Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Pima County Hall of Fame class includes father-son combo, two teams

Hardy duo will make Hall history

The Pima County Sports Hall of Fame elected 10 members last week and their numbers tell an impressive story:

Class of 2018 Hall of Famers Mark Carreon from Salpointe Catholic, J.J. Hardy of Sabino High and Ian Kinsler of Canyon del Oro High have combined to hit 504 home runs in major-league baseball.

State championship basketball player Julie Brase Hairgrove of Catalina Foothills, who piloted the Falcons’ 1997 state championship season, remains the all-time leading scorer in Arizona girls high school basketball, with 2,913 points.

Football coach Rich Ellerson of Salpointe, architect of Arizona’s Desert Swarm football defenses, won 80 games in a head coaching career at Army and Cal Poly, among other places.

Santa Rita grad Dave Feitl, who led the Eagles to the 1979 state championship game, played in 275 NBA games and scored 1,442 points as an All-WAC center at UTEP.

Salpointe grad Jerry Carrillo has coached Cochise College to 511 basketball victories, and has more than 700 in his career.

Sahuaro 2001 state championship pitcher Courtnay Foster won 80 games at Northwestern, leading the Wildcats to the 2006 Women’s College World Series.

Palo Verde grad Nanci Reid lettered in four varsity sports at Arizona, and spent 25 years as the interscholastics director at TUSD.

Tucson tennis pro/instructor Mark Hardy, the 1969 state champion at Catalina and an All-WAC player at Arizona, won more than 25 singles and doubles championships in various Tucson events before joining the ATP tour.

Additionally, Mark Hardy, the father, and J.J. Hardy, the son, will become the first father-son combination inducted simultaneously into the PCSHF, which began in 1990.

Chairman Pat Darcy, a former Cincinnati Reds World Series pitcher, announced that for the first time, two high school teams from Tucson will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The 1972 Tucson High baseball team, 25-0 state champions, led by long-time big-league catcher Ron Hassey, will be the inaugural boys high school team inducted.

The 1972 Catalina High girls volleyball team, 18-0 state champions, coached by 1985 national coach of the year Mary Hines, will be the first girls team inducted by the PCSHF.

“We will induct two high school teams every year, one girls and one boys,” said Darcy. “As you can imagine, there is quite a list of deserving state champions to honor as we move forward.”

The annual Hall of Fame banquet will be held Oct. 28 at the DoubleTree Hotel.

Big night for UA softball

Friday night’s Premier Girls Fastpitch High School All-American Game in Irvine, California, the female equivalent of the McDonald’s All-American basketball game, was overflowing with Arizona connections.

Ex-Wildcat national champions Jennie Finch and Toni Mascarenas coached the PGF West All-Stars, which included Ironwood Ridge grad Isabel Pacho, CDO grad Ellessa Bonstrom and incoming UA pitcher Marissa Schuld of Phoenix.

Bonstrom, who will play at Utah in 2018-19, hit a run-scoring triple to provide the winning margin in the West’s 4-2 victory. Pacho, who will play at Arizona, was the catcher for Schuld, who was overpowering as she pitched two hitless innings to save the West’s victory.

It was the first time I’ve seen Schuld, chosen the national player of the year by Flosoftball.com, and she was impressive. Her pitches hit 61 mph, she retired all six batters she faced, striking out three, and as ESPN analyst and Olympic gold medalist Amanda Freed said, Schuld’s aggressive approach could make her a game-changer for Arizona.

Things finally looking up for Arizona's swim program

At the ongoing USA Swimming national championships in California, the struggling UA and Tucson Ford aquatics programs — once among the top two or three swimming precincts in the country — showed the most promising signs of life since coach Frank Busch left Arizona in 2011. Leah Smith, who followed new UA coach Augie Busch to Tucson from Virginia was second in the 800 freestyle. She swims for Tucson Ford’s program and entered the five-day meet ranked first or second in four events. Barring injury, Smith projects as a key part of Team USA’s 2020 Olympic team. Even better, UA senior Justin Wright, who completed his eligibility in May, won the national championship in the 200 butterfly to make the USA team for the Pan-Pacific games, and also herald his presence for the 2020 Olympics. Three-time Olympian Matt Grevers, also with Tucson Ford, will race in Sunday’s final of the 50 back. Former Wildcat Margo Geer took third in the 100 freestyle. And that’s not all. Catalina Foothills grad Brooks Fail, who will be a sophomore at Arizona this season, was 18th in the 1,500 freestyle and entered the national finals ranked in the top 30 in three events. He’s just getting started. Stay tuned.

Lancers' Latham Ransom a household name among college coaches

Salpointe Catholic junior defensive back/receiver Lathan Ransom has become the most coveted high school football recruit in Southern Arizona. After getting scholarship offers from Arizona, ASU, Washington, Utah, Georgia and Nebraska, among others, Ransom visited Stanford last week and was offered a scholarship by Cardinal defensive backs coach Duane Akina, the most accomplished secondary coach in the Pac-12. Akina, who coached Arizona All-Americans Darryll Lewis and Chris McAlister, was part of the Stanford group that gave Ransom a tour of the campus and worked with him on the practice field. If Akina approves, you are on the right track. The Lancers begin their season Aug. 24 at Mesa Dobson, which means Salpointe and 21 other Tucson football teams have been practicing in this unforgiving heat for at least a week. As recently as the early ’80s, Tucson teams didn’t play their first football game until the third week of September. That was a much better idea.

Foothills star Conway captures national championship

In her softball career at Catalina Foothills, Nic Conway pitched the Falcons to a state championship, struck out 924 batters in 684 innings, and hit a cumulative .443 in 123 games. That’s one of the top careers in Tucson’s long history of softball excellence. Conway completed her pre-college days last week by pitching her summer club team, the 18U Arizona Firecrackers/Wedman to the USSA Far West National championship. Conway, who pitched three no-hitters, was named the tournament MVP. What’s next? She will enroll at Yale next month. In her years at Foothills, Conway did much more than play softball. She started and runs the charity Headbandz for Hope, which makes and sells headbands for Wipe Out Kids Cancer and has raised more than $10,000 to help fund pediatric cancer research. Well done.

Sun Devil Darryl Rogers dead at 83

Former Arizona State football coach Darryl Rogers died last week. He was 83. He coached the Sun Devils from 1980-84, essentially the replacement for the legendary Frank Kush. Although Rogers started out well at ASU, going 7-4, 9-2 and 10-2, he ran into a rising star in coaching, Arizona’s Larry Smith, who knocked ASU out of the Rose Bowl in 1982 and then beat the Sun Devils in memorable rallies in 1983 and 1984. Rogers then left for the NFL, as Arizona went on an 8-0-1 run against ASU to end the Sun Devils’ 20-year domination of the series.

Trevor Hoffman's induction a cause for celebration

Among those in Cooperstown, New York, on Sunday to celebrate the Hall of Fame induction of ex-Wildcat infielder Trevor Hoffman will be the man who recruited him to Arizona, Jerry Stitt, and the UA’s longtime equipment manger Bobby Bensinger, who now works for the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 1988, Hoffman, who played third base for the Wildcats that season, failed to make an all-conference team that included future MLB player Eric Karros. It also included USC third baseman and future NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, a Sahuaro High School grad, who was a two-sport athlete for the Trojans. You never know right?

2 RichRod staffers staying in Tucson

Since Rich Rodriguez’s departure at Arizona, his staff has scattered to coach the New Mexico Lobos, the Illinois Fighting Illini, the Air Force Falcons and the Minnesota Golden Gophers, among other places. Two of RichRod’s staffers will coach this year at Marana High School: Kyle Quinn, who was a stellar offensive lineman at the UA, and Vince Amey, who coached Arizona’s defensive line, have joined first-year coach Louie Ramirez at Marana, which is expected to be a Class 5A title contender. RichRod remains out of football, but has been seen at Atlanta Falcons workouts.

Bruce Lietzke was Mr. Tucson

Pro golfer Bruce Lietzke won the Tucson Open in 1977 at Tucson National and in 1979 at Randolph North. He died last week at 67 from brain cancer.

His victory in ’77, his first ever on the PGA Tour, required a 70-foot putt on the fourth hole of sudden death to beat Gene Littler. Two years later, he beat Tom Watson at Randolph.

After beating Watson, Lietzke said he almost didn’t play the final round because of a pulled abdominal muscle. “But I ate at a Chinese restaurant last night and the fortune cookie said ‘let courage be your friend,’” he said. “So I thought I’d give it a try.”

Other than Johnny Miller, who won four titles in Tucson, and Phil Mickelson with three, Lietzke, a laid-back, fishing-first golfer from Texas, left as much a mark on Tucson golf as anyone.

My two cents: Arizona AD, not QB, made decision to hire Kevin Sumlin

To me, the only notable thing about UA quarterback Khalil Tate‘s six-month-old tweet “I didn’t come to Arizona to run the tripple (sic) option” is that he spelled “triple” wrong.

The rest of it was a young man unable to grasp the proper context of a brief conversation with UA athletic director Dave Heeke during the search to replace Rich Rodriguez.

On Thursday, Heeke said “it quite simply didn’t happen that way” when asked several times about Tate’s influence in the acquisition of Kevin Sumlin.

UA president Robert C. Robbins, who has some Jerry Jones in him when it comes to an administrator’s involvement in sports, gave some life to the Tate-picks-UA-coach dustup. That’s not surprising.

If you remember, Tate sat next to Robbins on the front row at McKale Center on multiple occasions during the basketball season. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some, like Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, like the spotlight.

Robbins is a significant upgrade over several former UA presidents, notably Ann Weaver Hart, who appeared awkward and unapproachable in public settings. As with Tate, Robbins is a connector.

But the reality is that Heeke – and no Power 5 Conference athletic director – would not allow a 19-year-old quarterback, no matter how talented, strongly influence a decision as important as hiring a head football coach in the Pac-12.

There is no way Navy’s Ken Nuimatalolo would have used a triple-option offense had Heeke hired him. There’s a reason why just one Power 5 school, Georgia Tech, runs a triple-option. It isn’t reliably effective in the long term against modern defenses, as Arizona coach Dick Tomey found out in his first years in Tucson.

Nor can you recruit Pac-12 caliber athletes to run a triple option. Heeke knows that as much as anyone. Niumatalolo surely would have used some sort of spread offense scheme had he been hired.

I believe Heeke was attracted to Niumatalolo for his character and integrity as much as for his football chops. After all of the yelling and screaming and general unpleasantness of the RichRod years, Niumatalolo was sought not for his offensive prowess, but for his ability to connect with young men and to conduct himself in a positive manner.

Sumlin has a history of winning and recruiting at a higher level than Niumatalolo. That, not a tweet from Khalil Tate, made the difference.