Arizona legend Dick Tomey returns to college football
The news that 76-year-old Dick Tomey is returning to college football, as an administrative assistant at South Florida, was a clever move by USF athletic director Mark Harlan, who can now tap into Tomey’s vast instinctive powers. Tomey essentially became Harlan’s surrogate father when Harlan became a UA football manager in 1987, and best friends with Tomey’s son, Richie. Harlan has worked his way up the ranks, becoming an assistant AD at Northern Colorado, San Jose State, Arizona and, most recently, the No. 2 man in the UCLA athletic department. Harlan is viewed as one of the next generation of elite-school ADs in the country; if he can turn the South Florida athletic department around, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him return to the West as an AD in the Pac-12, even Arizona someday.
