, spread from 1985 to 2013, and triggered Tucson’s reputation as one of the leading soccer cities in America.
It’s not just his three state championships at Sabino, or the way he turned an 0-10 Santa Rita program into a 12-1 state championship finalist, or the way he transformed Catalina Foothills from 20 years of mediocrity into a state-championship game team last year. It’s all of the above.
The numbers tell a story: state championships in 1970, 1982, 2000 and 2001. In the final decade of his career, he seemed to surpass a milestone every other season: 500 wins, 600 and finally 700. And he did it with dignity and class.
This is a perfect game to a coach: In six seasons as the boys and girls swimming coach at Foothills, Sayers went 12 for 12. She won six boys championships and six girls championships before retiring to move to California with her husband, Mike, who became the USA Cycling coach in the 2012 London Olympics. The Wisconsin native dabbled in soccer, cycling and coaching the Hillenbrand Aquatics club team before her flawless Foothills career.
The pre-1950s coaches at Tucson High had limited opposition in Tucson and statewide. But Van Horne was the most prolific and consistent, winning 13 state championships (and finishing second eight times) between 1927-53. True, he was blessed with the Batiste brothers — Joe, Frank and Fred, probably the top athletic family in Tucson history — but Van Horne won big before and after the Batistes.
He retired in 2011 with 331 victories after 36 years wearing the Panther green. He was unsurpassed as a leader of young men.
Kendrick inherited a state championship legacy at Foothills, but he took it up a notch, winning seven state titles in nine years, 2005-13, which included a 72-game winning streak and a hard-to-believe seven state titles in eight appearances.
Part I: Sanchez led the Blue Devils to five consecutive state wrestling championships. Part II: He retired from wrestling and rebuilt a long-struggling Sunnyside football program and turned it into one of the five or six top operations in Arizona, winning 2001 and 2003 state championships and finishing second in 2002. He did more with less than almost any coach of the last 50 years.
Others have won more state championships than Fowler, who was No. 1 in 2005, 2011 and 2017, returning to CDO twice after her initial “retirement” from prep coaching. But, much like Weber, Fowler helped to further the culture of softball in Tucson as much or more than any prep softball coach in state history.
Hank Slagle coached Tucson High to 10 state baseball championships between 1942-54, establishing the Badgers as the state’s top baseball school.
Billy Lopez coached Sahuaro to six state softball championships, and five in six years, from 1988-93.
Flowing Wells wrestling coach Dave Thomas was the heavyweight in his sport before the Sunnyside dynasty, coaching the Caballeros to seven state championships between 1972-84.
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