Each time I got a much-anticipated phone call from Sahuaro/Santa Rita high school football and basketball coach Bob Vielledent, it was more than small talk.
"You've got to get over to Sahuaro to watch our shortstop, Sammy Khalifa. He's going to be a first-round draft pick." (Khalifa was taken No. 7 overall by the Pirates in 1983.)
"I don't know what the UA is thinking, but they passed on our receiver Eric Drage; he's signing with BYU." (Drage, coached by Vielledent at Santa Rita, completed his career as the No. 1 receiver in BYU history with 162 receptions).
"You should get up to the state championship game in Phoenix; I think Dick McConnell is going to win another title." (Sahuaro's iconic basketball coach led the Cougars to a fourth state championship in 2001).
Vielledent was the go-to man for high school sports in Tucson for more than 40 years. In his decades at Sahuaro, Santa Rita and St. Augustine high schools, Vielledent was an encyclopedia on Tucson sports. He seemed to know everyone. Everyone seemed to know him as Coach V. At McConnell's funeral service in 2019, Vielledent greeted hundreds of people at the door. The man he helped to coach to state championships in 1982, 2000 and 2001 had become a legend. Vielledent was there every step of the way, a legend in his own right.
1977 Sahuaro High School yearbook photo. First row: Jim Freeman, Reggie Fowler, Stan Rome. Second row: Jim Krech, Jim Cortese, Mike Hoover, Ric Botkin. Third row: Coach Bob Vielledent, Coach Billy Lopez, Tim Olvey, Roddy Simpson, Bobby Valenzuela, Dave Richardson.
A few months ago, when word circulated that Vielledent had been disabled by a stroke, near death, I dreaded I would never be able to call him again. Sadly, he died last week at age 78. The Tucson High and NAU grad spent his life as a coach, a teacher, a mentor, a friend, a great golf partner, husband and father to four wonderful children.
When he was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame 17 years ago, Vielledent became emotional, his voice cracking, as he mentioned the many young men he had coached, from NFL quarterback Rodney Peete to his son, Marc, a West Point graduate. "I'm so fortunate," he said. "So many great people have touched my life."
The lives Coach V touched were similarly fortunate. A funeral mass will be held Friday, March 6, at 11:30 a.m., at Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church, 1800 S. Kolb Road. A celebration of his life will follow at Forty Niner Country Club, 12000 E. Tanque Verde Road, at 2:30 p.m.
