Greg Hansen counts down the top teams in Tucson sports history, from 100 to 1. Here's the full list.

Who’s No. 1 in Tucson sports history? There is no consensus.

There is no recognized Pima County titan like Babe Ruth’s 1927 New York Yankees, no singular local powerhouse to match the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, no Tucson team that is considered our historical equivalent to an undefeated John Wooden UCLA basketball team.

Tucson doesn’t have a recognized “Dream Team,” its version of America’s 1992 men’s Olympic basketball team.

There are many worthy nominees, but no clear winner.

Across the last 110 years, Tucson high school teams have won 618 state championships. Who’s No. 1? Who knows?

Since 1976, teams from the UA and Pima College have combined to win 25 national championships and have come oh-so-close to a dozen more. Who’s No. 1? Any or all of Mike Candrea’s eight NCAA softball champions deserve strong consideration. The vote is widely split.

Our professional baseball franchises — the Sidewinders, Cowboys and Toros — have won five championships. Each can make a case as best-ever.

The first of almost 650 Tucson state and national championship teams — teams with wildly varying names from Sky to Icecats, Blue Devils to Caballeros — was crowned on April 6, 1912. That’s the day Tucson won its first-ever high school state championship. The Tucson Badgers baseball team defeated Tempe High School 11-4 after two days of competition on the UA campus.

It was the last time there was a definitive answer to “Who’s No. 1?” in Tucson sports history. A year later, Tucson repeated as state baseball champs, creating a debate that has intensified across the last 109 years.

With due research — covering more than 22,000 teams since 1912 — we begin the countdown:

C.B. Richards, a Tucson baseball fan who made a fortune by developing the Winterhaven subdivision and creating the annual “Festival of Lights” Christmas celebration, bought the struggling Class A Tucson Cowboys baseball franchise in 1951.

One of the lead stockholders Richards recruited to help rescue Tucson’s financially-challenged baseball enterprise was Howard A. Bring, a long-time Tucson undertaker.

It wasn’t long until Bring looked to be a perfect fit for the Cowboys: The franchise went 68-75 and 61-78 and didn’t average more than 978 fans per game. Tucson’s minor-league club was so hapless that it finished below the Mexicali Eagles, Bisbee-Douglas Copper-Kings and the Juarez Indians in the Arizona-Texas League.

Richards said he lost $36,000 in his baseball venture and sought a buyer. Money was so tight that the Cowboys couldn’t afford to rent a bus for road trips. They instead used three station wagons to travel to 70 road games, El Paso to Mexicali and beyond.

And then, out of nowhere, the Cowboys won the 1953 Arizona-Texas League by 13 games, finishing 90-49, the best record in all of minor-league baseball that season.

Tucsonans bought in. On the night of the final home game of the season, Sept. 7, 1953, mayor Fred Emery showed up at Hi Corbett Field in time to see the Cowboys arrive behind a police motorcade. The Tucson Boys Chorus sang the national anthem. Brig. Gen. John Hardy of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base saluted as the DMAFC color guard raised the American flag.

A 28-page souvenir program sold out as a crowd of 3,500 pushed into Hi Corbett Field, raising the average game attendance to 1,326, a record since Tucson began playing minor-league baseball in 1928.

Richards, the franchise owner, later claimed he somehow lost close to $12,000 during the championship season and placed the team for sale. But the magic created by the ’53 Cowboys would live on, finances be damned.

How did this happen so unexpectedly? Second-year player-manager Don Jameson acquired three game-changing players for virtually nothing.

In the offseason of 1952-53, Jameson, a career minor-league catcher from Ohio who had bounced around for 12 years, signed standout shortstop Joe Joshua, the team’s only Black player, from the rival Phoenix Senators.

Cost: $250. Joshua went on to bat third in the Cowboys’ lineup, hitting .359 with 29 home runs and 129 RBIs.

In a bit of serendipity, the Cowboys were able to sign center fielder Lloyd Jenney, probably the best UA baseball player in history to that point. Jenney set the still-standing Arizona batting average record, .482, a year earlier. He signed a $22,000 bonus with the Chicago White Sox — a unusually large sum in the early 1950s — but seriously injured his arm while playing for Class A Waterloo.

The White Sox gave up on Jenney. He returned to Tucson, hit 24 home runs and batted .367 as the Cowboys’ cleanup hitter.

As profitable as the acquisitions of Joshua and Jenney were, the Cowboys struck baseball gold by signing Scottsdale High School pitcher Corky Reddell, who had not been signed by any professional team. Reddell went 29-5. He was almost unhittable.

The son of a Scottsdale rancher, Reddell’s baseball career had been delayed by a military service commitment. He turned so many heads that when Phoenix staged its annual 1953 Arizona Athlete of the Year ceremony, Reddell won the award over PGA Tour golfer Johnny Bulla, Indianapolis 500 racer Jim Bryan, big-league pitcher Alex Kellner and Gib Dawson, an All-American running back for the Texas Longhorns.

But much like the ’53 Cowboys, the careers of Joshua, Jenney and Reddell couldn’t repeat. When Tucson sagged to 64-76 a year later, Richards sold the team, Reddell won just 11 games after injuring his pitching arm. Joshua signed with the PCL’s Seattle Rainers and hit just .195, ending his days as a top prospect.

Jenney also signed with Seattle but hit .231. He was out of baseball in 1958, the year the Cowboys folded. Tucson did not field another professional baseball team until 1969, when the PCL’s Tucson Toros debuted.

Jameson retired from baseball after the ’57 season; he later opened Jameson Sporting Goods in Tucson, one of the city’s leading sports shops for about 25 years.

Now, 69 years later, the Tucson Cowboys of ’53 hold a place in Tucson sports history as one of the city’s five minor-league champions, joining the 1941 Cowboys, the 1991 and 1993 Toros and 2006 Sidewinders.

As much or more than any of Arizona’s many All-American golfers, Annika Sorenstam became familiar with Tucson’s mid-winter “frost delays,” which often push the day’s tee times from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. or a bit later.

Sorenstam was an early riser, regularly driving from her apartment near the Tucson Racquet Club to the Randolph Golf Complex before her morning classes. If she was delayed an hour or two, her daily routine of getting to the practice area adjacent to Randolph North’s No. 18 was unhappily scuttled.

She was often the first to arrive at the practice complex, whether it be 38 degrees or 68 degrees.

“I wish there were 48 hours in a day,” Sorenstam said in 1992. “I want to spend more time studying and more time practicing golf. I love to be on the range by myself.”

At the time of her final appearance in an Arizona uniform — at the 1992 NCAA championships — Sorenstam was the top-ranked women’s college golfer in America. The Wildcats were similarly ranked No. 1. The quiet, almost shy young golfer from Stockholm, Sweden, was no longer a secret.

She had won the 1991 NCAA championship, the most promising young female golfer to come along since Nancy Lopez a generation earlier.

“Annika’s about as perfect as they come,” said UA coach Kim Haddow. “She’s got a passion for the game that the top athletes have.”

Entering the ’92 national finals at ASU’s Karsten Golf Course, Arizona had won seven of its eight previous tournaments, a modern NCAA record. Fellow sophomore Leta Lindley was ranked No. 3 nationally. Junior Debbie Parks was ranked No. 7.

Haddow’s ’92 women’s golf team was considered more every bit as formidable as Arizona’s 1992 men’s golf team, which would win the NCAA title a week later.

The union of Haddow and Sorenstam, forming the nation’s No. 1 women’s golf team in both 1991 and 1992, was about as unlikely as any in UA sports history.

Nine years earlier, Haddow, an SMU grad, had been a physics teacher at Sahuarita High School, keeping her hand in the game she grew up playing, getting part-time work as an assistant pro/instructor at Tucson Country Club.

Sorenstam, who began playing golf seriously at 13, had emerged as Sweden’s top teenage golfer, being coached and mentored at Stockholm’s Gymasiet High School by Pia Niellsen, a former ASU golf standout who had played five seasons on the LPGA Tour.

In the summer of 1989, Sorenstam played for Sweden in the annual Shiseido Open in Japan, which attracted college golf coaches from America. Haddow had never heard of Sorenstam. But by the luck of the draw, Sorenstam was paired with the UA’s top golfer, Martina Koch.

After two rounds, Koch told Haddow “let’s get her.”

It’s not like recruiting Sorenstam was a long shot. Arizona had finished No. 4 in the NCAA two years earlier and Haddow had built a national power; UA sophomore Susan Slaughter won the individual 1989 national championship.

But what baffled Haddow was that ASU had not recruited Sorenstam. Nobody had.

“No other college ever contacted me,” Sorenstam told me in 1992. “I didn’t even visit Tucson. Before I left home, I told my parents ‘see you in nine months.’ If i don’t like it, I could always come back.”

Sorenstam loved the year-round practice facilities and improved her game so much via those early morning workouts that in her final season at Arizona, 1992, she averaged 72.3 strokes per round, a Pac-10 record. She won four tournaments, a school record.

With Lindley, Parks and the nation’s No. 17 golfer, Ulrika Johansson in the lineup, Arizona was heavily favored at the 1992 NCAA finals. The Wildcats had won seven of their last eight events by such margins as 43, 33, 30 and 24 strokes.

But over those four days in Tempe, Arizona finished No. 2, behind then-national power San Jose State. Sorenstam’s quest to become the first women’s golfer in NCAA history to win back-to-back championships ended when Georgia’s Vicki Goetz shattered the tournament record, shooting 7-under 65 on the final day.

Both Sorenstam and the Wildcats finished No. 2 overall.

Having attracted so much attention in the golf community, Haddow was soon hired to be the head coach at Florida. Sorenstam jumped to the LGPA Tour, where she won 72 events and 10 majors, records that stand today. Lindley also became a successful LPGA player, winning the 2008 Corning Classic and finishing in the top 10 in 33 events.

The ’92 Arizona golf women’s team might be the best team, any sport, in school history not to win the national championship. Four years later the Wildcats would break through and win the first of three NCAA titles.

By then Sorenstam had won the women’s U.S. Open twice. Ultimately, it all worked out for the team of 1992.

In the middle of the 1957-58 school year, Tucson Unified School District announced it had hired Lee Carey as the baseball coach at Rincon High School, due to open in September 1958.

It was an instant headline. In today’s world, it would’ve been retweeted hundreds of times, many by confused members of the Tucson High Badgers baseball team. After all, Carey had just coached THS to1955 and 1956 state baseball championships and was considered Mr. Badger as much or more than anyone on planet earth.

From 1944-46, Carey had played on five state championship football, basketball and baseball teams at THS; he was named Tucson’s athlete of the year by this newspaper as a junior and senior.

And now he was headed to the new school, Rincon, barely four miles east on Fifth Street.

Carey was the real thing. In his fourth year at Rincon, he coached the Rangers to an 18-1 record and the first state championship, in any sport. A year earlier, Rincon was No. 2.

When Rincon opened its doors — TUSD’s fourth high school — it absorbed about 450 students from Tucson High. Enrollment was about 1,500 students. The school thrived immediately. The Rangers went 8-3-1 to finish second in the 1963 state football championships, and reached the state basketball finals in 1967, finishing 22-1.

But it was Carey who delivered the way he had as something of a boyhood legend at Tucson High.

The ’63 Rangers had the state’s top pitching staff. Ken Swartz went 7-0 and lefty Bob Jackson not only went 7-1 with a 1.21 ERA, he also hit .534. Jackson, who went on to pitch for the UA, was groomed to pitch; his father built a pitching mound in the family’s backyard — a rarity in the 1960s — and it led to a state title.

Rincon had plenty of motivation. It finished as runner-up a year earlier, losing to Phoenix North in the championship game. But in ’62, Rincon opened with 15 consecutive victories and routed Phoenix Camelback 17-11 in the championship game. Jackson not only saved the game in a relief appearance, he pitched a one-hit shutout with 15 strikeouts in the state tournament opener, against Glendale.

Shockingly, Carey resigned his coaching position a few days after the state championship game to become Dean of Boys at Rincon.

"I really didn’t think I’d coach forever," said Carey, who was only 34.

It’s not like he got out while the getting was good. Rincon was at the beginning of a golden age of high school baseball, reaching the state championship game three times in 10 years, winning again in 1971 in the top classification of Arizona schools.

The Rangers of the ’60s were so good that they produced future major-league pitchers Paul Moskau, Pat Darcy, Dan Schneider and Jim Crawford.

But it was Rincon’s ’62 team that set the standard of excellence, with third baseman Tom Alden hitting .459 and all-city catcher Jeff Schafer and shortstop Mike Armstrong adding significant production.

Carey remains one of the leading names in the history of Tucson high school sports, as a coach and player.

He was so good that when the Cleveland Indians moved their spring training operation to Tucson in the spring of 1947 that manager Lou Boudreau offered Carey a tryout at Hi Corbett Field. At the time, Carey was deciding between scholarship offers from Arizona, Yale and USC. He instead accepted what was then an unusually high bonus of $19,000 from Cleveland — about $250,000 in today’s money — and opened the minor-league season with the Class A Tucson Cowboys.

The Louisville Slugger company signed Carey to a contract when he was 18.

Carey, often referred to as "Larrupin' Lee" and "Legs" by Tucson’s newspapers, played six years in the minor leagues, reaching Double-A, before earning two degrees at the UA and becoming a teacher and coach at Tucson High. After he retired as Rincon’s baseball coach, he completed his career as an assistant principal at both Rincon and Sabino high schools.

In 1972, the Tucson Citizen selected Carey as Tucson’s best athlete of the post-World War II years. Carey, who completed the 112-mile El Tour de Tucson endurance race when he was in his 60s, died in 2014; he was 85.

Softball in Tucson was so ridiculously good in the 1990s — “it was the golden age,’’ says former Flowing Wells High School state championship coach Armando Quiroz — that Tucson teams won nine state championships and finished second 10 times.

“There was so much talent in Tucson it was so hard just to get out of the local playoffs, a dogfight game after game,’’ remembers Quiroz. “When the playoffs began, I would think ‘here they come.’ Hopefully they thought the same about us.’’

After Quiroz’s Caballeros won the 1999 state championship in Class 4A, they were elevated to 5A for the 2000 season. Remarkably, they were even better.

Flowing Wells went 30-5 and now, 22 years later, Quiroz says “I should be criticized for losing five games with that team. There was no reason to lose a single game.’’

Quiroz’s Cabs also won a state title in 2002, and he was hired to be the head coach at Eastern New Mexico University, followed by 11 uber-successful seasons as Pima College’s head coach, in which he won 501 games.

He retired in June 2018 but modestly takes little credit for Flowing Wells’ epic 2000 state championship in which it beat 34-1 and No. 1-ranked Glendale Phoenix Deer Valley in the semifinals.

His lineup included future All-Big 12 Baylor pitcher/first baseman Ashley Monceaux; future Arizona Wildcat infielder Rebekah Quiroz, his daughter; future Arizona catcher Candace Abrams; future Oklahoma State third baseman Stephanie Nicholson; future ASU infielder Blair Holck; and all-city players Stephanie Gonzales, Bobbie Bell, Becky Linhart and Laughlin Hoskinson.

Monceaux was a franchise player, recruited first by Mike Candrea at Arizona before transferring to Baylor where she excelled under Quiroz’s Flowing Wells mentor, Bears assistant coach Mark Lumley.

“Ashley was only a sophomore in 2000 but she was dominant, as good as you could hope to get,’’ says Quiroz. “She threw 68 mph with a rise ball you could not hit. I felt and still do that we had the best infield in the state, but you wouldn’t know it because Ashley would strike out 14 or 15 every game; the other team rarely put the ball in play. It was a dream season. We were stacked.’’

Prep softball in Tucson in the ’90s was so good that Salpointe Catholic, CDO, Sahuaro, Sabino and Pueblo won state titles. Desert View, Santa Rita and Tucson all finished No. 2. But Flowing Wells began the new decade, in 2000, by extending the excellence, becoming the first Arizona softball team ever to win a state championship a year after being bumped up a classification.

Quiroz had to wait more than 30 years for his own state championship. As a senior infielder on Tucson High’s 1967 baseball team, he knew the pain of losing in the state semifinals — the Tucson championship game — when the Badgers lost to Cliff Myrick’s state title Catalina Trojans.

After working in the once-booming Southern Arizona movie industry for almost 25 years, Quirioz injured his back and decided to return to school and start coaching. Lumley hired him in the early ’90s to help out with the Flowing Wells program. When Lumley left for Baylor, the Flowing Wells administration had difficulty deciding on a replacement.

They finally offered the job as co-head coach to both Quiroz and Arizona’s 1997 NCAA softball player of the year Jenny Dalton.

“To be honest, when the athletic director asked me who I would hire, I told them it would be impossible to turn down Jenny,’’ Quiroz says with a chuckle. “But it all worked out; her husband (Marc Hill) was soon hired to be a strength and conditioning coach at Kentucky, and we did OK at Flowing Wells.’’

Quiroz’s rise to success reflects on his late father, Armando Franco Quiroz, who grew up an orphan, living and working on a ranch in the Rincon Mountains and never had a chance to play baseball as a kid.

“My dad had a rough life; he spent three years in combat in the Pacific islands in World War II and worked on the railroad thereafter. But he loved baseball and always took me to baseball games. That’s where I got my start.’’

Now Armando’s daughter carries on the love and excellence in sports. Rebekah Quiroz has been Pima College’s head softball coach the last four seasons.

“I sit in the stands and watch but maybe I’ll get back in the dugout next season and help out as much as I can,’’ says Armando Quiroz. “Once this game gets in your blood, it just keeps flowing.’’

Before Pac-10 newcomer Arizona became nationally prominent in basketball or softball, its most consistently successful endeavor was coach Dave Murray’s men’s cross country team.

The Wildcats finished No. 7 in the NCAA finals in 1976, 1978 and 1981 and began the fall of ‘84 ranked ahead of the league’s traditional distance running powers Oregon and Stanford.

Arizona won the 1984 Pac-10 cross country title, the school’s first outright conference championship since being admitted to the league six years earlier; Arizona’s 1980 NCAA championship baseball team tied for the league’s regular season title.

The appeal of Arizona’s rise to national prominence was that its leading performer was a 5-foot, 9-inch, 130-pound senior from Santa Rita High School, Tom Ansberry. Local boy makes good, right?

Ansberry, who had set a national age-group record by running the mile in 5 minutes, 3 seconds as a 12-year-old, won the 1984 Pac-10 cross country championships by eight seconds.

“Tom took the lead at the two-mile mark and was never headed,” said Murray. “He was cruising. No one was going to catch him.”

Two weeks later, Ansberry was No. 1 again as Arizona won the NCAA West Regionals on the grass at the El Conquistador golf resort, and for the first time Arizona was mentioned as a national championship contender. This was fully unexpected because Murray’s starting unit consisted of freshman Matt Giusto, Chris Morgan and Jeff Cannada. That’s 60% of the five-man starting group.

The Pac-10 of the mid-’80s bowed to no conference as a distance-running league. Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine dominated college distance running in the first half of the 1970s, followed in the late ‘70s by Washington State’s almost unbeatable Henry Rono.

But at the 1984 Pac-10 finals, Ansberry and Arizona easily beat the Cougars and Ducks as Ansberry, Morgan and Andre Woods finished in the top 10; Giusto, suffering from a back injury, rallied to finish 21st.

“We can compete with any team in the nation,” said Murray, who was named the national coach of the year a month later.

When the NCAA finals were held Nov. 19 at Penn State, Wisconsin was a strong favorite. That’s not how it worked out, but then the Wildcats encountered their worst misfortune of the season. UA senior Keith Morrison was jostled in a pack of runners early in the race, was knocked to the ground and shaken up. He lost about 60 places in the race. He finished 84th.

“If Keith had finished where he normally would, we would have won the national championship,” said Murray. Instead, Arkansas won with 101 points, followed by Arizona (111), Tennessee (144) and favored Wisconsin (159).

Murray understood what it meant to finish No. 2. Outside of Arizona’s national championship 1976 and 1980 baseball teams, it was the highest-ever finish by an Arizona team.

Ansberry led all Wildcats, finishing sixth. Cannada was 33rd and Guisto, who would go on to be an NCAA 5,000 meter champion and a UA Sports Hall of Famer after a distinguished career, finished 41st.

“I’m extremely elated,” said Murray.

The ‘84 national runner-up finish triggered Arizona’s rise as one of the nation’s leading distance-running schools over the next 30 years. The Wildcats produced national champions Giusto, Aaron Ramirez, Amy Skieresz, Tara Chaplin, Marc Davis, Robert Cheseret, Abdi Abdirahman and Lawi Lalang.

But in 1984, it was the slender and indefatigable Ansberry who became the face of UA distance running. After leading Santa Rita two a pair of state track championships, Ansberry’s career thrived. A four-time All-American who earned a degree in irrigation engineering, Ansberry almost made the 1992 Barcelona Olympics team, finishing fourth at the USA trials. He earlier finished No. 7 at the 1984 USA Olympic trials.

A year ago, Ansberry was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, at which time he said that finishing No. 2 at the 1984 NCAA finals was both a highlight and disappointment.

“We came so close, we had the talent to be national champions,” he said. “But having a teammate get knocked down in the race was the difference between first and second. All these years later, though, I look at finishing No.2 as a great accomplishment.”

At the highest level of boys high school tennis, Tucson can more than hold its own with almost any American city of comparable size or larger, Phoenix included.

Not only have Tucson teams won 86 boys state championships (all levels), but its legacy includes some of the biggest names in Arizona prep tennis history: Catalina’s Mark Hardy, Tucson High’s Bill Lenoir, Jim Dye, Jim Grabb and Fred Lobdell, Catalina’s Robb Salant, Palo Verde’s Carlos and Dominic Burmudez, Sahuaro’s Mike Lee and Rincon’s Sadhakar Kosaraju, to name a few.

What doesn’t compute is that until 2004, boys tennis powerhouse Salpointe Catholic was known more for losing than winning.

It was like the successful Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s stuck behind the dynasty of the New York Yankees.

One of the state’s most prominent tennis coaches, Salpointe’s John Condes, was seemingly buried behind Phoenix juggernaut Brophy Prep forever.

The Lancers finished No. 2 in the boys state championships in 1990, 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2002. Their misfortune was such that in the ‘91 state championships, Salpointe lost to Phoenix Central High School, which illegally used two 21-year-old foreign players.

But even now, three decades after Central’s 1991 championship was voided, Salpointe officially remains listed as the runner-up. The Arizona Interscholastic Association has yet to do the right thing and label the ‘91 Lancers as state champions.

There were bigger issues than cheating. There was always Brophy, which ruled boys prep tennis in this state the way John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins ruled college basketball from 1964-75. When the 2004 state tournament began, Brophy had won eight consecutive state championships — five against Salpointe — and were strongly favored to again beat Condes’ Lancers, who were undefeated.

But on April 28, 2004, Condes and the Lancers chopped down Brophy, 5-2. Hard to believe, but it was the school’s first boys tennis championship since 1972.

“I’ve been on the losing end, so this is incredible,” said Condes, a former Santa Rita tennis standout who coached at Salpointe from 1988-2018.

The stunning victory over Brophy launched the greatest era of boys tennis in Salpointe history; Condes coached the Lancers to five consecutive state titles, going 98-2 in dual matches, which included it-is-no-fluke repeat victories over Brophy in the 2006 and 2011 state finals.

Salpointe’s success as a boys tennis program has been more of a collective than a superstar-will-show-the-way success. Over 70 years, only five Lancers have won individual state championships: Yash Parikh, Cameron Ahari, Tommy McGeorge, Brian Jackson and Bruce Bueno.

That’s how the Lancers uncrowned Brophy in ‘04. Senior Peter Zimmer, who was the Star’s boys tennis player of the year, did not win the state singles title. He was No. 2. But he became a leader of a lineup that included freshmen Ian Mordaunt and C.J. Browning as well as McGeorge, who would go on to win 126 career matches as a Iowa Hawkeye.

“Peter’s one of the best I’ve ever seen,” said Condes. “He is the guy they all want to be like. His influence on the team really makes my job easier.”

In the tense moments of the ‘04 victory over Brophy, McGeorge required three hours to win the No. 2 singles match, clinching the championship.

“Tommy never, ever stops fighting,” said Condes. “I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t going to lose that match.”

Said Zimmer, who went on to play at Arizona after being Salponte’s No. 1 player for four seasons: “We were on a mission all season.”

Retiring with eight state championships, Condes joined the elite tennis coaches of boys Arizona prep history. Brophy’s Bill Woods won 12 straight championships in one stretch. After that, Catalina Foothills coach Robb Salant and Canyon del Oro’s Jose Sanchez, both with nine consecutive titles, created a formidable Tucson challenge.

“People would always seem to say we had a great year,” Condes told me in 2020. “But, no. They weren’t great. We lost. Yes, we came close, but it was very frustrating.”

But in 2004 and thereafter, championships and Salponte’s boys tennis program became one and the same.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1944, about 12,000 Tucsonans celebrated the holiday by sitting in the rain at Arizona Stadium as Tucson High completed an undefeated season, beating Mesa for the state football championship.

A few weeks later, the Downtown Towncats booster club held a banquet to honor what was then considered the best high school football team in Tucson history. More than 300 people attended, including Gov. Sidney Osborn and UA athletic director Pop McKale.

McKale thanked coach Rollin Gridley’s Badgers for raising more than $16,000 in ticket sales at the state championship game, which McKale said would be applied to the debt service for Arizona Stadium, built 15 years earlier.

At the banquet, Gridley became emotional not just when he named all 11 starters co-captains for posterity, but when he read the names of 22 former Tucson High students who had been killed in World War II.

The ’44 Badgers earned an historic spot in state football history, stretching its winning streak to 21 games. They outscored opponents 345-78. But there was more to it than winning football games.

In retrospect, the ’44 Badgers produced three of the most prominent high school football players on one team in Tucson history, and it had nothing to do with sports.

Frank Borman, Karl Eller and Larry McQuade were so successful in their post-football days that it’s difficult to conceive of any Tucson prep team, at any time, matching what Borman, Eller and McQuade accomplished after putting a state championship ring on their finger.

Borman became globally famous after graduating from West Point and ultimately becoming the commander of Apollo 8 as a NASA astronaut. The son of a man who operated a Mobile gas station in Tucson, Borman was the starting QB on the ’45 THS team that again went 11-0 to win another state championship.

Eller was a lineman who went on to start for the Arizona Wildcats. After college, he became a titan of business, the CEO of Circle K and one of the founding members of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. It was Eller’s ownership group that hired future Suns owner Jerry Colangelo as its inaugural general manager. The UA’s Eller College of Management carries his name.

And then there was McQuade. The president of the THS senior class, McQuade — an all-state end — bypassed college football to accept a scholarship to Yale, where he became a Phi Beta Kappa. From there, he became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. (He played rugby there).

After completing his Rhodes scholarship, McQuade graduated from Harvard Law School and entered a different arena — politics.

McQuade became an assistant to the secretary of defense in President John F. Kennedy’s administration, heavily involved in the Cuban missile crisis and the cold war. After Kennedy was assassinated, McQuade became President Lyndon Johnson’s assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

After his days in the White House and at the Pentagon, McQuade became vice president of Prudential Securities, among many other business endeavors.

In retrospect, the ’44 Badgers were something of a Cinderella story. When they beat Mesa for the state title, it might’ve been an upset. The ’44 Mesa team had the state’s player of the year, Whizzer White, one of the legends of Arizona prep football history. In the state semifinals, THS beat Glendale High School, which included all-state lineman Bill Yeoman, who went on to coach the Houston Cougars to four Cotton Bowls, finishing in the Top 10 four times.

The ’44 Badgers had much more than McQuade, Eller and Borman. Quarterback Sol Ahee became a starting QB at Arizona, and the core of the ’45 state championship team — Oscar Carrillo, Art Pacheco, Joe Kelly, Jim Tooley and Tom Fridena — became all-state players.

Ultimately, Tucson High put together a 32-game winning streak, leading Gridley to three of his five state championships before he left coaching to become a TUSD administrator.

Almost no one in Tucson sports from 1988-93 experienced more success than George Arias. Not Steve Kerr, not Sean Elliott, not Annika Sorenstam, not Tedy Bruschi.

See if you agree:

In the fall of 1988, Arias was a starting running back/punter as Pueblo High School blazed to a historic 10-0-1 regular season before losing in the state semifinals.

In the spring of 1989, Arias, a Pueblo shortstop, hit .447 to make the all-city baseball team.

In the spring of 1990, Arias hit .470 with a school-record 11 home runs to lead Pueblo to its only state baseball championship in history. He was the Star’s player of the year.

In the spring of 1991, Arias hit a school-record 17 home runs leading Pima College to No. 3 in the final NJCAA baseball poll, winning the ACCAC championship.

In the spring of 1992, Arias hit .407 for the Aztecs, leading coach Roger Werbylo’s team to the NJCAA championship game.

And in the spring of 1993, Arias, a first-team All-American third baseman for Arizona’s Jerry Kindall, hit a UA-record 23 home runs, leading the Wildcats to the final game of the NCAA regional finals.

Yet as you look back on Arias’ career as an amateur athlete, his Pueblo, Arizona and Pima College teams lost The Big Game in five of six seasons — none more painful the 1992 NJCAA championship game in Grand Junction, Colorado.

It was the one time in Arias’ amateur career that his team qualified as something of a Cinderella story. PCC squeezed into the final of four region playoff berths and then went on a three-week undefeated roll to play Essex County Community College of Maryland in the championship game.

Arias had hit home runs in four consecutive World Series games, extending his school career record to 31 homers. The San Francisco Giants drafted him and offered a five-figure signing bonus. But Arias declined, choosing to enroll at Arizona and, first, concentrate on winning the NJCAA championship.

Instead, the Aztecs lost.

“It was a remarkable season,” said Werbylo, who had coached Canyon del Oro High School to state baseball championships in 1979 and 1984. “We lost seven of our nine starters from the year before, when (ex-Rincon pitcher) Jason Jacome went 17-1 and everybody expected us to win it all. But we didn’t even get to the World Series.”

As an underdog in ’92, Pima beat the odds until the final game of the NJCAA season.

“Last year, we were awesome,” Arias said then. “A lot of people said this would be a sorry team, but it just shows what sticking together and refusing to give up can do.”

It wasn’t that the ’92 Aztecs were short on talent. Sophomore pitcher Marc Barcelo won 11 games and signed a scholarship offer from Arizona State, where he would go on to be selected the 1993 Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year before being drafted in the second round by the Minnesota Twins.

“We overcame some serious losses,” said Werbylo, whose team was devastated a month before the season when starting shortstop Ivan Galvez, a sophomore from Nogales, was killed in a car accident. Galvez had hit .410 in Pima’s ACCAC championship season of 1991.

Sahuaro High School’s Scott Foster hit .345 for the Aztecs of 1992; shortstop Chapo Hayes of Amphi High School hit .331. But it was Arias who made things click.

One of the most impressive moves of Arias’ baseball career was to connect with his mentor, Eddie Leon, a former Tucson High School and Arizona All-American shortstop, who in 1967 was the UA’s first-ever first-round draft pick.

To get eligible to enroll at Arizona for the ’93 season, Leon encouraged Arias to devote himself to academics. He attended summer school for eight weeks to become eligible to play for the Wildcats.

His career blossomed.

In his single season at Arizona, 1993, Arias hit .345 with a school-record 23 homers and 75 RBIs. He was named a first-team All-American by Collegiate Baseball magazine and, during one hot stretch, hit home runs in seven consecutive games, a Pac-12 record that still stands.

Arias made his major-league debut with the Los Angeles Angels in 1996 but created a lifetime impact playing for the Orix Blue Wave, Hanshin Tigers and Yomiuri Giants of the Japanese big leagues; Arias hit 347 home runs in a combined eight years playing in Japan and Mexico before retiring in 2006.

He returned to Tucson, opened the Centerfield Baseball Academy, an indoor training facility, where he helped to develop more than 30 college baseball players, including Nick Gonzales of Cienega High School, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ No. 1 draft pick in 2000.

Not bad for a once-unknown football player from Pueblo High School, the son of Mexican immigrants who first gained attention in Tucson’s sports community 34 years ago by catching a touchdown pass to clinch the 1988 division championship game against Flowing Wells.

Today, Arias’ son, George Arias Jr., is a key relief pitcher for his father’s alma mater, which begins play in the NCAA Regionals on Saturday. The younger Arias will try to win The Big One the way his father did so often during his remarkable sports career.

Imagine the frustration of 16-year-old Phil Ferranti when he discovered he didn’t make the starting lineup for Tucson High’s 1958 golf team.

“I shot in the 70s all the time,” he remembers. “I was really upset. But what can you do? I imagine that might’ve been the best high school golf team in Tucson history.”

Ferranti, who would become a golf pro in California, Phoenix and Tucson, and part of the European Senior Tour for eight years — he won the 1993 Switzerland Open and played in the British Open on the sacred golf turf at St. Andrews — wasn’t a late bloomer. It was that Tucson High seniors Dave Leon, Tom Finke, Bob Gaona and Jimmy Gaona might’ve been the four best teenage golfers in Arizona in the 1950s.

They won the 1958 state championship by 42 strokes, a state record that lasted until 1997. They won 56 consecutive matches from 1957-60.

“What made that team so appealing in a historic context is that it wasn’t a country club setting,” Finke says now. “These were young men whose families were on the edge of poverty, living near the El Rio golf course.”

Tucson High’s administration might not have fully appreciated the greatness of its 1958 golf team. It appointed a history teacher, Don McAlpine, to be the coach. But McAlpine couldn’t break 100.

“Mr. McAlpine was basically our bus driver,” says Ferranti, who now operates the El Cisne restaurant in the foothills. “He got extra money to basically be our chaperone.”

The Badgers of 1958 shot a team average of 73 per round. That was unthinkable then, and now, for a bunch of teenagers. They won every match they played from 1957-60.

“It’s hard to miss when you’ve got the golfers like Tucson has,” McAlpine said in a 1958 interview. “We’ve got five boys who can shoot in the 70s. For me to change anything would be like changing Stan Musial’s batting stance.”

Bob Gaona won the 1958 state championship, shooting rounds of 71 and 67 at El Rio, where he had grown up as a caddy — sometimes for 25 cents per round. His brother, Jimmy, also grew up at El Rio, working odd jobs at the course in exchange for a free round of golf in non-prime hours.

Bob Gaona is probably one of the four or five top Tucson golfers in history. He played on the PGA Tour Champions for five years in the 1990s. He played in the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Had he had access to sponsorship in the 1960s like a dazzling teenage golf pro of the 21st century, he might’ve been a regular on the PGA Tour. He died of cancer in 2017.

Leon was the consensus No. 1 prep golfer in Arizona in those years.

“He played against Jack Nicklaus in the U.S. Amateur,” says Finke. “He was second to Nicklaus in the U.S. Junior Amateur. He was the real thing.”

Leon made golf his life. He became a club pro near Seattle for 37 years. He died of ALS in 2011.

Finke became an honorable mention All-American at Arizona in 1961, playing opposite future PGA Tour regular Homer Blancas of Houston, who would go on to become the head pro at the Randolph Golf Complex. But Finke chose to attend law school at Northwestern rather than pursue a golf career. He has been an attorney in Phoenix since 1971.

Not all from the ’58 THS championship team turned to golf for a career. Jimmy Gaona opened an auto body shop in Colorado. Dan Hubbard operated a painting company in Tucson.

It’s not like the ’58 Badgers were simply blessed with talent and resources to become elite golfers. They were fortunate to grow up during a period that Tucson’s junior golf program was headed by Ricki Rarick, who made it possible for junior golfers to play for free in non-prime golf hours at the Tucson city courses.

Their instruction often came — without charge — from Dell Urich, after who the former Randolph South golf course is now named. Urich would set up a practice area on the Randolph driving range and donated his time to the city’s young golfers of all levels.

After the core of the ’58 team graduated from Tucson High, the Badgers haven’t won a state golf championship — or an individual title — for more than 60 years.

“After we won it all in 1958, I was the state medalist in 1959,” says Finke. “It took me until I was a senior to be the No. 1 player on our team. That’s how good my teammates were. We just had a bunch of self-taught neighborhood kids. Pretty special, huh?”

Arizona’s women’s tennis program was in such disarray in 1990 that coach Becky Bell’s Wildcats went 0-11 in the Pac-10 and completed a 1-28 stretch in dual matches.

If someone had said that by 1992 the Wildcats would produce three first-team All-Americans, reach the NCAA quarterfinals and sweep the Pac-10 singles and doubles championships, it would’ve been met with laughter.

No way.

After all, Stanford ruled Pac-12 women’s tennis with greater success than John Wooden ruled the league’s basketball empire from 1964-75. The Cardinal won every NCAA championship from 1986-2006.

Yet in ’92, Arizona rose from the ashes with three of the most unlikely tennis standouts in league history: Canyon del Oro High School state champion Banni Redhair, Orange County California’s Danielle Scott — who chose Arizona over modest offers from Pepperdine and UC-San Diego — and New York’s Alix Creek, who had burned out and retired from tennis as a 16-year old.

If you thumb through the Pac-12 women’s tennis record book, it’s all Stanford, with a Cal and UCLA sprinkled in periodically. But your eyes stop when you see the following:

1992 singles champion: Alix Creek, Arizona

1993 singles champion: Alix Creek, Arizona

1992 doubles champions: Alix Creek and Danielle Scott, Arizona

Creek, Scott and Redhair all were chosen first team ITA All-Americans.

“Frankly, I was astonished,” said Arizona assistant athletic director Ted Kissell, who had been the UA’s men’s tennis coach in the 1980s. “Pac-10 tennis is at the elite level. There’s been nothing else like it in the 20 years I’ve been in tennis around here.”

It all began when Bell, a 1979 All-American at UCLA, recruited Creek from the famed Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. After leaving her New York home and competing nationally since she was 11, Creek quit tennis. Burned out. She gained 30 pounds, sat out a year, and then returned briefly, as a pro, with her fire burning again.

When Creek indicated she wanted to play college tennis, Bell was on top of it. Creek regained her amateur status and committed to the long-struggling UA program.

“I was doing double flips,” Bell told me at the time. “It was party time.”

A year later, 1993, Creek won the NCAA doubles championship with Michelle Oldham, the only singles or doubles national title ever by Arizona.

Creek then turned pro and played successfully for about a decade. She competed in the U.S. Open, the French Open and the Australian Open. She then retired to create Alixandra Collections, a Scottsdale-based shop and online venture that features the latest trends in women’s jewelry, clothing and accessories.

Alixandra Collections has grown to seven locations across three states with more than 50 employees.

Scott also played professionally for about 10 years before retiring and returning the Los Angeles.

Redhair — now Banni Redhair Bunting — was also a first-team academic All-American at Arizona, has gone on to be an FBI agent, a CPA, a tennis instructor and an author. She is perhaps the top girls tennis player in Tucson prep history, growing up in an athletic-based family. Her father, Jack Redhair, a prominent Tucson attorney, was a starting running back on Arizona’s 1957 football team. Her brother, Mike Redhair, became a starting point guard for ASU’s basketball team in 1989 and 1990.

Banni, who is a mindfulness therapist in Bend, Oregon, was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2021. She remembered the ’92 Wildcats fondly.

“It all just came together, almost out of nowhere,” she said last fall. “Alix and Danielle were as good as anybody. We had a great coach in Becky Bell. As I look back over the years, I get so proud to know that we were part of something that special. We just all seemed to peak at the same time.”

Redhair would’ve won back-to-back state singles titles at CDO but as a sophomore in 1986 injured an ankle and had to withdraw in the finals match while leading in the final set. She sat out her senior year of high school tennis to play in national events on the USTA and Southwest circuits. She then signed with Arizona.

Bell was Arizona’s women’s tennis coach from 1985-96. She then accepted a position as director of the CATS Lifeskills program until her retirement a year ago.

“That year was something you never forget,” said Bell. “Those young women’s names will be in the record books forever.”

A few days after Sahuaro High School won the 1998 girls state basketball championship, coach Jim Scott raised an eyebrow when his incoming mail included a letter from the University of Arizona basketball office.

It was a hand-written letter from Lute Olson.

“You and your staff did as good a job with your defense as I have seen at any level,’’ Olson wrote on March 3, 1998.

Scott still has that letter. It was a fitting end to his remarkable 15-year career as Sahuaro’s head coach, a period in which the Cougars went 332-69 and won the 1993 and 1998 state titles. Now, a quarter-century later, Scott’s ’98 Cougars have been informed they will be inducted into the Class of 2022 at the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.

There is no prescribed route to becoming a high school basketball coach, but Jim Scott, son of the county attorney in the southeast Arizona mining town of Clifton, didn’t take the suggested path to a state championship.

After his father died during Scott’s high school days, his family moved to Tucson; Scott enrolled at Amphitheater High School. He did not play varsity sports, and after graduation found himself as part of the 40th Armory Division of the United States Army.

It was during that time that Scott dedicated himself to returning to school, earning a college degree and becoming a teacher. Coaching? It wasn’t on his radar. He was not an identifiable name in the coaching community.

But after teaching science at Sewell Elementary School and Magee Middle School, Scott’s interest in sports, in coaching, manifested itself. Unlike most high school coaches, who get their first opportunity at a much younger age, Scott became Sahuaro’s girls freshman coach in his early 40s.

He got a late start, but it didn’t inhibit his success.

His ’97 team bumped into the Catalina Foothills state championship team, led by Olson’s granddaughter, Julie Brase, and lost in the state semifinals. But a year later, Sahuaro beat Brase’s Foothills team in three of four games and reached the title game against No. 2 Scottsdale Saguaro.

On game day at America West Arena in downtown Phoenix, Scott wore his red “lucky sweater’’, which he had worn on the occasion of big games dating to the 1980s. It worked. His pressing defensive pressure held Saguaro to 11% shooting in the first half as the Cougars rolled to the championship, 57-35.

“I believe that the 1997-98 team was not only the best team that I coached while at Sahuaro, but also one of, if not the best, teams in Arizona regardless of division that year,’’ Scott says now. “ And I believe that they proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. ‘’

Sahuaro’s ’98 team didn’t have a superstar, a go-to player, but when the Star compiled the votes for the 1998 All-City team, three of Scott’s starters were selected to the first team: Nicole Nelson, Kelli Glowacka and Katie Bruns. The second team included Cougars Kate Gonzalez and Kristina Henry.

How’s that for depth?

Scott also had a strong coaching staff that included Steve Botkin, who replaced Scott the following season and has since coached Sahuaro to 590 victories, the most in Tucson girls prep basketball history.

“We suffered our only loss of the season at Catalina Foothills, 53-49, before a very large and boisterous crowd,’’ Scott remembers. “We got our revenge a few weeks later when we defeated them 55-27 at home. ‘’

In the state tournament, Sahuaro got even better. It won games 70-41, 73-29 and 48-34 before taking down Saguaro.

“While I was extremely proud of this team’s performance on the basketball court, I was equally proud of the class and dignity with which they carried themselves,’’ says Scott. “There was no ‘trash talk’ or unsportsmanlike behavior. They were intelligent and likable and treated opponents with respect.

“(Sahuaro’s Hall of Fame boys basketball coach) Dick McConnell and I used to laugh about how they were such sweet and outgoing girls until the tip-off. Then suddenly they became unbelievably focused, tough, and aggressive until the game was over — then revert once again to the friendly, thoughtful, girls they were.’’

This is when you know you’re in a Big Game: Baseball commissioner Peter Uberroth and All-Star ballplayers Dale Murphy and Johnny Bench were special guests of ABC at the championship game of the 1986 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Of the more than 180,000 Little League baseball teams in America, the final team standing after a month of city, district, state and regional playoffs — and three games at the World Series — was from International Little League of Tucson, which only had seven teams of boys aged 9-12.

What were the odds?

The International Little League had never been considered a powerhouse in Tucson — nothing to compare to the talent-rich Little League programs that fed Canyon del Oro, Rincon, Sahuaro and Sunnyside high schools.

The International League’s boundaries were 22nd Street to the north, Wilmot Road to the west and Irvington Road to the south. Most of its players would someday enroll at Santa Rita High School.

The International teams were coached by house painters, refrigeration specialists, firefighters and laborers.

Yet in early August 1986, the 14 International League players completed an impressive sweep of state champions from California, Montana, Utah and Washington in the West Regionals in San Bernardino, California, and caught a flight for the World Series in Williamsport.

The head coach was Sam Tullous, a house painter who I had met that season when my son, Ben, was a rookie 9-year-old on the International League’s New Life Health Center team.

I clearly remember a night at the old Vista del Prado ballpark on Prudence Street when our coach, Bill Walker, said that he had never seen so much talent in the league.

“I’ve been coaching for years,” he said. “I’ve never seen so much talent and so many 12-year-olds who have matured to the point they look to be 14 or 15. I really believe they are going places this year.’”

Indeed, if there had been a Little League All-American team in 1986, International pitchers Danny Fregoso and Philip Johnston and power-hitters Troy Kelly and Rich Barcelo probably would’ve been on it.

The rest of the league’s All-Star roster was filled by an advanced shortstop, Scott Foster, and talented teammates like Marty Walker and Eddie DeBaca.

They won the Arizona state championship in Nogales by scores of 12-1 and 8-0, beating Phoenix powerhouses in the semifinals and finals. In Williamsport, they beat teams from Illinois, Florida and Maryland to reach the championship. They would go 16-2 in the postseason before losing to perennial global champion Taiwan, which won nine Little League World Series titles from 1971-86.

The game was televised live on ABC before 22,000 fans at Williamsport’s Lamade Stadium.

Tullous had a wise approach after his team lost to Taiwan, 12-0 — a two-hitter. “I’m sure the kids are a little bit down now,” he told the Star’s Jay Gonzales in Williamsport. “No good, young All-American kid likes to lose. But as soon as they think about it a little bit, they’ll realize how far they went and how much they accomplished.”

The big unknown was what would happen to those 12-year-olds and their baseball futures, if any.

Bill Walker, my son’s coach, said: “It’s too hard to predict what will happen to these players. Some kids mature early, some late.”

Only Fregoso, the dominant right-hander, became a pro, the city’s player of the year in 1991, pitching Catalina High School to the state finals. He was a sixth-round draft pick of the Baltimore Orioles but only pitched 41 games in the low minor leagues before his career ended in 1994.

Johnston was an all-city pitcher at Santa Rita and pitched briefly for Pima College. Otherwise, the only player off the ‘86 team to make a living off sports was Barcelo, a basketball and golf standout at Sahuaro who went on to become an all-conference golfer at Pima College and the University of Nevada, reaching the PGA Tour in 2004, spending three full seasons in competition with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

Barcelo is now the head golf instructor at Woods’ Bluejack Country Club near Houston.

When the ‘86 International Little League team returned to the Tucson airport in late August 1986, they were greeted by about 300 fans. They received communications from Arizona baseball coach Jerry Kindall, whose Wildcats had won the NCAA championship two months earlier, and from Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini and congressmen Mo Udall and Jim Kolbe.

Ultimately, the ‘86 International little leaguers won city, district, state, region and American championships. It was a magic carpet ride not to be forgotten.

It didn’t take long for Desert Christian High School to find a fitting perspective after winning three consecutive state baseball championships from 2013-15.

A few minutes after completing a 31-1 season in 2015 — capping a remarkable 86-7 streak over three years — all-city pitcher/first baseman Zach Malis said: “It’s the end of an era, the completion of a legacy.”

It doesn’t matter if a high school team plays in Division I or Division IV, as Desert Christian did. Winning three consecutive state baseball championships isn’t just getting hot, getting a few breaks or playing inferior competition.

The last Arizona small school to win three consecutive baseball titles was Wilcox, 1999-2001.

In the 2015 season, coach Grant Hopkins’ club beat upper-division opponents Flowing Wells, Walden Grove and Tanque Verde, as well as teams from New Mexico, Idaho and Phoenix in a mid-season tournament. The Eagles’ only loss was to Taft High School of Lincoln City, Oregon, a Class 3A school with more than double Desert Christian’s enrollment.

The previous Tucson baseball team to win three consecutive state championships was Tucson High, which did so from 1950-52 and 1954-56.

“I was very blessed with that group of kids,” Hopkins says now. “The ‘15 team was a generational team. Especially given the fact the school was only about 150 kids and 75 boys at the school. The team only had 13 baseball players.”

Hopkins had the “right” 13 players.

Malis, who spent the last two seasons playing in the Detroit Tigers minor league system after hitting .302 in a productive career at Grand Canyon University, hit .569, .636 and .515 over the Eagles’ three state championships. As a pitcher, he was 29-3.

Andrew Edwards, who is now in his third year in the New York Mets’ minor-league system, playing in Double-A, was 25-2 as a pitcher and also hit over .400 all three seasons. After Desert Christian, he played at New Mexico State.

Both Malis and Edwards were chosen to the Star’s 2015 all-city team, which featured players from 5A to 1A. Malis had 186 RBIs in his three state championship seasons, which is believed to be a state record at any level.

Hopkins, a Tucson native whose high school baseball career ended when he seriously injured his pitching arm in a 1990 car accident, requiring four surgeries, earned a degree from NAU and returned to Tucson. He is a financial advisor.

He became the head coach at his alma mater in 2007, paying dues for six seasons and going 89-73. By 2013, the Eagles were loaded. They won the ‘13 state title with a 26-4 record, won again in ‘14 with a 29-2 record and again in ‘15 with a 31-1 record.

Desert Christian outscored opponents by an average of 13-1 in the 2015 season.

It wasn’t just Malis and Edwards. Camron White hit .462 with 20 stolen bases, Jacob Rosson hit .414 and his brother, Zach, hit .431. Brett Grabosch hit .365. The Eagles didn’t overpower teams; they hit just six home runs. They won with pitching, fielding and timely hitting more than power.

Malis left the Detroit Tigers’ system last year, he moved back to Tucson and is now a manager at Amazon. He is married with a baby.

Hopkins retired from Desert Christian after the 2016 season, when his team went 25-6 and reached the state semifinals.

“The fact I still get to see (my championship players) as often as I do is also a blessing,” says Hopkins. “I was also very fortunate I got to win two championships with my son, Daulton, in 2013 and 2014.”

Hopkins didn’t lose the coaching bug when he left Desert Christian six years ago. He was an assistant coach on Sabino’s 2019 state championship team. He returned to Desert Christian to help coach in 2020 and 2021.

“Assistant coaching fits my lifestyle much better now,” he says.

In its first 25 seasons, 1972-1997, Arizona’s women’s basketball program was never ranked in the Top 25.

This isn’t to suggest that the school’s administration didn’t take the sport seriously, but in 1974-75, Arizona hired a coach, Nancy Trego, who had never coached the sport before.

Trego, hired from within the school’s PE department, went 25-39. Her successor, Lori Woodman, a softball/volleyball coach at College of the Redwoods, went 15-34, followed by Judy LeWinter, who went 37-100.

Finally, in 1991, after coach June Olkowski completed a 34-82 period, Arizona got serious about women’s hoops. It hired two-time Final Four coach Joan Bonvicini away from Long Beach State and Bonvicini gathered herself for one of the most challenging rebuilding jobs in school history, any sport.

It wasn’t a quick fix. Bonvicini’s first four Arizona teams went 24-48 in Pac-10 play.

But after recruiting the core of the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament team, 1996-97 — Adia Barnes, Lisa Griffith, Reshea Bristol, Monica Crank, Felicity Willis and Marte Alexander — the Wildcats opened the 1997-98 season ranked No. 14 in the AP poll, its first-ever national ranking.

They didn’t disappoint.

The Wildcats of 1997-98 beat No. 12 Nebraska and No. 7 Washington before a showdown with Pac-10 mega-power Stanford on Jan. 12 at McKale Center. The Cardinal had beaten Arizona 22 consecutive times and had a 48-game winning streak in the Pac-10.

Yet Tucsonans were so slow to buy in that only 2,058 attended that night’s classic, won on a buzzer-beater 3-pointer by Bristol, 91-90. As the team dogpiled in an impromptu mid-court celebration, even Bonvicini joined the scrum.

The Star’s Shannon Conner wrote it was “the biggest victory in the program’s history.” No one could dispute that.

A more important game arrived in March, when the Wildcats played host to the NCAA Tournament. Arizona beat Santa Clara in the opener and then braced for a Round of 32 game against No. 17 Virginia.

“We’re working on creating our own legacy,” said Bonvicini. “But this game isn’t about a legacy, it’s about now.”

A record crowd of 4,693 attended. No one was more prepared for the big game that Barnes, a senior who was the Pac-10’s Player of the Year. In her final home game, Barnes — now the UA’s head coach — scored 21 points and had eight rebounds in the first half. Arizona rolled to a 94-77 victory.

Barnes had endured an 11-19 season as a freshman, but went on to score 2,237 points, which remains a school record.

“There probably was some intimidation when I was a freshman,” said Barnes. “But now we feel we can compete with anyone in the nation.”

Arizona advanced to face third-seeded UConn in the Sweet 16 in Dayton, Ohio, where it lost to Geno Auriemma’s Huskies. Arizona finished 23-7.

To put the ‘98 season in historical perspective, the UA’s final ranking of No. 9 was its highest until Barnes coached the Wildcats to the No. 7 ranking in November of 2020. She gained a measure of revenge against UConn, upsetting the No. 1 Huskies in an epic Final Four showdown in San Antonio.

Arizona finished No. 2, losing in the Final Four championship game to Stanford.

Bonvicini, who is now an insurance executive in Tucson, coached Arizona to the 2004 Pac-10 championship, the only such title in school history. She left the UA after the 2008 season, then spent seven years as head coach of Seattle University. She completed her career with 701 victories, ranking 18th in women’s college basketball history.

By the time Thom Ortiz was a senior at Sunnyside High School in1985, the Blue Devils’ wrestling program — summer team, freshman team, JV team, varsity team — had more than 300 young wrestlers. That was about triple the participation numbers of Tucson’s strongest football programs of the 1980s, Amphi and Sahuaro.

At Sunnyside, winning begat interest. Winning begat more winning.

But even as coach Don Klostreich’s powerhouses won eight consecutive state championships from 1981-88, it took a while for outsiders to recognize the Blue Devils’ unprecedented success.

The Star and Tucson Citizen regularly misspelled Ortiz name — it’s Thom, not Tom — even though he won back-to-back state championships and went 105-2 in his Sunnyside career.

It wasn’t until Ortiz became a NCAA champion and helped ASU to the 1988 national championship that his hometown newspapers began to spell his name correctly.

It was Sunnyside’s 1984 team that really put the Blue Devils on the map. Klostreich’s team set a state record by winning six individual state championships — Ortiz, Mike Moreno, George Soto, Rene Nunez, Fabian Cota and John Bracy all won their weight classes — which was the record for big schools in Arizona until the Blue Devils won eight titles this season.

What’s more, Sunnyside scored a state-record 199 points in the state finals that season, which was more points combined than the second, third and fourth place teams had combined.

Rival coach John Mulay of Pueblo High told the Star: “With the power that Sunnyside has, a lot of junior college teams would be hard-pressed to beat them.”

The ’84 Blue Devils continued a dual meet winning streak that would grow to 123 consecutive matches from 1976-92. Ortiz might’ve been the best of that era, although future ASU All-American Eddie Urbano was similarly honored.

Sunnyside’s climb to the pinnacle of Arizona prep wrestling in 1984 was the culmination of Klostreich’s first 12 years at the school. He left his position as football coach at Phoenix’s Carl Hayden High School to join Blue Devils football coach Paul Petty’s staff — they had coached together before — and quickly put together a state power. Sunnyside finished second in the state championships in 1975, 1976 and 1977, before winning a first state title in 1979.

That was a period in which Ortiz became something of a wrestling prodigy, going undefeated in age-group wrestling programs at Drexel Elementary School and Apollo Junior High School. By the time Ortiz graduated from Sunnyside, he had won wrestling championships in Bolivia, Peru, Florida, Nebraska and California.

After Ortiz led the Blue Devils to the ‘84 state title, Klostreich spoke of the difficulty of winning every year.

“It’s pretty hard to keep stretching the gap,” he told the Star. “We know one day it’s going to come to an end. But it’s not going to come from not working hard enough.”

Klostreich quit his Sunnyside job at the 1989 season after a feud with the school’s administration. He resumed his coaching career in Yuma, but the winning didn’t stop at Sunnyside. Coaches Richard Sanchez, Bobby DeBerry and Anthony Leon have combined to win 26 state titles since 1990, giving the school a state-record 35 championships.

Sunnyside produced an assembly line of NCAA All-Americans, including brothers Nate and Nick Gallick, Erik Larkin and now Penn State’s Roman Bravo-Young.

After helping ASU win the ’88 national championship, Ortiz earned a degree in finance and worked as a stockbroker, but soon left to become the top assistant coach at perennial college power Iowa State. In 2001, he was hired to be the head coach at Arizona State; over seven seasons, he won three Pac-10 championships. He left ASU in 2009; he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013.

It didn’t mean his wrestling days were over. At 46, Ortiz became an MMA fighter, earning the nickname “El Viejo.”

Ortiz established the World Fighting Federation with partner Al Fuentes in Tucson (WWFMA.com). The organization prepared young adults for professional fights, including the televised UFC shows on pay-per-view.

Ortiz has since coached mixed martial arts and wrestling to young athletes in the Mesa area.

In the summer of 1978, the general manager of the Tucson Sky pro volleyball team wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, asking if he would consider attending a Sky home game at Catalina High School.

To Bob Garrett’s surprise, he got a response. One of the president’s deputy secretaries sent a letter expressing Carter’s regrets in being unable to attend.

That didn’t stop Garrett. He created a “President Carter Couldn’t Make it Tonight” promotion and a record crowd of 3,176 squeezed into the high school gymnasium. Those who purchased tickets were given free peanuts and free American flags. Any uncle named “Sam” was admitted for free.

A year later, Garrett — a marine biologist from UCLA who had earned a master’s degree at the UA — wrote to Carter again. There was no response. So Garrett staged a “President Carter Just Might Make It Tonight” promotion.

Again, an overflow crowd in excess of 3,000 attended. As a bonus, the Sky became a powerhouse, winning the International Volleyball Association championship in 1979. The IVA was a professional co-ed volleyball league that, over three seasons, included franchises in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake, El Paso, Albuquerque and Phoenix.

The Sky were so popular that they outdrew the Triple-A Tucson Toros in 1978 and 1979.

“Bob Garrett made it go,” remembers Tucson attorney Burt Kinerk, who was a minority owner of the Sky franchise. “Everybody had a great time; it was more fun than anything. Catalina High’s gym was jammed, sold out. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

The Sky was so successful — on the court and at the gate — that Garrett staged a “No Charge; Pay on the Way Out” promotion. Fans, who paid between $2 to $4 for tickets, almost doubled the bottom line for a pay-before-you-enter game.

Corky Simpson, a Tucson Citizen sports columnist for three decades, wrote about the Sky frequently. Today, he says: “It was the most enjoyable team I covered in all my years as a sportswriter. Just so much fun, so many laughs. And the fans were all young, having a great time.”

The Sky franchise was created in 1977, purchased by Douglas H. Clark, a prominent Tucson attorney and graduate of the UA’s law school. One of the state’s leading handball players, Clark later said the yearly budget for his IVA team was about $175,000, with about $75,000 going to the pro volleyball players, who were recruited globally. The Sky’s ’79 championship team included players from Peru, Mexico, Europe, Canada and standout Scott English, who had been a basketball standout at UTEP, as well as Amphi High School volleyball coach Anne Davenport.

Big names? There were a few. The IVA included the Orange County All-Stars, a team owned by basketball icon Wilt Chamberlain, a player-coach whose team lost to the Sky in a 1977 game at Catalina High School before a sellout crowd of 3,141.

“We had the world’s best volleyball players, it was just incredible,” Kinerk says now. “It clicked when we made it a co-ed league; we had four men and two women in the rotation. Even though it wasn’t profitable, it became a labor-of-love thing.”

The Sky won the ’79 championship by beating the Santa Barbara Spikers in California. But Garrett, the GM, didn’t have totally positive thoughts. He saw that the IVA’s other franchises did not promote their team the way the Sky did. No team had been aggressive enough to recruit, say, Coors or Bud Light to be a lead sponsor.

Before the ’80 season began, it was clear the league’s future was dim.

Santa Barbara ceased operations. Then San Jose shut down, followed by Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Denver. By July, the Sky had no one to play.

“There’s no one in the world who will ever be able to take away the accomplishments of the Tucson Sky,” said Garrett.

Garrett ultimately left Tucson and pro sports. He wrote advertising jingles and lyrics for Ford, Toyota and Yamaha, among others. Today he is a front man and guitar player for a San Diego-based classic rock band, the Fabulous Pelicans.

At a 2000 Sky reunion at Daisy Mae’s Steakhouse near “A” Mountain, Clark told the Citizen’s Simpson: “We were about two years ahead of the times. If the league could’ve held out for just two more years, I believe we would’ve been a smash hit on cable television.”

Talking about the Sky today, 42 years after the IVA folded, Kinerk’s voice transmits pride.

“I’ve still got the IVA championship trophy in my man cave,” he says with a laugh. “It always reminds me of how much fun we had.”

In the late afternoon of June 5, 1998, Arizona’s athletic department was on the brink of the greatest season in school history.

The Wildcats had finished No. 2 nationally in softball and women’s swimming, No. 3 in women’s golf, No. 5 in men’s basketball, No. 6 in men’s swimming, No. 9 in women’s basketball and No. 11 in women’s track and field after distance running superstar Amy Skieresz completed a sweep by winning national titles in 5,000 and 10,000 meters.

Arizona was poised to win the NCAA championship in men’s track and field, which wasn’t a stretch. Track and Field News, the bible of the sport, had predicted the Wildcats to finish No. 2 a few days before the NCAA finals in Buffalo, of all places.

Coach Dave Murray’s team had a first-place finish in the javelin behind Esko Mikkola, a No. 2 finish in the shot put behind Chima Ugwu and a No. 2 placement in 5,000 meters behind Abdi Abdirahman. A day later, freshman Klaus Ambrosch would win the decathlon.

To complete the unforgettable 1997-98 season, the Wildcats were favored to win the discus behind Pac-10 champion Doug Reynolds, and finish first or second in the decathlon behind Dominic Johnson.

And then a storm front passed through Buffalo. The scheduled 6 p.m. start of the discus was delayed for three hours. By the time the discus competition began, it was windy and cold, about 40 degrees. Many thought the competition would simply be postponed and held a day later, on Saturday.

The NCAA track community raised an eyebrow when the NCAA chose the University of Buffalo as the site for the 1998 championships, where weather in early June can be iffy. It had no regular site for the NCAA finals as it does today — Oregon has played host to the track and field championships since 2013 — but in the late ’90s the NCAA had jumped from site to site, awarding the tournament to a high bidder.

Boise State, for example, had been signed for the 1999 championships.

On that cold night in Buffalo, NCAA officials ordered the discus competition to begin a few minutes after 9.

Reynolds, who routinely threw the discus 200 feet, could only manage 181 feet. He did not place, nor earn a point. Most had predicted Reynolds to win and collect 10 points for the Wildcats.

Their chances to win an historic NCAA championship ebbed.

“It should’ve been postponed until Saturday,’’ Murray told me. “It wasn’t conducive to staging a championship event. It was too late and too cold.’’

A day later it got worse. Johnson, an Amphitheater High School state champion and 1996 Olympian in the pole vault, failed to clear any height. Instead of winning and gathering 10 points, he did not score. A day earlier, Johnson was No. 2 overall, winning the 100 and 400 meter runs, finishing second in the high jump and sixth in the long jump.

Despite the school’s two leading performers failing to score, Arizona somehow finished No. 4 overall, with 41 points. Arkansas won with 58 points, followed by Stanford at 51 and TCU at 48. Had Johnson and Reynolds finished 1-2 or 2-1, Arizona would’ve been the national champion with 59 points.

It remains the highest finish in UA men’s track history; the 41 points are the most Arizona has ever scored in the NCAA finals. Murray took the positive road rather than belabor the misfortune of his two leading athletes.

“We finished fourth, which is like being in the Final Four in basketball,’’ he told me. “I prefer to think of it as a very satisfying season rather than talk about what could’ve been. This was a one-shot deal. We had a lot of positives.’’

The Wildcats also had a pair of seventh-place finishers (two points each) with Abdirahman at 10,000 meters and Patrick Nduwimana at 800 meters.

Johnson, who still holds Arizona’s pole vault record at 18 feet, 2 inches, was understandably distraught. Murray quickly came to his side.

“Dom has been a pillar of this program for four years,’’ he said. “He’s a team captain. He was as good as anybody in the country at pole-vaulting. He scored a ton of points for us in the Pac-10 and NCAA meets over the years. One off week can’t undo the positive impact he’s had.’’

Both Reynolds and Johnson have gone on to career success.

Johnson is the UA’s volunteer pole vault coach and a long-time entrepreneur in construction and food service in Tucson. Reynolds, who has been the head track coach at New Mexico State and an assistant coach at Arizona, Alabama, Kentucky and Kansas, is the throws coach at Florida State. The Seminoles finished No. 4 at last week’s NCAA championships.

The ’98 Wildcats remain the standard for track and field success at the UA. The 2006 UA team also finished No. 4 overall, but scored 34 points and did not threaten champion Florida State, which scored 67 points.

Try to top this for an exit: in his final competition as the boys cross country coach at Sunnyside High School, Jim Mielke’s Blue Devils won the 1975 state championship.

Or try to top this for a debut: In Mielke’s first season as Pima College’s men’s cross country coach, the Aztecs won the 1976 ACCAC championship and finished No. 2 at the NJCAA finals.

But Mielke might’ve topped both of those remarkable seasons in 1980 when Pima College spent most of the cross country season ranked No. 1 in the NJCAA.

“We had so much talent,’’ Mielke said then. “I think these kids taught me more than I taught them.’’

On a fall afternoon in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the Aztecs won the 1980 national championship and it wasn’t close. They scored 62 points (low score wins) to the 86 of runner-up Brevard Community College of Florida.

The Aztecs wore orange-themed uniforms designed by Mielke, a Tucson High School and UA graduate. As he stood near the finish line, waiting for the lead pack of runners to come into view, Mielke later told the Star: “Those little pumpkins came rolling over the hill. They came down the final hill like rockets.”

What was most impressive about PCC’s 1980 national champions is that all the runners were all from Arizona. Mielke didn’t recruit out-of-state athletes, as many of his colleagues in the ACCAC and NJCAA did.

Felipe Campoy of Marana High School was ninth overall.

Thomas Bush of Cholla High School finished 11th.

Manny Parra of Bisbee High School was 20th.

Pat Listo of Florence was 25th.

Ed Felix of tiny Sells Baboquivari was 30th of about 200 runners.

“The great thing is that these are all Arizona runners,’’ Mielke said that day in Idaho.

Mielke, who coached 21 NJCAA All-American distance runners at Pima before he retired in 2000, grew up on a ranch where the Tucson International Airport now sits. He wasn’t a standout athlete at Tucson High, but after helping to operate the UA’s vast intramurals program in the late 1950s, decided he wanted to be a coach and teacher for a career.

Good decision.

He was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 1992, and into the Sunnyside High School Hall of Fame in 2006. His career wasn’t limited to Sunnyside and Pima; Mielke was president of the NJCAA track and cross country coaches association. He helped to operate the Senior Olympics in Tucson and the Tucson Marathon. He spear-headed a movement to get the 1977 NJCAA Cross Country championships held at the Haven Golf Club in Green Valley.

Mielke began his coaching career with the iconic Vern Friedli on the Sunnyside Junior High School football team in 1961. He was soon elevated to the district’s high school staff where, with such standout distance runners as Raul Nido and Ralph Ortega, the Blue Devils became a state power, twice finishing No. 2 before winning the 1975 championship.

He left Sunnyside with a 50-0 dual meet winning streak intact.

He added to his legacy at Pima College.

“I get a kick out of going to small communities in Arizona and finding kids who don’t think they have a chance to go to college,’’ Mielke told the Star in 1999, after seven of his PCC teams had been ranked in the top 10. “Then I’ll bring them here because of their running skills.’’

Mielke’s first PCC cross country team, the national runner-up, was led by three Tucsonans: Larry Martinez, Art Menchaca and Frank Canez. It was quite an unexpected rise to prominence; when Mielke was hired in the infancy of the PCC athletic program, the cross country team had no equipment and no place to practice.

But it wasn’t long until the school’s “pumpkins’’ climbed the hill and became national champions.

Doc Van Horne didn’t have many of those days when little went right. He coached Tucson High School to 13 state track and field championships from 1927-53, producing Arizona’s track athlete of the year eight times: Joe Batiste (twice), Frank Batiste (twice), Fred Batiste (twice), Willie Brown and Bill Gaston.

But in April 1942, James Don “Doc” Van Horne of Mansour, Iowa, had one of those dark days that changed his life.

While Van Horne’s Badgers athletes were working out at the school’s track facility, someone stumbled while throwing the javelin. Van Horne heard someone shout “LOOK OUT!”

The javelin hit senior Mike Clarke, piercing his shoulder. Van Horne rushed to Clarke’s aid. Someone phoned the police department. Fortunately, Clarke survived without permanent injury, but the frightening incident led to change.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association banned the javelin throw from state competition for the next 50 years. And Van Horne, a chemistry teacher when not coaching track, decided there was more to life than coaching a track team — even one that had easily won state championships in 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941.

After the '42 state finals, Van Horne, 49, resigned his coaching and teaching positions at THS and enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was assigned the rank of sergeant and made the chief Marines recruiter in Southern Arizona.

After World War II ended, Van Horne returned to Tucson High. His teams then won five more consecutive state championships from 1945-49. He retired from coaching and teaching in 1953 (when the Badgers again won the state track title) and subsequently became the first athletic director at Pueblo High School.

When he spoke at a year-end banquet honoring his career achievements in 1953, Van Horne was asked which of all his state championship teams was best.

“Without a doubt, the ‘39 team,” he said. “It’s the best team we’ve ever had.”

That “best team we’ve ever had” almost was derailed before it got on track to a runaway victory at Arizona Stadium in May 1953.

In the winter of ‘38-39, acting on a tip from an unidentified source, the AIA suspended Joe Batiste, declaring that he was too old to compete in high school sports. An investigation into Batiste’s age followed, but his parents, Ernest and Loretta Batiste, said they did not have a birth certificate.

They said Joe — who had set the national high school record in the 110 high hurdles at 14.5 seconds — was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1921 but could offer no proof. The AIA concluded there was no known birth certificate for Batiste, and about a month before the state championships, ruled Batiste eligible.

The Star described the 1939 state meet as “the greatest track and field carnival in our sovereign state’s history.” It further described Batiste, favored in the 120 high hurdles, high jump and long jump, as having “the speed of a greyhound and the spring of a kangaroo.”

Batiste re-set the U.S. record in the 120 hurdles, blazing to a 14.0-seconds finish — a state record that would stand until 1962. Batiste won by 10 yards, which was unthinkable.

The all-Black 4x200 relay team of Batiste, Garfield Johnson, Jesse Higgins and Fred Foley easily won the state title. Higgins also won the 100-yard dash. Van Horne referred to his champions as “the all-conquering Badgers.”

Batiste appeared to be bound for the USA 1940 Olympic team as America’s leading hurdler. But World War II ended both the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Batiste was drafted into the Army and later found that enrolling at Arizona was not as simple as competing for Tucson High School.

Despite Van Horne’s attempts to get Arizona to accept Batiste’s application for enrollment, the UA declined. Batiste instead spent two ordinary years at ASU, but his athletic dominance of the late 1930s ebbed. He was no longer a standout athlete.

“Van Horne gave (Black) athletes their first opportunity in Tucson athletics,” Star columnist Abe Chanin wrote. Not only did Batiste and his younger brothers Fred and Frank become the state’s track and field athletes of the year in 1940, ‘41, ‘43 and ‘44, but Higgins, Ellis Webb and O’Dell Gunter — all Black — became state champions.

Fred Batiste became the first Black athlete to earn a letter in UA history, a two-way starter for the 1949 Wildcat football team. He was elected to the UA Sports Hall of Fame last month; he will be inducted in September.

After leaving his administrative roles at Pueblo, Van Horne retired in 1959. He wasn’t forgotten. The TUSD subsequently named a new school on East Pima Street Van Horne Elementary. It closed in 2011.

Van Horne died in 1986 while visiting his son in Amsterdam. He was a charter member of the Arizona Coaches Hall of Fame in 1992.

At some point before the 1973 high school football season, the administration at Palo Verde High School informed history teacher/football coach Van Howe that ‘73 would be his final season at the school.

Not because the Titans had gone 41-57-4 over Howe’s 11 coaching seasons — not because they had slumped to 3-7 a year earlier and had never been a factor in the state playoffs — but because he was about to turn 65.

A half-century ago, state and federal organizations such as the Tucson Unified School District had a mandatory retirement age of 65.

A former Naval gunnery officer during World War II who spent three years in combat duty in the Atlantic theater and coached on staffs of perhaps the two worst Arizona football teams of the 20th century — the 1-8-1 and 3-7 teams of 1958 and 1959 — Howe survived serious challenges in his life. He wasn’t about to mail it in and let someone else worry about the sorry football history of the 11-year-old high school.

As training camp began in August of ’73, Howe put his history lectures to use. He wrote a football version of the Declaration of Independence, of which the key sentence was: “We resolve to win each and every game.”

Howe asked his 26 returning lettermen to read the Titans’ “Declaration of Football Success” and, if they were all-in, to sign it and commit to a memorable season.

All 26 signed it.

The Titans went 13-0 and won the state championship.

“Most of the kids believe this is our year,” Howe told the Star in early August of 1973. Almost no other football team in Tucson paid any attention. Palo Verde had been a pushover for so long it didn’t seem possible that the Titans could suddenly win 13 straight games, including playoff victories over Mesa, Salpointe Catholic and Phoenix Camelback.

The only other Southern Arizona football teams to ever post undefeated seasons were Tucson High and Marana.

But after Palo Verde beat favored Sahuaro 21-14 on the Cougars’ field in Game 2, Howe believed he might indeed have a special group. On the short bus ride home, Howe asked Palo Verde athletic director Art Droegemeier — who had driven the team bus because the original driver had a last-minute conflict — if he would drive the bus the rest of the season.

It was unusual in 1973 for a high school athletic director to double as bus driver, but Howe’s superstition stuck. Two weeks later, Droegemeier drove the bus to Sierra Vista for a tough 10-6 victory over Buena. And he drove the bus to subsequent victories at Pueblo, Santa Rita, Cholla, Salpointe and Mesa.

The defense-first Titans allowed just 48 points in 10 regular season games. It then routed Salpointe 41-6 to open the state playoffs before a crowd of 8,700 at Arizona Stadium.

Palo Verde won on toughness and discipline. Its best player was probably guard-linebacker Paul Swack, a junior who made the All-State first team. Its star running back, Robert Fowler, who would gain 1,114 yards, was injured late in the season, periodically keeping him on the bench in playoff games. But senior quarterback Chuck Helms, who only completed 35 passes for 564 entering the state championship showdown, proved to be a gamer, a difference-maker in the clutch.

After Camelback scored to take a 20-15 lead with 6:13 remaining at Sun Devil Stadium, Helms led an 80-yard drive for the winning touchdown with 34 seconds to go. Helms scored on an epic fourth-and-goal play from the 1-yard line to beat the favored Spartans.

“Coach Howe asked me what I wanted to run,” Helms said in January, when Howe was inducted posthumously into the Salem High School Hall of Fame in his Illinois hometown. “I said to Coach Howe, ‘Let me do a QB sneak over our left guard, Gary Brown,’ which was opposite our all-state guard Paul Swank. The thought was the Camelback defense would expect anything up the middle to go over Paul. Touchdown. Need I say more?”

It’s not that the Titans were lacking motivation. With 1:32 left in the state championship, the scoreboard operator at Sun Devil Stadium prematurely punched up this message on the end zone screen:

“You Spartans are a great championship team.”

Oops.

After 15 years as a small-college and high school coach in Illinois, Howe moved from his home turf to Arizona in 1956. He spent five years on the UA football coaching staffs of Warren Woodson, Ed Doherty and Jim LaRue. He then became the academic counselor for the athletic department before he got the itch to coach again.

Howe spent one season at Pueblo before getting the job at Palo Verde in March 1962.

“These boys have taken their lumps,” Howe said when presented with the Star’s 1973 Tucson Coach of the Year award. “They were getting beat by almost everyone. I just didn’t think they could take losing any more.”

In 1973, the Titans won ‘em all.

No one could’ve known there would be a historic meaning to the Arizona-Iowa game at the 1975 Rainbow Classic. Fred Snowden’s Wildcats were 7-4 and Lute Olson’s unranked Hawkeyes were 6-0 on that late December evening in Honolulu.

It would be the only Olson-vs.-Snowden meeting in history. The game drew 7,813 fans at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, but most had gathered to watch the second game of the night’s doubleheader, Hawaii vs. USC.

It didn’t take Olson long to take command. Iowa burst to a 35-7 lead, which is still believed to be the largest first-half deficit in modern Arizona basketball history. Yet, somehow, Arizona rallied to tie the game at 80 before a controversial foul with no time remaining led to a face-to-face shouting match between Olson and Snowden.

“There was no time left on the clock,” Snowden said.

“That’s bunk,” said Olson.

Officials ruled in Olson’s favor. Iowa made two foul shots with no time on the clock and the Hawkeyes won 82-80.

Arizona thereafter went 17-3 and stunned Jerry Tarkanian’s No. 3-ranked UNLV Rebels in the Sweet 16. Olson finished his second Iowa season 19-10.

The Wildcats saved their best for last, winning their only outright WAC championship and reaching the Elite Eight in what was probably the top men’s basketball season at Arizona until Olson arrived a decade later to recruit Steve Kerr and Sean Elliott and rise to No. 1 in the national rankings.

Arizona opened the 1975-76 season ranked No. 11 in the AP poll, but encountered several unexpected difficulties. Starting point guard Jim Rappis missed the first four games with an injury; the Wildcats stumbled to a 4-4 start, losing to Idaho State at McKale Center and falling to Tark’s then-No. 10 UNLV in Las Vegas in a wild 98-94 finish.

After that loss to Idaho State, the Wildcats did what most teams in a tailspin do. They called a team meeting, aired their grievances and came together.

The core of Arizona’s team was potent. Center Bob Elliott averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds a game. Future NBA forward Al Fleming also averaged a double-double, with 16 points and 10 rebounds per game. Junior shooting guard Herman Harris averaged 11 per game, but that might’ve been 15 had there been a 3-point shot in 1976. Rappis, a glue guy, averaged 12 pwe fmW.

The Wildcats were so good that future NBA lottery pick, power forward Larry Demic, couldn’t make the playing rotation.

The UA-UNLV game at the Sweet 16 was surely the most high-profile basketball game in school history to that point. At 24-1, the Rebels were ranked No. 3 nationally. Their only loss had been to No. 20 Pepperdine by two points. The winner would play — gulp — UCLA in the Elite Eight. And at the Bruins’ Pauley Pavilion, of all places.

Arizona beat UNLV 114-109 in overtime that night at Pauley, with Harris scoring a career-high 31 points. It set up the Arizona-UCLA game two days later, the first of what would become dozens of memorable UA-UCLA games over the next 45 years.

The Wildcats tied the game at 58, but UCLA pulled away in the final five minutes to win 82-66. The Bruins were led by future NBA lottery picks Richard Washington and Marques Johnson.

“That overtime game against UNLV the other night took a lot out of Arizona,” said UCLA coach Gene Bartow, in his first season as John Wooden’s successor. “I think they ran out of gas a little at the end.”

Said Rappis, who had played his final college game: “We went 81-33 in my four years. That’s not too bad.”

Either way, Arizona finished No. 15 in the AP poll, which would be its highest modern finish until Olson’s 1988 Wildcats reached the Final Four.

It was also the unexpected peak of Snowden’s Arizona coaching career. In his first four Arizona seasons, Snowden had improved year by year, from 16-10 to 19-7 to 22-7 to 24-9.

But after a first-round NCAA loss the following season, Snowden lost his touch. Arizona went 65-69 and he was forced from office after going 9-18 in the 1981-82 season. He would become a vice president of Baskin-Robbins.

Arizona hired Olson away from Iowa a year later.

After winning the national club hockey championship in 1985, the Arizona Icecats did something that took the NCAA another 35 years to accomplish: They announced they would pay each of their athletes $500 a semester toward enrollment expenses.

In retrospect, the Icecats of the ’80s were decades ahead of the NCAA’s Name, Image and Likeness legislation — a program so successful that the Chicago Tribune once sent a reporter to Tucson to write about Icecats coach Leo Golembiewski, a product of the Chicago youth hockey system.

On that night, the Icecats drew a sellout crowd of 6,222 and beat the University of Denver, a NCAA Division I hockey program.

Another night, prominent radio and TV talk-show host Larry King spoke at the Icecats’ year-end banquet — one that drew 800 people at a Tucson hotel. On another night, Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup coach Scotty Bowman flew to Tucson to watch Golembiewski win his 400th game as Tucson’s club hockey coach.

Icecats home games were broadcast on 1400-AM radio. For a few years, Cox cable televised Icecats home games locally. Once, on pro-am day at the Tucson Open PGA Tour golf tournament, celebrity golfer Clint Eastwood stepped away from the first tee to shake hands with Golembiewski.

They posed for a photograph, with Eastwood’s arm around Coach G’s shoulder.

Times were so good that Golembiewski’s wife, Paula, won the first-ever Arizona Lottery.

Golembiewski was something of a one-man band from 1979-2011, a relentless promoter, recruiter and front man for a club hockey program. He won 634 games and was nominated for induction into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Looking back, the highlight of Golembiewski’s career came in 1985 when the Icecats defeated Penn State 5-3 in a Chicago suburb to win the National Club Hockey championship. The ’85 Icecats finished 28-3-1.

A year earlier they finished No. 2, a season in which they had a memorable weekend against USC, selling out both games and drawing 22,692 fans in the first four games of the season at the Tucson Convention Center.

Perspective? On the night of Dec. 10, 1983, the Icecats drew 6,063 at the TCC. At the same time, Lute Olson’s first Arizona basketball team drew 6,087 at McKale Center.

But popularity for club hockey in Tucson, while strong for most of the Icecats’ 32 years, reached a ceiling. The thirst to do more — to become an NCAA Division I franchise — was never whetted.

Perhaps it was just bad timing.

In the mid-’80s, as the Icecats became national champions, Arizona’s athletic department was engulfed in a financial crisis. The UA football team, serving a three-year NCAA probation, was barred from playing in a bowl game and appearing on television. The basketball program had yet to become a national power and fill McKale Center.

When a move began to make the Icecats part of the UA athletic department, there was no money to make it happen. Athletic director Cedric Dempsey said he couldn’t consider adding a men’s sport because the school had recently eliminated wrestling and men’s gymnastics.

Dempsey said that until the athletic department could fully fund women’s basketball, swimming and gymnastics, the idea of absorbing the Icecats into the athletic department wasn’t going to happen.

In addition, there were only 39 men’s Division I hockey programs, and almost all were in the East and Midwest. Scheduling costs were prohibitive.

That didn’t weaken Tucson’s support of the Icecats, who finished in the top four of the national club hockey finals in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1996 and 1997.

The Icecats’ success was more impressive given there was no suitable practice facility in Tucson. The club’s TCC ice was limited by (a) cost and (b) availability. The Icecats frequently bused to Phoenix to practice.

To make ends meet, Golembiewski — who moved to Tucson from the Chicago area in 1977 to teach at Salpointe Catholic High School — became the manager of Iceland Bowl, a hockey-rink/bowling alley on East Speedway Boulevard. By 2010, the UA’s sports and recreation program successfully pursued a club hockey team, which would provide more financial support and a stronger administrative network.

A quarter-century after the Icecats won the national championship, the nickname was changed from Icecats to Wildcats, and Golembiewski — the man who created the “Madhouse on Main Street” — walked away.

Mike Candrea coached Arizona to its first Women’s College World Series championship in 1991. The game was, shall we say, a bit different than it is in 2022.

There were five home runs hit in the ’91 World Series. This year, national champion Oklahoma itself hit 16 home runs at the WCWS.

Attendance in the championship game, a stunning 5-1 Arizona victory over seemingly indestructible UCLA, was 1,881. The WCWS was two years removed from playing on a rec-league four-plex in Sunnyvale, California, a few miles from the San Francisco airport. This year, every evening session of the tournament drew more than 12,000 fans.

The ’91 championship game was televised — but not until 10 days later on ESPN at 10 a.m. on a Sunday. This year, every WCWS game was televised live by an ESPN channel.

Arizona’s team ERA in 1991 was 0.63, less than one run per game. This year, the UA’s team ERA was 3.19.

The UA played its 1991 home games on the PE field behind the Gittings Building on campus. Temporary bleachers seating about 300 were available. Now, the school’s $8 million Hillenbrand Stadium seats close to 3,000.

About the only thing that hasn’t changed from 1991 to 2022 is that winning the national championship carries the same weight.

Arizona was a significant underdog in 1991 at Oklahoma City. The Wildcats finished fourth in the Pac-10, a league that consisted of just six teams. Candrea’s club finished 11-9 in the conference but swept ASU 4-2 and 4-0 in a Tempe regional to qualify for the World Series. The Sun Devils finished second in the Pac-10 at 15-5.

When the Wildcats upset mighty UCLA in the finals, Bruins coach Sue Enquist came off as insulted more than disappointed or surprised. The Bruins had gone 163-19 the three previous seasons, all resulting in national titles.

“That’s a real slap in the face,” she said. “We’re all stunned.”

After that, losing to Arizona would become more routine than anything else. Candrea’s club went on to win national titles in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2007. Underdogs? Hardly.

College softball in 1991 was a series of 1-0 and 2-1 games, completed in 75 minutes or so, with a so-called “dead ball” in use. (The NCAA introduced a livelier ball in 1993 and scoring multiplied).

To his credit, Candrea built his team around pitching, defense and timely hitting. The ’91 Wildcats hit just five home runs. This year the Wildcats hit 96.

One of the reasons Candrea became (at the time of his 2021 retirement) the winningest coach in NCAA softball history was that his eye for talent and his ability to develop the talent-on-hand was rarely matched. He was ahead of the game, both in strategy, scouting, the short-game and game-day adjustments.

He found the key players on his ’91 championship team in under-the-radar spots.

Star first baseman Julie Jones transferred from Yuma’s Arizona Western College. All-World Series outfielder Kristin Gauthier was also from Yuma. Right-fielder Stacy Redondo was from Cholla High School. Second baseman Marcie Aguilar, a transfer from Pima College, played high school ball at Pueblo. Jamie Heggen, a starting outfielder, was a transfer from Moorpark Junior College in SoCal.

Sophomore catcher Jody Miller, a rock of stability over four Arizona seasons, was recruited from Phoenix’s Moon Valley High School.

But Candrea’s biggest recruiting coup was pitcher Debby Day, who he discovered and correctly evaluated after two seasons at UT-Arlington. Day out-pitched future softball Hall of Famer Lisa Fernandez of UCLA at the World Series. In 1991, Day. 30-8, started 35 games and completed all 35.

She had significant backup help from freshman Susie Parra of Scottsdale’s Chaparral High School, 13-2 overall. Parra would become the No. 1 pitcher in college softball before leaving Arizona with two more national championship rings, in 1993 and 1994.

The margin for error at the 1991 WCWS was much smaller than it has been the last 30 years.

Said Candrea: “You had to wait for someone to make a mistake, to get a runner on base. That’s how you won.”

A few years later, Candrea was among the first to take advantage of the new elements of college softball: power and speed. But in 1991, it was all about pitching and reducing mistakes.

“When it got to crunch time,” he said, “we had what it takes.”

On the day Tucson High won the 1949 state basketball championship, you could’ve made a case that Tucson was America’s No. 1 basketball city.

On March 5, 1949, the Badgers won their 51st consecutive game. At the same time, the Arizona Wildcats were preparing to play Baylor in the NCAA Tournament, fueled by a 51-game winning streak at Bear Down Gym.

Are you kidding? What are the odds that two basketball teams separated geographically by no more than two miles would have identical 51-game winning streaks?

Tucson in 1949 was a basketball town and the Badgers were the recognized dynasty in Arizona high school basketball, winning their fifth state championship in eight years.

When coach Bud Doolen’s 1948 team completed a perfect 28-0 season to win the state championship, they drew a record crowd of 4,000 at Bear Down Gym, then the largest crowd in Tucson history — college or high school. The Badgers beat Phoenix Union for the state title that night, 48-46. The crowd stormed the court afterward, believed to be the first such court-rushing incident in our city’s history.

Doolen, who had played football at the University of Illinois with famed All-American Red Grange, the “Galloping Ghost,” had arrived at THS in 1935 after coaching five years in the Miami-Globe area. His Badger teams soon won state championships with records of 25-1 in 1942, 20-1 in 1943 and 25-3 in 1945.

But his back-to-back undefeated teams of ’48 and ’49 took it to a higher level, one that didn’t seem possible.

Doolen didn’t do it with magic. He was blessed with first-team All-State players Linc Richmond, Joe Cherry, Julian Lewis, Fred W. Enke, Bill Hassey and Jim McKissick. In ’48, Tucson was blessed with future Arizona All-American Roger Johnson, followed on the undefeated ’49 team with future Wildcat Bill Kemmeries and all-state guard Rudy Castro.

In a radio interview before the ’49 state championship game, an all-Tucson affair between the Badgers and Amphitheater High School — coached by former Badger and Wildcat standout George Genung — UA coach Fred Enke said that he “licked his lips” every time he watched the Badgers play.

Indeed, Enke built Arizona into a Top-25 program in the early 1950s with a core of Tucson High ballplayers.

The ’49 Badgers routed Amphi in the championship game, 49-26 at Bear Down Gym. Genung had returned from World War II a few years earlier, where he was among the U.S. combat troops that met the Russians at the Elbe River in a march on Berlin. He told me that he was so deflated after getting blown out by the ’49 Badgers that he sat on the steps of the gym, alone, wondering how a team with all-state players like Sid Kain and the Hart brothers, Larry and Bob, could get so thoroughly defeated.

That’s what Doolen’s teams did to most teams.

Said Doolen: “I didn’t think I could ever get a team to hustle like that. You can go a long way with defense.”

Few could’ve predicted it in 1949, but Doolen’s Badgers didn’t win another state title, or even get to the championship game. Phoenix teams won the next 12 state championships until THS broke through again in 1962, under coach Tony Morales.

Doolen, who began his coaching career at tiny Plymouth, Nebraska, in the late 1920s, went 387-77 at THS, and was 701-134 over his full 32-year coaching career. Tragically, Doolen died of a heart attack midway through the 1954-55 season. He was only 57. Morales, his assistant, took charge and the Badgers won just 11 games that season.

Doolen’s legacy lives on. Two years after he died, a new TUSD school on East Grant Road was named Doolen Junior High.

More from Star columnist Greg Hansen

• Updated Sep 7, 2022

Larry Smith never tried to hide his dislike for ASU’s football team. A bulletin board outside his McKale Center office listed Smith’s four goals of Wildcat football. They were:

Have fun

Graduate

Win the Rose Bowl

Beat ASU

Beating the Sun Devils covered up a bunch of football sins at Arizona in the 1980s, no more so than in 1986. The Wildcats rose to No. 11 in the AP poll after opening 4-0 but blew an 18-0 lead at UCLA and lost 32-25 in the last minute.

A few weeks later, Arizona struggled and lost to a non-vintage USC team in Tucson, 20-13. The Trojans would fire their coach a month later and hand-pick Smith as his replacement.

In what had initially looked like a season in which an Arizona team with all-conference standouts Chuck Cecil, Joe Tofflemire, David Adams and Byron Evans would break through and go to the Rose Bowl, the Wildcats entered the Territorial Cup against 9-0-1 ASU as a clear underdog.

The Sun Devils had already clinched a spot in Pasadena.

A record crowd of 58,267 packed Arizona Stadium for a noon kickoff, televised nationally by CBS. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good day for the No. 4 Sun Devils.

Cecil forced a fumble on the game’s first possession, blowing up an almost-certain ASU touchdown at the UA 3-yard line. Arizona then drove 97 yards for a touchdown. The Sun Devils never recovered.

In the fourth quarter, with Arizona leading 24-10, Cecil stepped in front of an ASU pass and ran 106 yards for a touchdown, surely the most memorable play in UA history. The Wildcats won 34-17 as hundreds of fans stormed the field to celebrate with Smith, Cecil and the hometown Wildcats.

“I think the beautiful thing about it is that it was played in front of the whole country, God and everybody,” said a tearful Smith in the UA locker room. “Today was the greatest game of the season. It makes up for a lot of things that happened.”

Cecil, who intercepted five passes and blocked three punts in 1986, refused to use a victory over the ASU Rose Bowl team as a cure for a what-might-have-been season.

“We knocked ’em out of the Rose Bowl (in 1985) and we’re 4-0 against them since I’ve been here,” he said. “But our goal this year was to go to the Rose Bowl, not just beat ASU.”

ASU would go on to beat Michigan at the Rose Bowl. Arizona would beat North Carolina in the Aloha Bowl in Hawaii, finishing 9-3.

But the defining story of Arizona’s 1986 football season wouldn’t be the Territorial Cup or those regrettable losses to USC and UCLA. It would be Smith’s painful departure to coach USC.

Upon arriving in Honolulu, news leaked that Smith had talked with USC athletic director Mike McGee. Smith declined to speak about it, but everyone suspected that the man who built Arizona’s football program out of a three-year NCAA probation to Top-25 status would be coaching his last UA game at the Aloha Bowl.

A night before the game, Smith’s wife, Cheryl, walked into a media hospitality room at the team hotel. A few writers from Tucson chanted the USC “Fight On” theme. She laughed and repeated the “Fight On” chant.

“Oh, you guys are always wrong,” she said.

But after beating North Carolina a day later, Smith and his wife got off the UA’s return flight when it stopped in Los Angeles. Smith met with Trojan officials and, although he didn’t accept the job that day — he told McGee he would first talk to Arizona athletic director Cedric Dempsey before making a decision — it was destiny,.

How could any Arizona coach turn down an opportunity to coach the Trojans, double his salary and get a multi-year, guaranteed contract? At Arizona, he worked on a year-to-year deal.

Dempsey later told me that Smith wept when they met to discuss the USC job. “Larry basically said he didn’t want to go, but that he couldn’t turn it down,” said Dempsey.

A day after ASU beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, Smith was in Los Angeles, center stage at a press conference introducing him as the new USC coach.

“I’m proud of what we built at Arizona,” he said. “I’m proud of our (five-year) winning streak against ASU. We did just about everything we set out to do except go to the Rose Bowl.”

A year later, Smith coached USC to the first of three consecutive Rose Bowls.

The last time I had a taste of champagne was September 13, 1993. It wasn’t at a wedding or a birthday, it was in the Tucson Toros clubhouse at Hi Corbett Field. And I didn’t sip it from a glass.

It was poured on my head by James Mouton, the Toros’ second baseman.

In 1993, Mouton probably had the single greatest season in the history of Tucson professional baseball, from 1940-2013. Judged by baseball scouts to be a bit too small for the big leagues — a man with no position — Mouton hit .315 with 16 home runs and 92 RBI for the Toros that summer. More impressively, he hit 42 doubles, 12 triples and stole 40 bases. He was a runaway choice as the Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player.

Those are Mike Trout numbers.

When the Toros beat the Portland Beavers for the Pacific Coast League championship that night at Hi Corbett Field, Mouton raced to the small clubhouse and joined high-profile teammates like Phil Nevin and Shane Reynolds, spraying champagne on everyone in sight — including a few visiting sportswriters.

A year later, Mouton was the opening day starting right fielder for the Houston Astros. That was probably a better feeling than any champagne party.

Mouton never won another title. His seven MLB seasons with the Astros, Padres, Expos and Brewers failed to produce a World Series championship.

By comparison, the Tucson Toros of the early 1990s became familiar with the taste of champagne, winning the PCL in 1991 and 1993, both triggering raucous celebrations at Hi Corbett Field.

The ‘93 Toros had good timing. The ‘90s were the golden years of Triple-A baseball in Tucson. The Toros broke attendance records, surpassing 4,000 fans per game in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. In the ‘80s, Tucson failed to average more than 2,624 per game.

But a productive Astros’ farm system and the arrival of Hall of Fame-level general manager Mike Feder, who had learned the business of minor-league baseball from the ground floor at Single-A Davenport, Iowa and Daytona Beach, Florida, and at Double-A Jackson, Mississippi.

Ironically, when the Toros and Portland began the best-of-seven PCL championship series, there was no time for Feder to create one of his many promotions that would put 5,000 in the seats. After splitting the first two games in Portland, the Toros returned to Tucson for Game 3, which was delayed 90 minutes by a monsoon storm. Only 2,893 fans attended. Game 4 was played opposite Arizona’s “Desert Swarm” football home opener, and the Toros drew just 2,390.

And on Game 5, a Monday, only 1,859 attended.

But the Toros rolled anyway, winning the final three games.

The ‘93 Toros went 83-60 in the regular season. Mouton was the keystone player, but manager Rick Sweet had no shortage of players enjoying life in Triple-A baseball. First baseman Jim Lindeman, a former No. 1 draft pick of the St. Louis Cardinals, hit 362 with 88 RBI. Shortstop Orlando Miller, also headed to the Houston lineup in future years, hit .304 with 16 homers and 16 triples.

The pitching staff was unexpectedly good for a Triple-A club in the hitter-friendly light air of the PCL. Future Astros standout Shane Reynolds went 10-6, and eight-year big-league pitcher Jeff Juden went 11-6.

The Toros roster and staff included some notables familiar to Tucson baseball. The pitching coach was Brent Strom, who went on to become one of baseball’s top names while helping the Houston Astros to the 2017 World Series championship. Ex-Arizona Wildcats Jack Daugherty , who hit .390 in 42 games, second baseman Tommy Barrett, and utilityman Casey Candaele, all contributed to the 1993 championship.

To overcome Portland in the playoffs, the Toros had to beat the Beavers’ No. 1 pitcher, Pat Mahomes, in Game 1 and Game 4. Mahomes, who pitched 11 years in the big leagues, is the father of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes.

In the ‘93 title-clinching, champagne-spraying victory, the deciding hit was a sacrifice fly by career minor-league outfielder Joe Mikuluk, who had driven in the winning run in the Toros’ 1991 walk-off PCL championship victory.

“I knew from the start, there was no doubt in my mind that Joe would be involved somehow in us winning,” said Sweet, the manager. “He knows it. We know it. We can feel it.”

Said Mikulik: “All I’ve ever wanted was to get a chance to play and to someday have great stories to tell my kids.”

Jim Gault had one of the better jobs in American gymnastics in 1980. He traveled the world coaching women’s gymnasts in international competitions and his thriving academy in San Ramon, California — Diablo Gymnastics — generated a reputation of excellence.

A former junior high school teacher from San Jose State, Gault coached in the World Championships, the Pan American Games and became part of the USA Olympics coaching staff.

When I sat down for lunch with Gault in a South Tucson restaurant in the spring of 1992, he told me he was set for life coaching gymnastics in Northern California.

"I was 44, but I wanted a new challenge," he said. "I knew the job at Arizona was open, and I sent them my resume."

After UA senior women’s athletic administrator Mary Roby examined about 25 applications, she offered the job to Gault. He took it, he said, without misgivings — except that it required a significant paycut.

"When I came to Arizona, the program had no past, no history of note," he said. "I came in wanting to put Arizona on the map."

By 1992, the map of NCAA gymnastics included Arizona.

Gault coached the Wildcats to a 10th-place finish in the 1984 NCAA finals and to ninth in 1988. But it peaked in 1992 when the Wildcats opened with 11 consecutive victories, lost to perennial gymnastics power Oregon State, finished a still best-ever second in the Pac-10 Championships and rolled through the NCAA Regionals, undefeated in five more matches.

"It was the best team we had," Gault told me when he retired in 1998. "We were so close to winning the national championship."

The UA’s '92 gymnastics team reflected on Gault’s resourceful recruiting ability. He recruited four future UA Sports Hall of Fame gymnasts to the 1992 roster.

He found All-American Jenna Karabdil in Virginia. She was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.

He recruited 1992 first-team All-American Stacy Fowlkes, who had become disenchanted after two years on the Cal State Fullerton team. Fowlkes would be inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.

Gault found Anna Basaldua in Minnesota, and Kristi Gunning in Scottsdale. They were inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1998 and 2006, respectively.

Arizona has never won the Pac-10 gymnastics championship, mostly because UCLA and Oregon State have dominated the league the way Alabama and Clemson control SEC football. But to Gault’s credit, Arizona finished No. 2 in 1990 and 1992 and were strongly competitive almost every season.

Those early-'90s finishes and the way he quickly turned Arizona into a national power, combined with his pre-Arizona days, earned Gault induction into the prestigious USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1992.

There’s more. In the late 1980s, the parents of 6-year-old Tucson gymnast Kerri Strug asked Gault if he would work with their daughter. They asked if she had the physical skills to have a future in gymnastics.

"It was a no-brainer," Gault told me. "Kerri had the 'it' factor."

In his spare time, Gault worked with Strug for eight years, which included breakout victories in Europe and reputation-growing victories in American competition. In '92, Strug moved to Houston to train with global gymnastics coaching star Bela Karolyi. Four years later, Strug’s gold medal-clinching vault in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics made her internationally famous.

She never hesitated to give Gault credit for developing her gymnastics skills.

That was a long way from Gault’s first years at the Diablo Gymnastics School, which began in 1966 at the Pleasant Hill Park and Recreation Department. When Gault’s gymnasts outgrew the limitation of rented space in a school gymnasium, he moved the operation to an empty Safeway building.

That modest beginning led to the UA’s epic 1992 season and Strug’s gold medal.

After leaving Arizona, where he compiled a 344-153 record, Gault moved to South Carolina and worked on the staff at the Midlands Elite Gymnastics Academy. He died in 2013 at age 77.

The Big 4 of high school boys soccer in 2010 was more like the BIG FOUR.

Catalina Foothills’ Julie Walters had coached the Falcons to 2006 and 2008 state championships. Rincon/University’s Roxanne Taylor was in her prime, guiding the Rangers to 2007 and 2009 state titles. Sabino’s Jon Pearlman won it all in 2005 and came within one disputed play of getting to the ‘09 championship game.

And, of course, there was Salpointe Catholic’s ironic Wolfgang Weber, whose Lancers seemed to either win the state championship every year or come this close.

There seemed to be no room for a newbie.

Canyon del Oro, whose sports reputation had been founded on baseball and later became a state power in softball and football, seemed an unlikely breakthrough soccer program. But everything changed with first-year coach Joshua Marshall, himself a former Dorados soccer standout, a recent graduate of NAU, was hired to coach his alma mater for the 2008 season.

CDO won 2009 and 2010 state championships, a perfect 30-0 against Tucson competition, and, looking back 22 years later, it wasn’t a fluke.

The Dorados of 2009 and 2010 deployed two of the top boys soccer players in Tucson history: Nick Marshall, the coach’s younger brother who would become a standout at UNLV, and Donny Toia, who would go on to play in the MLS and is now, after a decade in pro soccer, is part of the FC Tucson roster.

After Marshall graduated in ‘09, Toia took charge. He scored 55 goals in his final two CDO seasons, became the Star’s player of the year and subsequently became an All-ACCAC player as a freshman for Pima College Dave Cosgrove before signing with Real Salt Lake’s developmental squad. (Toia played nearly a decade in Major League Soccer before signing with FC Tucson earlier this month).

“Toia is a special player,” said Marshall. “He’s amazing on the field. When he gets the ball to his feet, he’s incredible with it. He’s a leader both on and off the field.”

By the end of his CDO days, Toia was mentioned in the same group with the elite boys soccer players in Tucson history, such as Trong Nguyen, Jeff Rogers, Minh Vu, Scott Leber, Vince Bianchi and Fernando Gauna.

In the 2010 state championship game, Toia scored four goals in the first half of a victory over Sahuaro. He had plenty of quality help from Josh King, Kyle Cornell and Caleb Cristia, among others.

“We have talented players at key positions,” Marshall said. “And when you have a team that passes like ours and is as unselfish as ours, it’s hard to beat.”

It would be incomplete not to mention that Marshall inherited a good situation when he arrived on the CDO campus from his NAU days. Previous coach Pedram Mahinpey had coached the Dorados to the 2007 state championship game, losing to Rincon/University. But Mahinpey resigned after seven years and Marshall, the rookie coach, took it to a higher level.

The CDO soccer juggernaut has been unable to continue at the highest level of Arizona prep soccer.

Joshua Marshall chose to resume his education and moved to Colorado. He graduated from the Sturm College of Law at Denver University and today operates his own family law firm in Tucson. He has three young children and is coaching youth soccer. He also co-owns a Tucson construction company with his brother, Nick, who returned to Tucson after his college soccer career at UNLV.

The surest sign that Tucson High would become a superpower in high school swimming in 1979 was that the Badgers won the 1978 state championship, winning six individual events, all in state or city record times.

The Badgers who won those six events — Bari Weick, Eric Finical and Bill Longton — were only juniors.

It wasn’t much of a surprise a year later when coach Jim Wandrey’s Badgers climbed to No. 2 in Swimming World magazine’s national rankings, trailing only a Mission Viejo, California, team that was essentially a collection of all-stars training for national and international competition.

It’s difficult to imagine any Tucson team, any in any sport, at any time, having a trio as dominant as the Badgers’ Weick, Finical and Longton were in ’79.

They were so productive that THS beat Phoenix Brophy Prep in the state finals; Brophy would then go on to win 39 consecutive state championships through 2019.

The classic ’79 state championship meet was staged at Phoenix Country Day School. After two days of competition, it all came down to the final event, the 4x100 relay. Brophy led by five points.

“The pressure was on everyone,” Wandrey told the Star. “Everyone contributed to our victory.”

Tucson won 253-243; at the time, 253 points was a state record for one team. No Tucson team has since won the state’s big-schools boys swimming championship.

The Badgers’ rise to swimming prominence wasn’t happenstance. Wandrey was an All-WAC swimmer at Arizona in the late 1960s and took over a declining THS swimming program that had won state titles in 1959 and 1961 but had since been unable to challenge new Phoenix suburban high schools like Mesa Westwood, Camelback and Washington.

In fact, Palo Verde had become Tucson’s swimming school of the period, winning consecutive state championships in 1963-65.

But Wandrey changed all that when Longton, Finical and Weick, all of whom lived in what today would be the Catalina Foothills school district, enrolled at THS, and, through Wandrey’s connections, worked out regularly with elite-level swimmers at the UA’s on-campus swimming facilities.

Some considered Finical the No. 2 overall swimming recruit in the country. He accepted a scholarship to Texas and became an All-American when the Longhorns won the 1983 NCAA championship.

Weick accepted a scholarship from Stanford, and also became an All-American and prominent distance-swimmer long after his college career. Longton chose to stay home and swim for Arizona, where he became a team captain as the UA began its rise to national prominence in the 1980s.

The Badgers had significant depth and talent on those state title teams of 1977, 1978 and 1979.

Jerry Hernandez, son of 1961 Arizona all-conference running back “Jackrabbit” Joe Hernandez, set a city record in the backstroke. Kyle Dickson, Steve Cresswell and Leon Pickens scored significant points in the state finals.

Pete Eckerstrom, who today is a judge in the Arizona Court of Appeals in Tucson, was also a vital member of Wandry’s championship teams.

“In those days,” Eckerstrom says now, “Arizona’s swimming teams all competed in Class AAAA; no smaller schools had teams. So when you won a state title, individually or as a team, it was not in a particular division, it was the true state title.”

The Badger All-Americans — Finical, Weick and Longton — became as distinguished for academics as for swimming.

Finical graduated from Texas and then the Duke Medical School. He is now a doctor of radiology in North Carolina.

Longton is a physician at the Stanford Medical Center, specializing in anesthesia and pain management.

Weick is a mechanical engineer.

After the Badgers won the ‘79 title, Wandrey was asked about the chance of a four-peat. “That’s next year,” he told the Star. “I’m still soaking this one in.”

Wandrey wasn’t a specialist. He helped THS football coach Bill Dawson coach the Badgers of the late 1970s and went on become the athletic director at Tucson High. He died of cancer in 2005.

Paula Pyers left Santa Rita High School as the highest-scoring girls basketball player in Arizona history, with 2,082 points, a career record of 87-4, a state championship and the Arizona’s player of the year award.

She was an achiever, not to be mistaken for overachiever. She was flat-out, get-it-done-and-go-home achiever.

“Sometimes I’m overbearing,” she told the Star during Santa Rita’s perfect 28-0 run to the 1984 state title. “There is no excuse for me to miss a foul shot or a jumpshot, and sometimes I think there’s no excuse for my teammates not to do everything right.”

Girls high school basketball was a formative sport in Arizona in the early 1980s, and Pyers was ready for it. She played endless hours of hoops on her family’s driveway, much of it against two older brothers — including Jim Pyers, who led the Eagles’ boys basketball team to the 1979 state title game, leading the state with 24 points per game.

“When I got a little bit bloodied and a little bit down,” Pyers said during her induction speech to the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, “my mom stepped in.”

But mostly, Paula Pyers stepped up.

Her Santa Rita team returned just two starters for the 1983-84 season — Pyers and Diane Lindflott — but they didn’t pause to rebuild. Pyers scored 42 points on three occasions as the Eagles routinely won games by scores of 85-19, 81-35 and 86-32. A year earlier, she set Tucson’s single-game scoring record with 50 points against Pueblo.

In the ’80s, girls basketball was a spring sport in Arizona. The season began in March. Why? Because many school districts tried to save money on travel costs and other expenses so they wouldn’t have to rent two buses or hire two bus drivers — or two coaches — to operate a girls and boys basketball program simultaneously.

Indeed, Santa Rita boys basketball coach Dave Lynch coached the Eagles’ boys and girls basketball programs for seven years. He was in the right place at the right time; the Pyers family became Tucson’s No. 1 prep basketball family.

A 5-foot-5-inch point guard, Pyers was at her best during the ’84 state playoffs, the leading scorer in victories against Tempe McClintock and rival Sabino in the championship game.

“We were playing in McClintock’s backyard,” said Lynch. “But once we got to play against Sabino, the fear and anxiety was over. We had played Sabino twice. There was no unknown.”

Lynch, a Chicago native who played college basketball at Xavier, initially moved to Tucson to be a teacher. A state handball champion, he ultimately became a coach when the girls and boys basketball coaching positions at Santa Rita became vacant.

Right time, right place.

Pyers was not offered a scholarship by Arizona in 1984. She signed to play at USC, then a two-time defending NCAA champion, turning down an offer from Army, of all schools. That’s because Pyers was an honors student with a vision of success far beyond basketball.

A four-year starter at USC who helped the Trojans to the 1987 Sweet 16, Pyers earned her degree in the school’s business entrepreneurship program. She then completed a law degree at SoCal’s Southwestern Law School. After one season of pro basketball in Switzerland, Pyers really stepped it up.

She worked in the front office for the Los Angeles Raiders, worked as a law clerk for the vast IMG sports agency firm and by the late 1990s became the general manager of a pro baseball team, the Mission Viejo Vigilantes, previously the Long Beach Barracudas. Her assistant GM was former Baltimore Orioles All-Star second baseman Bobby Grich.

Pyers ultimately got out of baseball and today is an executive for Apple Inc., in Northern California, the senior director of Apple’s Supply Chain in the consumer economics industry.

“I was fortunate to be at Santa Rita during a period when it had one of Tucson’s best sports programs,” said Pyers. “Coach Lynch was just perfect.”

And so were the 28-0 Eagles of 1984.

If someone in Hollywood produced a movie about Cactus Little League’s epic rise to the 1973 Little League World Series championship game, a fitting title would be “From 29th Street to the White House.’’

The 12-year-old Cactus Little League All-Stars, whose teams were sponsored by Adair Funeral Home, Beaver Band Box and other modest Tucson businesses, began the season in anonymity at small-time Freedom Park on 29th Street. Four months later the team was inside the White House, sharing small talk with President Richard Nixon.

“We proved we were the best Little League team in the United States,’’ said coach Ralph Lanik, a Tucson electrician. “You get kids like that once in a lifetime.’’

To get to the nationally televised world championship game in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the Cactus All-Stars had to win 12 consecutive elimination games, loser-goes-home. But Lanik’s team didn’t go home. It went from Tucson to Phoenix to San Bernardino, California, to Williamsport to Washington D.C.

When they returned to Tucson in late August 1973, they were greeted by 2,000 people at the Tucson Airport, including the Pride of Arizona Marching Band and UA cheerleaders.

And yet there was a sense of what-might-have-been.

After winning the American championship, beating teams from New York and Michigan 4-0 and 8-1 behind the superb pitching of Mike Fimbers and Ed Vosberg, the Cactus All-Stars were overwhelmed by a Tainan City, Taiwan, club that was not only bigger, faster and stronger than the Tucson club, but, it appeared, much older.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if some of their players are 15 years old,’’ said Lanik, which in the 1970s was a common theme at the Little League World Series. The Taiwan powerhouses didn’t exactly pass the eye-test of being, at most, 12 years old.

Tainan City pitchers threw three consecutive no-hitters in Williamsport. They won their games 27-0, 18-0 and 12-0, the latter against a tough Cactus team that played a scoreless tie through three innings. But once Fimbers hurt his pitching arm and exited the game, it became a rout.

The controversy was such that two months later, a Chinese TV network offered to fly the Cactus All-Stars to Taiwan for a three-game series during the Christmas holidays, all expenses paid.

Lanik and his club declined. He was not naive. Before the championship game, with 32,000 in attendance, he pitched batting practice from 42 feet instead of the uniform 46-foot distance from home plate. But even that didn’t help.

“It’s etched in my memory how much bigger and older they were,’’ Osborne told me before the Cactus All-Star’s 40th anniversary in 2013. “They threw absolute BBs. We had no chance. No one did.’’

Assistant coach Harry Unger told the Star: “I never believed the Taiwanese kids were anywhere near 12 years old.’’

The real story was how a team of modest means won the American championship. The boundaries for the Cactus Little League were middle class, if that. The league extends to Alvernon Way on the west, Swan Road to the east and Speedway Boulevard to the north.

Most of the Cactus League players attended Lineweaver Elementary School, on south Columbus Boulevard, or Howell Elementary School, on East Fifth Street near Columbus.

Lanik’s club wasn’t without talent. Pitcher-first baseman Ed Vosberg became an All-State pitcher at Salpointe Catholic High School, an All-Pac-10 pitcher at Arizona and played in 266 big-league games, including appearances in the 1997 World Series for the Florida Marlins.

Leadoff hitter David Mees, a second baseman, played at Pima College and McNeese State. Outfielder Mike Carreon, son of ex-MLB catcher Cam Carreon and brother of eight-year MLB outfielder Mark Carreon, was also a special talent.

But it might’ve been that Fimbers was the club’s ace. He pitched two no-hitters in the 12 elimination games en route to the World Series championship game, and two more shutouts. Vosberg also pitched a no-hitter and two shutouts. Fimbers’ arm injury prevented him from pitching in high school and beyond.

Other starters included shortstop Mike Martinez, catcher Gerard Pahissa and outfielders Ken Merritt and Tony Bravo.

Before the Cactus All-Star’s odyssey ended, they were featured in a TV commercial for Hertz, flew to the White House a day after their loss to Taiwan to meet President Nixon and his family, and were guests of the Baltimore Orioles at a baseball game.

“It was so fun,’’ said Vosberg. “None of us had ever flown in a plane before. They are among the fondest memories of my entire baseball career.’’

The 1941 Arizona-Texas League All-Star game, played at what is now Hi Corbett Field, featured lefty pitcher Alex Kellner of the Class-A Tucson Cowboys, an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds.

Kellner was 16, waiting to enter his senior year at Amphitheater High School. Whatever the rules about amateurism were in 1941, Kellner was a pro. He made his professional debut May 15, 1941, against the El Paso Texans.

More than 2,500 Tucsonans, including 400 Amphi students and the Panthers band, attended the All-Star game, in which Kellner pitched three shutout innings.

It wasn’t that the ’41 Tucson Cowboys were desperate, pirating a high school pitcher and inserting him into their rotation. The Cowboys were a powerhouse and then some. They won the Arizona-Texas League by 21 games, which was almost unfathomable.

Tucson went 86-46, followed by the Albuquerque Cardinals at 63-65.

Kellner didn’t turn 17 until Aug. 26, 1941, and by then he was a legitimate major-league prospect. He had struck out 27 batters in a semi-pro game after his sophomore year at Amphi and went 14-5 with the Cowboys, a club that might’ve been among the youngest in pro baseball history. Teammate Billy Jans was 17 in the summer of ’41 and standout pitcher George Burpo was 18.

In 2014, I met Burpo for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings on Harrison Road with his friend, Pat Darcy, a Rincon High grad who became a World Series pitcher for the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. I sat spellbound as Burpo talked about the ’41 Cowboys.

Burpo, who had struck out 19 batters in a game for the 1940 Cowboys, was a farm boy from Kentucky. He was blessed with a blazing fastball, a left-hander who attracted Cincinnati scouts when he was 16. After playing one season at Muskogee, Oklahoma, Burpo joined his Muskogee manager, Pat Patterson, who was hired to manage the Tucson Cowboys in ’41.

“The first time I saw Alex Kellner he looked like he was 25 years old,’’ Burpo said that day in 2013. “He was stocky and physically mature for his age, maybe 6-feet tall. I could tell from the beginning he’d be in the big leagues someday.’’

In July, Kellner pitched three consecutive shutouts, striking out 14, 12 and 11 batters. Everyone called him “The Kid.’’

The Kid soon grew up. After spending three years in the Navy during World War II, Kellner returned to Tucson and to baseball. Incredibly, he made his MLB debut in 1948 for the Philadelphia A’s. One year later he won 20 games and was on the American League All-Star team.

Kellner won 101 big leagues games, retiring after the ’59 season, a year in which he played on a St. Louis team that included big names Curt Flood, Tim McCarver and Bill White.

Burpo’s baseball career wasn’t as successful, although he reached the big leagues with the Reds in 1946, pitching against St. Louis’ future Hall of Famer Stan Musial. He compared himself to the character Moonlight Graham from the movie “Field of Dreams,’’ Burpo’s time in the big leagues was short: two games.

“To me, I fulfilled my dream of playing in the big leagues,’’ said Burpo, a long-time executive for Moore Business Forms who died in Tucson in 2015 when he was 93. “I was just an aimless kid when I got here in 1940. But I met my wife (Nancy Riddell) at a soda fountain on Congress Street and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. We got married three years later, after World War II.’’

The Tucson Cowboys of ’41 were a big draw at what was then called Randolph Park. It wasn't rare for them to draw a sellout of 3,000 fans. They were operated by long-time minor-league player and big-league scout George “Mickey’’ Shader, who had coached the independent league Tucson Stick Lizards in the early 1930s and became a long-time scout for the New York Giants.

To open the special 1941 season, Shader arranged for the A’s to play the Chicago Cubs in a spring training game in Tucson, one that drew more than 3,000 fans. Proceeds of the game went to the Cowboys’ travel budget.

Before the ’41 opener, the Cowboys marched with their opening day opponent, the El Paso Texans, in a downtown parade. A night earlier, they had been introduced to a capacity crowd at the downtown Fox Theater. Big things were expected, even with a roster laden with teenagers.

Six months later they were champions.

Arriving at the hotel that would be their home for nine days and nights in Grand Junction, Colorado, Pima College’s 1985 baseball team was informed it was a four-to-a-room setup.

There would be two rollaway beds per room.

Nobody seemed to care. It was the Junior College World Series and the Aztecs knew the drill. They had finished fifth in 1981 and fourth in 1983 and were intent on becoming national champions in ‘85.

The hotel squeeze was created when the NJCAA said it would only pay $216 a day for Pima’s expenses, which is probably close to $750 in today’s money. But the focus was baseball, not comfort.

In the 1980s, baseball was king in Tucson and Pima was part of the royalty. Rich Alday’s clubs of 1980-85 went 222-74 and were routinely ranked in the NJCAA’s top 10. Locally, six Tucson high schools won state championships in the ‘80s: Santa Rita, Sahuaro, CDO, Flowing Wells, Amphi, and Tucson, which won back-to-back big school titles in 1987 and 1988. Nogales, Benson and Sahuarita all captured state titles at the smaller school level in the ‘80s.

Alday mined the Southern Arizona talent. His starting lineup at the 1985 NJCAA World Series went this way:

First base: Chuck Huffaker, Sierra Vista Buena High School, who broke the school record with 16 home runs.

Second base: Bobby Babuca, Sierra Vista Buena.

Shortstop: John Alva, Thatcher High School, a first-team All-American who hit .362.

Third base: Curt Schaffer, Canyon del Oro High School, who hit 381.

Left field: Jim Kimbrough, Sabino High School, who hit .384 after a record-breaking .619 season for the Sabercats.

Right field: John Hernandez, Tucson High, who hit .337.

Center field: Tim McWilliams, Catalina High School, who hit .343.

Catcher: Dan Hammarstrom, Rincon High School, who hit. 372.

Pitcher: Gil Heredia, Nogales High School, who went 15-1.

Pitcher: Joe White, Santa Rita High School, who went 7-4.

Pitcher: David Oropeza, Nogales High School, who went 5-2.

Pitcher: Dan Englebretson, Rincon High School, who went 7-1.

Alday, who had led Tucson High to an undefeated 1965 state football championship and became an all-city catcher, was the founder of Pima’s baseball team. The first Aztecs baseball club, 1974, played its home games at city recreation fields. He always found a way to persevere. Alday was a winner and so were his teams.

He surrounded himself with elite coaches Jim Fleming, a Salpointe Catholic and UA baseball player, and Scott Stanley, a Catalina High School and UA standout. Both would ultimately leave PCC for careers in organized baseball, as scouts and executives, that both lasted in excess of two decades.

On the day before Pima played Texas’ San Jacinto JC for the national championship — a game played before a sellout crowd of 7,500 in Grand Junction — I asked Alday if he planned to leave Pima for a job with a higher national profile.

“Once in a while I think of moving to a four-year school, but where can I find a better baseball area than Tucson?” he said. “There aren’t many.”

San Jacinto beat the 48-10 Aztecs that night in Colorado — it gave Heredia, a pitcher who would spend 10 years, going 57-51 in the big leagues, his only loss of the season. The 1992 Aztecs under coach Roger Werbylo also reached the NJCAA championship game, but despite its rich baseball history, Pima has yet to win the Big One.

Fellow ACCAC league members Central Arizona, Mesa College, Central Arizona, Arizona Western and Yavapai College have all won NCJAA championships, but Pima has had to settle for being this close.

Alday ultimately gave in to interest from four-year schools. He became the head coach of the New Mexico Lobos in 1990 and remained until 2008. He returned to Tucson and spent a second term at PCC, 2017-2018 and completed his career with a 517-251 record in Tucson, giving him more than 1,000 career baseball victories.

Before he died at age 71 last year, Alday added more than baseball excellence to his credentials. He coached the Ironwood Ridge High School softball team to 2014 and 2016 state championships.

Arizona had two future USA Olympic volleyball players on its 1984 and 1985 NCAA Tournament teams, Melissa McLinden and Caren Kemner, which helped to put Wildcat alumnus and assistant coach Steve Carlat on the map.

After the ‘85 season, Utah State hired Carlat to be its head coach and in effect told him the cupboard was bare. Really bare.

The Aggies went 1-31 in Carlat’s first season at USU. If that’s not rock bottom, what is?

But it was also the beginning of his climb to being a back-to-back national champion.

After leaving Utah State in 1991, Carlat returned to Tucson as a volunteer assistant for new UA volleyball coach Dave Rubio. He stayed with Rubio through 1996, a period in which the Wildcats twice reached the Sweet 16. It was about that time that Carlat, a 1968 UA grad from Southern California, was offered a position coaching the UA men’s club volleyball team.

College club volleyball might not have sounded like anything more than an after-work sidelight, but it was full-time and then some. The Wildcats would soon become a national powerhouse, capturing the 1999 and 2000 national titles and winning 82 straight games against other club volleyball teams.

UA student and volleyball fan/promoter Skip Greenberg and his father were hopeful that Arizona would add men’s volleyball as a full-time sport, and to do so put together a six-figure sponsorship package to gather momentum.

“The funding was significant enough so we could offer scholarships, equal to what the D-I programs were allowed,” Carlat remembers now. “We had travel funds to attend tournaments nationally, and a small paycheck for me. Over the summer of ‘98, we arranged a program to reflect what other NCAA D-I schools had to work with, and also began to recruit student-athletes.”

To make ends meet, Carlat was a special education teacher at Amphitheater High School.

His UA volleyball team soon took flight. With 1999 national MVP Vince Rooney and other top players like Keith Robinson, Jeff Grobe, Andrew Jaekle, Ryan Taylor and Turner Elliott, Arizona became a force. In one stretch, Carlat’s team went 148-13, and beat Pac-12 varsity teams Stanford and UCLA.

Now retired and living in Tucson, Carlat recalls how his club team became a two-time national champion.

“When word circulated about our program elevating itself, we recruited some graduate students, former college players, and along with 10 or so current club members plus new players selected through a tryout,” he says. Club players were allowed six years of eligibility if they were working toward a graduate degree.

Some, like Rooney, had to work to pay for school. Rooney was a waiter at a Tucson restaurant; he then got a job in a computer lab, but still had to take out a student loan to attend school while becoming the nation’s top club volleyball player.

“We were given a two-hour block, three days a week at the student recreation center to practice,” says Carlat. “We arranged for a grad student in exercise science to organize a volleyball-specific strength training program. I developed a conditioning and agility program.

“The rest fell into place as we were quite skilled, very competitive at every practice session, and, as you can see, very successful versus all opponents.”

At 1999 the National Intramural Recreation Sports Association finals in Maryland, Arizona swept Penn State, Florida, Cal and Virginia to win the national title.

A year later in Reno, Arizona swept Navy, Cal, Rutgers and No. 2 Utah Valley to win it all.

Said Carlat at the time: “I think every one of our players could start on a Division I team.”

Among the top Arizona players on the 2000 title club was Steve Walker, now the head coach of the UA’s beach volleyball program. Walker was a grad student and letterman from the volleyball powerhouse at Long Beach State.

But there was no progress in getting absorbed by the UA athletic department as a full-time, NCAA men’s sport.

“After five years of continued success I approached the athletic department to discuss the possibility of adding men’s volleyball,” says Carlat today. “We were told that for several reasons — predominantly Title IX — that it would not be possible to add another men’s sport, even though we were self-funded.”

That’s when the club’s financial backers withdrew support. After three more winning seasons, Carlat left his UA coaching position and subsequently coached the varsity teams at Amphi and Catalina Foothills. He then moved to New Jersey for a few years to serve as a consultant with the Princeton University men’s volleyball program.

High school softball in Tucson in the early 1990s was so ridiculously competitive that it was no place for the meek. The crowd at the top seemed impenetrable..

Sabino, Sahuaro, Canyon del Oro and Pueblo won state championships from 1990-92. Flowing Wells, Santa Rita, Tucson and Desert View finished second. Those teams were flush with standout players and coaches such as CDO’s Kathy McQuown and Brandi Bundrick; Desert View’s Bert Otero and Lety Pineda; Tucson’s Renee Espinoza and Sahuaro’s Billy Lopez.

Salpointe Catholic had never been a factor at the top level of high school softball. The 1990 Lancers went 4-16, last place in the region standings.

In attempt to change that, Salpointe elevated junior varsity coach Stacy Iveson to be the Lancers softball coach. Iveson had a strong reputation in the softball community; after an all-city career at Catalina High School, Iveson had been an All-Pac-10 catcher on Mike Candrea’s first Arizona softball teams.

The coaching industry would refer to Iveson’s promotion as a “good hire.” No kidding. In 1993, the Lancers went 30-2 and won the state championship, one of the epic rebuilding jobs in Tucson prep sports history.

Iveson surrounded herself with quality assistant coaches such as Phil Gruensfelder, Ted Farhat and Chuck McCollum. She built the ’93 club around senior catcher Tanya Farhat and senior pitcher Tara Robinson, both of whom had played on the 4-16 club as freshmen.

There was nothing easy about becoming state champions.

In the 1993 state quarterfinals, Salpointe and Mesa Dobson played in a tense, 21-inning game that seemed like it would never end. Finally, after 4½ hours, Salpointe prevailed 3-2. Incredibly, Robinson pitched all 21 innings. She gave up just 14 hits and struck out 16. She also drove in the winning run in the 21st inning.

“Adrenaline kept me going,” Robinson told the Star. “I felt like I could pitch a million innings because I didn’t want that to be the end.”

“It was crazy,” Iveson remembers today.

Two days later Salpointe hung tough to beat Scottsdale Chaparral 4-3 in the state championship game.

Farhat, who hit .470 with 32 stolen bases as the state’s top catcher, was emotional. “I’ve never cried after a game,” she said, wiping away tears. “But today I cried so much. I was so happy for the team, the coaches, everyone. Today it was more than fun.”

Iveson had changed the culture of a losing program in a short period. Part of it was handing out T-shirts to team members that had “State of mind” across the jersey.

“It took a while for them to believe it,” said Iveson. “We had to go from losing every game to winning every game.”

The Lancers finished 30-2.

Robinson, who completed the season with an astonishing 0.42 ERA in 121 innings, allowing just six earned runs, put the championship in perspective when she said: “Things looked bleak my freshman year. But we kept getting better. Every high school team dreams about accomplishing this. That’s what it’s all about — winning state.”

Farhat and Robinson had plenty of help en route to becoming state champs. Third baseman Andrea Avena was an all-city player. Melinda Almazan, Chris Majalca, Staci Underwood, Jeanie Duggan and Lindsay Robinson, Tara’s younger sister, were steady contributors.

Farhat, now Tanya Farhat Villarreal, began her college career at a small college in Denver but transferred to Arizona and became part of the UA’s 1996 Women’s College World Series championship team. She became a high school softball coach in Wisconsin; both of her daughters played for her.

Robinson, now Tara Robinson Keen, went on to play at McNeese State. She lives in Tucson and is a pharmaceutical sales specialist.

Iveson left Salpointe after four years to join Candrea’s staff at Arizona, where the Wildcats won three NCAA championships. She later coached Pima College and Yavapai College to four NJCAA national championships — two for each school — between 2004-11. She rejoined Candrea’s staff in 2012 and remains there today.

The Associated Press used to poll Arizona newspapers, large and small, for a weekly Top 10 list of high school basketball teams. There were no restrictions, no classifications. Vote for the best teams was the only mandate.

The final poll of the 1969 regular season was Tucson-heavy at the top:

Tucson High.

Tempe.

Mesa Westwood.

Palo Verde.

Rincon.

None of that raised an eyebrow. But when small-school Marana High School finished No. 8 in that poll — before the state playoffs — there was no longer any secret about what coach Norm Patton had built.

Marana beat Flowing Wells 79-64 in a December showdown, which gave it instant credibility. Flowing Wells, the defending Class 3A state champion, finished the season ranked No. 9 in the state.

The Class 2A Tigers had finished No. 2 in the state finals in 1968 and were even better in ’69, going 24-0 and blowing out 26-1 and defending state champion Parker 86-67 in the championship game.

Patton would then coach Marana to another state title in 1970 and put another undefeated season, 25-0, into the books in ’72.

But it was Patton’s ’69 team that broke the ice and earned statewide respect covering all classifications

When the Star selected its 1969 All-State team, it chose Marana point guard Ray Alexander as the captain of the team. That was unprecedented for a small-school player from Southern Arizona. The Star’s first-team All-Star club included Tucson High point guard Delano Price, whose club won the big-schools state championship with a 29-1 record, North Phoenix High standout Mark Wasley, Flowing Wells scoring champ Steve Ziegler and Tucson High’s Kenny Ball.

The Star described Alexander as a “fancy little guard.” He averaged 20.2 points per game.

Patton built his Marana basketball dynasty from a small group of ballplayers in a rural setting, some of them from the tiny community of Rillito. It was indeed a special group, one that included center Ken Sherman, who was also an All-State football lineman, and those like Mike Sanchez and Tony Komadina, who went on to be a standout baseball pitcher at ASU, drafted in the seventh round by the Chicago White Sox in 1974.

The other key contributors were Theodis Campbell, Kirby Colter and Bob Rice.

The man who made it all work was Patton, son of a rancher in rural Eastern New Mexico who was just getting started on a Hall of Fame coaching career.

“I never saw youngsters work so hard,” Patton told me. “They work so hard in practice. They just work, work, work.”

The ’69 Tigers led the state not just in winning percentage, but points scored per game. Marana tied a state-record with 130 points in a December game and scored in excess of 100 points six times, improving its record to 20-0 with a 100-35 victory over San Manuel a month before the state playoffs.

By the time Marana reached the state tournament at Phoenix Veterans Memorial Coliseum in March, they were 21-0. That merely set the tone for a 95-56 victory over Monument Valley and an 88-55 win over Camp Verde in the semifinals, with Alexander scoring 22.

Patton coached Marana through the ’72 season. After his Tigers won a second undefeated state championship, he was offered and accepted the head coaching job at Pima College, which chose Patton to start the school’s first basketball program.

Patton went 168-40 at Marana and followed that by going 111-83 at Pima College before leaving to become the head coach at ACCAC rival Central Arizona College. He coached there from 1981-94, winning six league titles.

In 2019, Marana High School named its basketball facility the Norm Patton Gymnasium.

Sunnyside produced so many Power 5 football prospects in the early 1980s that it was difficult to keep track: Freddie Sims, David Adams, Jon Horton, Jerry Beasley, Bobby Valdez, George Duarte …

Yet the Blue Devils could never break through and win the Big One, could never get to the state championship game.

In a move that didn’t create headlines, former Pueblo High School state wrestling champion and recent UA grad Richard Sanchez joined the Sunnyside football staff in 1981, assigned to the freshman team.

No one would have suspected that Sanchez was the man who would unlock those state championship dreams.

It took time — Sanchez first coached the Blue Devils to five state wrestling championships from 1990-94 — but when he agreed to leave his wrestling post to coach a struggling Sunnyside football team in 1994, he began one of the most compelling prep coaching careers in Tucson history.

None of it was easy. In Sanchez’s first season, Sunnyside was routed 69-12 by Amphi, the city’s most feared football program. The Blue Devils lost 62-0 at Lakeside Blue Ridge. Sanchez’s Blue Devils went 7-13 his first two seasons.

But by 2000 they were 13-0, playing mega-power Scottsdale Chaparral in the state finals (losing 28-14).

By 2001 they beat Arizona’s rising power, Scottsdale Saguaro, to reach the state championship game. A week later Sunnyside won it all, overpowering Phoenix Greenway at Sun Devil Stadium, 28-6.

Sanchez wasn’t one to spend time chatting about himself with reporters. When asked the formula to Sunnyside’s unexpected rise, he simply told me “work works.’’

To build the 2001 state champs, Sanchez became one of the first Tucson coaches to implement a year-round football program. Amphi’s Vern Friedli, Sahuaro’s Howard Breinig and Sabino’s Jeff Scurran were also “work works’’ advocates. All had been state champions. Sanchez made the work pay off and became a state champion, too.

Sunnyside won with toughness and perseverance, not size and speed. The “biggest’’ players on the 2001 title team were linemen Sam Sotelo and Aaron Esquivel, who both were close to 200 pounds, if that.

How did Sunnyside do it? It punched its opponents in the face, figuratively. It ran the ball with an unwavering commitment behind modest-sized linemen Jaime Martinez, Ned Norris, Walter Arvizu, Esquivel and Sotelo.

They opened holes for 5-foot 7-inch tailback Philo Sanchez — the coach’s son — who gained 2,479 yards, then the third most in Tucson history behind Sabino’s Nathan Wize (3,101), Amphi’s Michael Bates (2,740) and Mountain View’s Kevin Schmidtke (2,740).

Ironically, Sunnyside opened the season with a 26-7 loss to Scottsdale Saguaro, in which Sanchez was limited to 20 rushing yards. In the 13 consecutive wins to follow, here’s how it went:

Sanchez gained 165 yards in a win over Sunrise Mountain.

He followed with 204 yards against Pueblo, 232 in a big-time showdown win over Amphi, 124 against Santa Rita, 163 against Palo Verde, 229 against Nogales, 183 against Cholla, 247 against Marana, 225 against Rincon/University, 335 against Prescott, and 108 against Goodyear Millennium.

In the state semifinals against Saguaro, Sanchez, the coach, changed tactics against a team that had stacked its defense to stop Philo and the running game. Quarterback Victor Cunes passed for 275 yards in 35 passing attempts. That strategy wrecked the favored Scottsdale team.

A week later in the championship game, Sanchez and the running game ruled. Sunnyside ran the ball 54 times; Sanchez gained 184 yards. The Blue Devils were champions.

After the game, the normally inscrutable Sanchez raised the trophy above his head in a photo op, celebrating eight years of “work works.’’

Two years later, Sunnyside won its second state championship, 12-2 overall, defeating Phoenix Cactus.

Sanchez’s Blue Devils went 105-24 from 1999-2009. After the 2010 season, he resigned to accept an administrator’s job in the Sunnyside athletic department.

College softball was a different game in 1993, so different that when Mike Candera’s Arizona club won the Women’s College World Series, it got one hit.

Soak that one in. To beat No. 1 UCLA in the title game of the 1993 WCWS, the Wildcats did so with a first-inning single by freshman Leah O’Brien. Final: Arizona 1, UCLA 0.

That was college softball in 1993, the so-called “dead ball’’ era. Arizona scored just 303 runs that season. A year later, when the NCAA put some juice in the softball, the Wildcats scored 527. Arizona went from 36 homers in 1993 to 96 a year later.

It reflects on the resourcefulness of Candrea, who won 1991 and 1993 national championships with pitching, defense and base-running, and then added six more NCAA titles over the next 14 years when home runs ruled the sport.

The ’93 Wildcats went 44-8, their fewest victories in any year from 1988 to 2007. A year later, Arizona won 64. But it didn’t matter on Memorial Day, 1993, when Arizona chopped down the UCLA softball dynasty behind the pitching of sophomore Susie Parra.

The game’s lone run came in the first inning when Amy Chellevold reached base on an error and scored on O’Brien’s single off the game’s most feared pitcher, UCLA’s Lisa Fernandez, who entered the game with a 33-2 record.

Parra, who finished 28-3, allowed two hits and struck out six. In five WCWS games, Parra pitched 39 innings, striking out 51, allowing just one earned run.

A year earlier, UCLA beat Arizona in the championship game. And in the 1993 regular season, the No. 1 Bruins won three of four against the Wildcats. UCLA was 50-4 entering the championship game.

Candrea said his team had more motivation than just being the underdog.

“Last year we didn’t go to the World Series hungry, trying to prove ourselves,’’ Candrea said. “What a difference a year makes. When you get your face rubbed in the dirt, you get that drive again. That’s the most important thing to have.’’

Arizona’s 1993 season was special. It was the debut of Hillenbrand Stadium, then the leading on-campus softball facility in college softball. Hillenbrand seated just 1,000 then — it now seats close to 3,000 — but it became a valuable recruiting tool, especially when it came to acquiring the top prospects from Southern California.

Arizona’s 1993 lineup included three All-Pac-10 players who canceled visits to UCLA after visiting Tucson: freshman second baseman Jennie Dalton of Valencia, Calif; sophomore shortstop Laura Espinoza of Wilmington, Calif.; and freshman first baseman/outfielder Leah O’Brien of Chino, Calif.

All-conference outfielder Jamie Heggen and All-American first baseman Chellevold were from Thousand Oaks, Calif.

To get to the World Series, Arizona first had to beat rival ASU in a best-of-three regional series in Tucson. The Wildcats swept the series, after which Candrea said “we expected to win these two games.’’

No kidding. Arizona, which finished second to UCLA in the Pac-10, placed seven players on the first-team all-conference team: Chellevold, Dalton, Espinoza, Heggen, O’Brien, Parra and Jody Miller-Pruitt. Only Heggen and Miller-Pruitt were seniors.

Arizona opened the 1993 season 21-0 and was ranked No. 1 in the regular season for the first time, although it was later overcome by UCLA. But Candrea was so intent on beating the Bruins and winning his second national title that he pledged to shave his head if the Wildcats won it all.

Indeed, a few minutes after hoisting the championship trophy, Candrea sat on a folding chair at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium as his players took turn shaving his head.

“I like the bald look,’’ Candrea told reporters. “Maybe we can do this again.’’

Across a three-week stretch in October 1952, the undefeated and defending state football champion Tucson High Badgers team drew 26,322 fans for home football victories over Phoenix North, Yuma and Phoenix St. Mary’s high schools.

Those attendance totals have probably never been topped in Tucson prep sports history. And it only grew from there. The Badgers then drew 15,000 at Arizona Stadium for a Thanksgiving Day victory over rival Amphitheater High, 25-7, which gave THS the state championship.

Amphi, which was in its fourth year of varsity football as Tucson’s second high school, was coached by ex-Arizona Wildcat standout Murl McCain, who knew a good football team when he saw one.

A day before the Thanksgiving showdown, a Star reporter asked McCain if the ’52 Badgers were as good as Tucson High’s state champs of 1942. 1943, 1944 or 1945. “Now is not the time for praise,” he said. “Tucson has a great ballclub, probably the best in the school’s history.”

The Badgers outscored their opposition 258-68 that season and drew large crowds wherever they played. In a season-opening victory at Bisbee, an estimated 4,000 filled the stadium. In November, more than 6,000 showed up for Tucson’s victory at Douglas High School.

The ’52 Badgers had a bit of “showtime” in them before “showtime” became an overused sports term.

Coach Jason “Red” Greer’s club had five players who accepted scholarships to big-time schools: Quarterback Pat Flood went to Notre Dame; running back Joel Favara to Oklahoma State; lineman Guy Barrickman to Missouri; lineman Dick Nordmeyer to Illinois; and running back Mike Morales played at Army, then a Top-10 program.

In 2002, the Badgers held a 50th reunion at the DoubleTree Hotel. Flood, Favara and about 25 other players from the ’52 team attended. Jerry Lee, a top contributor on the club, told me: “We were terrific, if I say so myself. I don’t know if any local team has been better. That would be difficult to imagine.”

Flood, a straight-A student who ultimately transferred from Notre Dame to Top-25 power Navy, had a strong perspective on the ’52 Badgers.

“Oh, we were good,” he told me that day at the DoubleTree. “But it’s difficult to compare teams from generation to generation. In the ’40s and ’50s, I would’ve liked our chances against anyone.”

Flood knew the difference between good and very good in football. His 1957 Navy team finished No. 5 in the year’s Final AP poll, beating Top-10 teams Notre Dame, Army and Rice along the way. He returned to Tucson after his years at Navy and graduated from the UA Law School. He soon began a 35-year officiating career in which he became a crew chief in the Pac-10, officiating Rose Bowls, Territorial Cups and everything in between.

The ’52 Badgers were coached by Red Greer, who grew up in rural Arkansas, played a year for the Arkansas Razorbacks and transferred to Arizona when his mother’s asthmatic condition forced her to seek a drier climate.

He became an All-Border Conference lineman at Arizona and a two-year baseball starter for Wildcat baseball coach Pop McKale. After teaching and coaching for a year at Prescott High School, Greer returned to Tucson, hired to coach the THS tennis team and teach history.

Greer became the Tucson High football coach from 1948-55, winning state titles in ’51 and ’52 before leaving the coaching profession to become the school’s athletic director. He was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

Favara, who was the state’s player of the year in 1952 — he was referred to as the “Tucson Terror” for his willingness to initiate contact with opposing ball-carriers — graduated from Oklahoma State and returned home to Tucson where he would become the head football coach at Sunnyside High School.

“I’ve seen a lot of football over the years,” Favara told me at the ’52 reunion, “but our ’52 team didn’t have a weakness.”

Top-10 power Arizona completed the 1974 baseball regular season by drawing 22,786 fans at Hi Corbett Field to a raucous three-game sweep over Arizona State.

The crowd was so juiced that two UA fans carrying brooms jumped over a chain-link fence on the Sun Devil dugout and swept the cement surface as the crowd cheered.

Most in the crowd thought they were looking at the first NCAA championship team in Arizona history.

The Wildcats posted the best regular-season record in school history, 56-4, and set still-standing school records in runs (700), shutouts (14), team ERA (2.06) and winning percentage.

Arizona led the NCAA in batting average (.348), doubles and triples. Coach Jerry Kindall’s second UA team was so stacked that sophomore third baseman Ron Hassey of Tucson High School — who set a school record with 86 RBIs and hit .421 — sometimes batted eighth in the lineup.

A week later, Arizona won the first round of the NCAA regionals by slamming BYU in Utah, 14-5 and 16-5. Quoting a popular Beach Boys song of the day, Kindall told reporters “I have good vibrations on this team.’’

All that remained for the ’74 Wildcats was to beat small-school Northern Colorado in the West Regional finals in Greeley, Colorado, in a best-of-three series.

How tough could that be? UNC was a mere 29-11, seemingly out of its element against the No. 2-ranked Wildcats. When the two teams last met in the NCAA playoffs in 1963, Arizona won with ease, 13-0 and 10-0.

Kindall’s pitching rotation for the first two games in Greeley was intimidating. Senior Dave Breuker of Amphitheater High School was a nation-leading 15-0. Fellow senior Dave Schimpf was 13-0.

No wonder the Wildcats had produced winning streaks of 13, 11 and 11 during the regular season. They had four players hitting .400 or more: Hassey, future big-league outfielder Dave Stegman, first baseman Marv Thompson and shortstop Ben Heise. Former Amphi outfielder Jim Filippelli also had an outstanding season.

“We have talent,’’ said Kindall. “We have spirit and we have a vision to win a championship.’’

And then it all went up in smoke.

Northern Colorado swept Arizona 6-5 and 6-2 at the school’s modest Jackson Field, which normally seated about 750. But on that graduation weekend, more than 5,000 UNC fans turned out to create a wild home-field advantage.

A few years ago asked Kindall about that ’74 team, its premature exit and failure to become the UA’s first-ever national championship team, any sport, and he didn’t have an answer.

“That might be the best team I ever coached,’’ he said, acknowledging his 1976, 1980 and 1986 College World Series championship teams. “But (UNC) captured the momentum and we could never get it back.’’

In the small-world department, I was playing golf last summer in Grand Lake, Colorado, and placed in a foursome with a tall, athletic man named Byron Hanson of Greeley. He had worked for years in the Colorado Rockies organization and told me he had played college baseball.

Where, I asked?

“Northern Colorado,’’ he said.

I asked if he had been at UNC when the Bears stunned Arizona in 1974, when the Wildcats hit into six double plays over the two games.

“I was at both of those games,’’ he remembered. “I was wild. It was graduation weekend and the whole town went to the ballpark. It made a big difference for us.’’

The inability of the ’74 Wildcats to get to the College World Series in Omaha ate at Kindall for years. His team won the WAC with a 16-2 record, the best in UA history. It placed seven players on the All-WAC first team.

But Kindall believed the loss also created a hunger that led to the UA’s stunning victory over No. 1 ASU at the 1976 College World Series and the national championship. Holdovers Hassey, who would play 14 years in the big leagues, and Stegman, two consensus All-Americans, celebrated on the field at the ’76 World Series.

It was a good eraser. That ’74 series in Greeley? The books were balanced.

In more than a century of college football, Arizona has never faced a more consistently imposing opponent than Frank Kush’s ASU Sun Devils of 1965-73. Not USC, not Oregon, no one.

The Sun Devils rose to national prominence in the ’60s and early ’70s and part of the climb was based on Kush dominating and, in effect, downsizing Arizona.

Dominating? ASU went 9-0 against Arizona in that streak, outscoring the Wildcats 283-107. Two UA coaches, Darrell Mudra and Bob Weber, never beat the Sun Devils.

“When they beat us 55-19 in 1973, they rubbed it in and ran up the score,’’ UA head coach Larry Smith said, biting off his words in 1982. “I never forgot it.’’

Things began to shift in 1974 when second-year head coach Jim Young, the former defensive coordinator under Michigan’s Bo Schembechler, rebuilt the Wildcats behind the 1-2-3 Backfield – No. 1 quarterback Bruce Hill, No. 2 running back Jim Upchurch and No. 3 running back Willie Hamilton — future NFL receiving standout Theopolis Bell and a defense based around Tucson High lineman Mike Dawson and linebacker Mark Jacobs.

This is what a shift looks like: After opening 5-0 in 1974, Arizona climbed to No. 9 in the AP poll, the highest ranking ever for a UA football team (at that time).

The UA sports administration began planning for a massive 16,000-seat addition to Arizona Stadium, which was to be completed for the 1976 season.

But there would be a significant delay before the Wildcats could say they had “arrived.’’

Texas Tech beat the undefeated Wildcats 17-8 that week in Texas. A week later, BYU slammed Arizona 37-13. The Wildcats were again unranked. Their late November Territorial Cup showdown against the Sun Devils could completely undo the progress of the season.

A crowd of 40,782 squeezed into Arizona Stadium for the Territorial Cup, the third-largest crowd ever in Tucson. This time Arizona ended the streak, beating Kush and the Sun Devils 10-0.

Young was carried off the turf as UA fans stormed the field. Kush’s dominance was over. Arizona finished 9-2, its best season in school history to that point.

“I’ll never forget this,’’ said Dawson, who stood at midfield to admire the celebration. “The reason I came to Arizona was to beat (ASU) and help give us a better future.’’

The 10-0 victory was one of the most tense in Territorial Cup history. The game was scoreless with six minutes remaining when Jacobs, an All-State linebacker from Flowing Wells High School, intercepted a pass. It led to a field goal by Lee Pistor and a 3-0 lead, which was enough to end the nine-year streak. Hamilton scored on a 4-yard run on the game’s final play to add an exclamation mark.

The UA went forward with plans to add the 16,000 seats, which increased capacity at Arizona Stadium to 56,000.

“I’m not saying this got us over the hump,’’ said UA athletic director Dave Strack, “but sooner or later we had to beat ASU and get out of its shadow. This is just a start.’’

It wasn’t a quick fix, but in 1982 Arizona began its own nine-year streak against ASU, going 8-0-1 through the 1990 season.

Young’s stay in Tucson was a brief one; he became the head coach at Purdue after the 1976 season. Young went 31-13 in Tucson and changed the second-city image that was born in the 1960s and thrived until his ’74 team shut out Kush’s Sun Devils.

“That ’74 team was a game-changer, but so was the 8-3 team of ’73 and the 9-2 team of ’75,’’ said Young, who returned to Tucson in 1992 as an assistant coach under Dick Tomey and has lived here since. “But ’74 was the year we beat ASU and it served to change the culture here as much as anything I can remember.’’

The genesis of Canyon del Oro’s undefeated 1987 girls basketball season began innocently, six years earlier in the gymnasium at Donaldson Elementary School.

CDO coach Dan Huff would periodically spend his lunch hour at Donaldson, coaching fifth- and sixth-graders who had shown interest in the game. Huff was thinking ahead; planting a seed about playing basketball at CDO.

“Sometimes it pays off,’’ Huff says now, 35 years after CDO went 28-0 to win the state’s big schools championship. “But little did I know that while I was running a boys clinic I would meet Nicole Smith, the only girl to attend those noon-time sessions.’’

In 1987, Smith became Arizona’s Gatorade Player of the Year, averaging 19 points per game, a three-year starter for Huff’s Dorados during a period they went 73-8.

“Nicole later told me she was inspired to play basketball by those clinics at her elementary school,’’ says Huff, who was from 1983-87, both the head coach of the CDO boys and girls basketball teams, a period in which girls basketball began in March. “She devoted her young life to basketball and took it to great heights.’’

Huff had been a basketball standout at Amphi, playing under Pima County Sports Hall of Fame coach George Genung, an all-city standout who earned two degrees at the UA before coaching the CDO girls to a 100-28 record in five years, and the Dorado boys team to 321 wins in 20 years.

There may be no such thing as “right time, right place’’ in basketball coaching, but in the mid ’80s, CDO’s girls basketball team was a right-time, right-place job.

The team not only included Smith, but Dana Nymeyer, daughter of former Arizona career leading scorer Ed Nymeyer, who had coached Flowing Wells High School to a boys state basketball championship in 1968, as well as Shelli Riley, a strong contributor who is the mother of former Arizona and BYU point guard Alex Barcello, now playing in the NBA Summer League for the Toronto Raptors.

“It was a good place to be a basketball coach,’’ says Huff. “Jodi Hildebrandt was an all-city player. Stacy Hopkins, Heather Conway and Kristen Smith were just excellent players. I never had a problem with egos, there were no parental complaints. At some point, due to injuries, we were down to seven players. It all just flowed.’’

CDO’s ’87 Class 5A state champs won by an average of 31 points per game.

Huff learned from the most prominent coaches in Tucson prep history: Genung, Nymeyer, Tucson High’s Ollie Mayfield, Rincon’s Dick King, CDO’s John Tissaw and Dean Metz and Sahuaro’s Dick McConnell. He listened and learned and once he was hired at CDO, the Dorados benefitted.

“I felt like I got paid for having fun,’’ Huff says. “I couldn’t wait to go to school and get in the classroom.’’

Before a young Nicole Smith showed up at Donaldson Elementary to meet the man who would be her coach, Huff did the same thing a generation earlier as a student at Prince Junior High School. He would walk to Amphi to watch Genung’s teams practice and play.

It wasn’t that Huff’s CDO girls teams didn’t encounter difficulty. In the 1985 state championship game, the Dorados lost 47-45 on a buzzer-beating shot at Phoenix South Mountain. That loss stung. It wasn’t erased for two years.

Finally, at the start of the 1987 season, CDO got off to an 8-0 start.

“I knew we were going to have a pretty good team, we were beating everybody decisively,’’ says Huff. “One day Pat Derksen, my assistant coach, told me ‘Nobody is beating the Dorados this year.’ I didn’t say much about that, going undefeated isn’t what you expect; there’s always a bump in the road.

“But that year we won the state championship game 69-55. There were no bumps in the road.’’

After her days at CDO, Smith accepted a scholarship to Nevada and became a four-year letter-winner. She is now a kinesiology professor at Fresno State. Riley played at Yavapai College; in addition to her son, Alex, who helped Corona del Sol win two state championships, her three daughters, Julia, Amanda and Sarah, all became part of state championship teams at Chandler Seton Catholic.

The obituary for Andy Tolson published in the Star on June 11, 1981, was modest and brief. Maybe 2½ inches long.

It did not mention his remarkable coaching career at Tucson High School, nor his star-level baseball days playing for Pop McKale at Arizona. It simply listed Tolson’s survivors and the time and date of his funeral service.

It didn’t mention that the Tolson Elementary School on Tucson’s west side was named after the former Tucson High School principal, who also became president of the Arizona Interscholastic Association and president of the Arizona School Administrators committee.

That was Andy Tolson. It wasn’t about him. It was about those that he coached and taught.

One day 10 or 15 years ago, I walked into the McDonald’s across the street from Park Place Mall and bumped into Gilbert Carrillo, who had played on Tolson’s 1941 state championship baseball team at Tucson High.

Carrillo and his morning coffee group invited me to join them. I asked about the ’41 Badgers.

“We were expected to win the state championship,” said Carrillo, a sophomore that year who would go on to coach Rincon High School to three state championship games in the 1960s. “We went 20-0, and that included games against the UA freshman team, the San Diego Marines and several semi pro teams with men in their 20s.”

The ’41 Badgers routed Tempe High 8-2 in the state championship game played on the UA baseball field when pitcher Al Banuelos struck out 13 and hit a three-run triple. The team was loaded with some of Tucson’s leading baseball players of any era: second baseman Bud Grainger, catcher Frank Kempf, pitcher Joe Valenzuela, shortstop Carl Meyer and Carrillo.

“We didn’t lose to a high school team for three years,” said Carrillo, who died in 2016. “I remember very well that at the banquet honoring our ’41 team, coach Tolson announced he was resigning as baseball coach. He was becoming the assistant principal. It was stunning. No one could believe it.”

Tolson, who grew up in Globe before enrolling at the UA in 1921, coached Tucson High to state baseball championships in 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940 and 1941. He established such a dynasty that when he retired, his assistant coach, Hank Slagle, coached the Badgers to state championships in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948, 1951 and 1952. That was 15 state championships in 23 years.

By that time Tolson was the THS principal, a school of about 5,000 students. His impact went far beyond baseball.

When my late father-in-law Robert H. Keil, a 1941 Tucson High grad, returned from four years of overseas Naval service in World War II, he drove to the UA campus to enroll for the 1946 school year.

But the enrollment administrator said his high school credits were incomplete and he would have to return to THS for a year to become qualified to attend the UA. He was devastated. He had spent four years in the Pacific Theater during World War II, surviving four months in an Australian hospital after the Japanese sunk his battleship, the USS Astoria, killing 234 of his shipmates.

He told me that the one man he thought would help him get admitted to the UA was Andy Tolson, his former civics teacher at Tucson High.

Even though my father-in-law did not play baseball on any of Tolson’s state championship teams, he walked the short distance to THS and asked one of the office administrators if he could talk to Tolson.

She summoned Tolson from his office. Tolson remembered my father-in-law from his civics class of 1941, listened to his story, reviewed his GI Bill documents and his high school transcripts. Tolson instructed my father-in-law to get in his car. They drove to the enrollment office at the UA.

“I’ll get this straightened out,” Tolson vowed.

An hour later, UA officials registered my father-in-law into the school. He graduated four years later, worked as an assistant for Pop McKale as a graduate manager for the UA athletic department, and began a successful career both at Lockheed Aviation in Los Angeles and as a real estate official in Silver City, N.M.

When Tolson died in 1981, my father-in-law drove from Los Angeles to Tucson for his funeral. He hadn’t played a minute of baseball for his Class of ’41 state champions, but he remembered Tolson as the most influential man of his high school days.

It was not and will never reflect on Tolson’s coaching record, but the day Tolson drove my father to the UA admission’s office went far beyond any state championship.

Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711

More than 30 years before Lute Olson stepped into McKale Center, Arizona was a basketball town. Proof: Arizona won 81 consecutive games at Bear Down Gym and rose to No. 12 in the 1951 AP poll.

The Wildcats also won six straight Border Conference championships, going 72-15 in the league, qualifying for six consecutive postseason tournaments, either the NIT or NCAA, although in those days the NIT had just as much — or more — cache.

After the ’51 Wildcats were invited to both the NCAA and NIT, Star columnist Abe Chanin wrote that the demand for an arena with a seating capacity more than double the 4,000 at Bear Down Gym had led administrators to start plans for a new place.

“A new home for Wildcat basketball with an arena seating 10,000 is in the works,’’ wrote Chanin, who added the qualifier “although it might not happen for several years.’’

Several years? How about 1972.

What made Arizona’s climb to prominence so remarkable was that the Wildcats, coached by Fred Enke, were built around Southern Arizona players.

From 1945-51, Arizona’s leading players were Linc Richmond, Fred W. Enke (the coach’s son), Roger Johnson, Bob Honea, Jack Howell, Sid Kain, Leo Johnson and Tim Ballantyne, all from Southern Arizona. The other two standouts — Mo Udall and Leon Blevins — were from tiny St. John’s and Phoenix, respectively.

“Enke wasn’t a recruiter,’’ wrote Chanin. “But he could sure coach.’’

As Olson discovered in the mid 1980s, getting past the first round was rough:

1946: Arizona lost to Kentucky in a first-round NIT game in New York.

1948: Arizona lost an NCAA play-in game to Baylor in Dallas.

1949: Arizona lost an NCAA play-in game to Arkansas in Dallas.

1950: Arizona lost to No. 10 LaSalle in the NIT’s first round in New York City.

But a year later, the NCAA expanded the NCAA Tournament to 16 teams, giving the Border Conference champion an automatic berth in the field. Arizona, 24-4, was in demand.

Enke scheduled with an Olson-type boldness: the UA stunned No. 2-ranked CCNY in New York City, took powerful UCLA to the wire in a 69-63 loss in a San Francisco tournament and split a harrowing four-game road trip to the East Coast in which it played Top 20 schools CCNY, Duquesne and West Virginia.

Enke accepted both the NIT and NCAA bids; the NIT would be played in New York City on March 13, with the NCAA regional scheduled March 21 in Kansas City.

The Wildcats lost to No. 13 Dayton in the NIT first round, 74-68. They flew home to Tucson, practiced for two days and flew to Kansas for a showdown with No. 4 Kansas State. It wasn’t a place for the timid. About 9,000 of the 9,500 who packed the Kansas Auditorium were KSU fans.

Talk about daunting: the Arizona-KSU winner would meet BYU, which had won the NIT championship a week earlier and was ranked No. 3 nationally.

Kansas State beat Arizona 61-59, surviving a furious Arizona rally in which the Wildcats fell behind by 21 and tied the game with 1:31 remaining.

“Our boys made a magnificent comeback’’ said Enke, who was upset by several officiating calls that went KSU’s way in the final minute.

The college basketball nation gave Arizona its due. Roger Johnson, who was also one of the UA’s leading baseball players, was chosen to the All-American third team, becoming the first Wildcat so honored. He became the first Wildcat to score 1,000 career points (1,046).

Unfortunately, the ’51 season was the cap of Arizona’s climb in basketball. Recruiting local players no longer was a winning formula once college basketball began to grow in prowess in the 1950s.

Enke’s next five teams finished 11-16, 13-11, 14-10, 8-17 and 11-15. Plans to build a new arena were deactivated. By 1959, Enke’s club went 4-22. When he was forced to retire in 1961 at age 65 by the state’s mandatory retirement policy, the ’51 season was all but forgotten.

Arizona did not earn another NCAA Tournament bid until 1976.

But Enke’s star players from ’51 went on to productive post-basketball careers. Roger Johnson became a fighter pilot in the Air Force, retiring as a colonel. Leo Johnson became the principal at Pueblo High School. Honea served in the Korean War and became the postmaster of Marana. Sid Kain became a prominent Tucson attorney, and Jack Howell, whose son, J.R. Howell became a major-league third baseman for the Angels and Padres, was an engineer at Hughes Aircraft.

A month ago, Donnie Bunyon, a key member of Santa Rita High School’s 1999 state basketball championship team, visited his alma mater and walked through the Eagles’ aging locker room.

Bunion took photographs of the ’99 state championship poster, stuck in a dusty corner, torn, dangling above a box of trash.

Another image showed a wrinkled banner — State Champions, Boys Basketball, 1999 — hanging above a door leading to a locker room clearly in need of paint and repair.

It was a sad reminder of how some TUSD high schools have been affected by declining enrollment the last decade or so. A visitor could have never guessed that from 1998-2011, Santa Rita’s boys basketball team, as coached by Jim Ferguson, was as good as it gets in Tucson and in Arizona.

Ferguson’s Eagles not only won 1999 and 2010 state championships, they finished No. 2 in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Beyond that, Ferguson’s best team might’ve been his 2000 club, which lost in the state semifinals to Dick McConnell’s title-bound Sahuaro Cougars in an epic finish before an overflow crowd of 4,000 at Catalina High School.

Talk about the good old days.

In 2000, Ferguson’s club defeated defending mythical high school national champions St. Anthony’s High School in a game in Delaware. They whipped Paducah High School, the defending Kentucky state champions, at the Beach Ball Classic in Kissimmee, Florida, and upset the No. 1-ranked prep team in America, Newport Prep.

“I’m not sure of the number, but I believe we won over 40 straight games against teams from the state of Arizona,’’ Ferguson says now. “I believe we would have won a second straight state championship had not our player of the year, Mark Brown, suffered a sprained ankle against Sahuaro (in the state semifinals).’’

If any basketball player or coach in Tucson history knows what a championship team looks like, it is Ferguson. He was an all-city player on Sahuaro’s 1970 state title team, coached by the iconic McConnell. Ferguson went on to play college basketball Seattle and UC-San Diego before returning to Tucson, an assistant coach on Santa Rita’s 1979 state runner-up team, coached by Pima County Sports Hall of Famer Dave Lynch.

But winning the 1999 state championship stands out as the hallmark of Ferguson’s career.

The Eagles had three future college players: Utah State starting point guard Brown, Fort Lewis (Colo.) forward Ryan Sonnek and versatile Alan Batiste, who had helped California’s Mission Viejo to a state championship.

They received quality support from Bunyon, Brian Grant and Terry Scott, sweeping the state playoffs with victories over Glendale Independence, Sahuaro, Glendale Apollo and Phoenix Thunderbird.

Not only was winning a state championship in 1999 a considerable accomplishment, surviving week by week play in Tucson was about as difficult as it has been for the last 30 or 40 years. Tucson’s prep basketball landscape in ’99 was loaded with future college players such as Salpointe’s Jason Dickens and Justin DeBerry; Pueblo’s Jeff Clark, Mical Kidd, Sammy Wade and Hakim Rasul; CDO’s Doug D’Amore and other all-city standouts such as Adam Eichorst of Sahuaro and Keith Washington of Palo Verde.

But in 1999, only Santa Rita won a state championship.

If anyone fully appreciated the ’99 title it was Ferguson, who had to pause his head coaching career for eight years in a political mess created by TUSD administrators.

After behind hired as Santa Rita’s head boys basketball coach in 1984, replacing Lynch, his mentor, Ferguson was informed he would have to reapply for the position in 1985. TUSD officials said it had botched the hiring process, then based on seniority within the district.

After reviewing the process, it replaced Ferguson with Sean Elliott’s former Cholla High School coach, Mel Karrle. Ferguson spent the next eight years as a teacher and counselor at Santa Rita. When Karrle resigned in 1992, Ferguson was rehired as head coach.

“My coaching career was taken away for eight years for no fault of anything I had done,’’ Ferguson told me in 1999. “I’m disappointed I missed out on those years.’’

But Ferguson made the most out of his second chance, coaching 16 teams into the state tournament, winning 10 league championships, and making seven “Final Four’’ appearances. His career total of 370 victories might’ve surpassed 500 had TUSD not botched the hiring process, but in the end, Ferguson prevailed.

He retired from coaching in 2011, one year after Terrell Stoglin led Santa Rita to the 2010 state championship.

To get to the 2000 NCAA women’s golf championships you flew to Portland, Oregon, loaded your golf team in a van and headed southeast, two hours to the Crosswater Golf Club. You knew you were there when you crossed the Little Deschutes River.

It wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, but you could see it from there.

The NCAA decided to ditch the ‘’same old, same old’’ championship venues. It’s last four national titles had been determined on old-school courses in Tulsa, Wisconsin, Ohio and Los Angeles, so when the No. 1-ranked Arizona Wildcats arrived on the outskirts of Bend, Oregon, they were similarly determined to avoid the “same old, same old.’’

In the previous 10 NCAA finals, Arizona’s powerful women’s golf teams had finished, in order: fourth, seventh, third, second, 14th, 12th, first, third, third and fourth.

They were determined to win it all again.

Before second-year coach Todd McCorkle’s team reached the No. 1 tee on opening day, senior Jenna Daniels was named the Honda Award winner, emblematic of the top women’s college golfer of 2000. She didn’t disappoint.

Over four days at the Crosswater Golf Club, Daniels won the individual national championship, beating teammate Julia Kraschinski, a freshman from New Zealand, by three strokes. The Wildcats dominated, taking a 28-stroke lead into the final round.

They slumped a bit, winning by “only’’ 21 strokes over Stanford and 23 over Texas.

“It’s hard to get a killer instinct when you have a 28-stroke lead,’’ said UA sophomore Cristina Baena, a Colombia native and younger sister of Arizona’s 1996 NCAA champion Marisa Baena. A few days later, Baena was named a second-team All-American.

McCorkle, who had been head coach at Coastal Carolina before UA athletic director Jim Livengood hired him to be an assistant under Rick LaRose three years earlier, knew the power of his team.

“Going in, I couldn’t imagine a better lineup, one through five, in college golf,’’ said McCorkle, who became the women’s head coach after LaRose chose to return strictly to being the UA men’s golf head coach in 1999. “It all worked out well.’’

After the trophy presentation on a windy, chilly day in central Oregon, the five UA golfers — Daniels, Baena, Kraschinski, Christine Monteiro and Jill Gomric — all jumped into the Little Deschutes River. Standing nearby, McCorkle broke down and cried for joy.

Daniels, who was recruited out of Bonita Vista High School in San Diego by LaRose three years earlier, declining offers from UCLA and USC, became the fourth Wildcat female athlete of a 10-year period, 1991-2000, to win an NCAA Honda Award. She joined golf’s Annika Sorenstam, softball’s Nancy Evans and Jenny Dalton, and distance runner Amy Skieresz.

“She’s irreplaceable,’’ said McCorkle, although his 2001 recruiting class included two future LPGA Tour winners, Lorena Ochoa and Natalie Gulbis.

But McCorkle’s stay was a brief one. Six weeks later, tempted by a larger salary offer by Georgia, which was much closer to his home state of Florida, McCorkle left to coach the Bulldogs. Incredibly, Georgia won the NCAA championship in McCorkle’s first season.

The UA finished No. 2 in the 2002 NCAA finals, coached by Greg Allen, continuing their status as one of America’s leading women’s golf programs.

Daniels soon qualified for the LPGA Tour, but was unable to become a regular. She played through the 2007 LPGA Tour season, earning $340,000. While on the LPGA Tour, she married McCorkle, her UA coach.

The same year, McCorkle resigned as Georgia’s head coach after he was accused of inappropriate behavior with some of Georgia’s women’s golfers. He has since been a teaching pro in Alabama and Texas.

It is almost baffling to examine the list of Tucson’s 1979 All-City football team.

Twelve of the All-City players attracted notable college recruiters. Oklahoma signed Sunnyside running back Fred Sims. Arkansas got Sahuaro’s Jay Dobyns and Mark Mistler. BYU signed Santa Rita’s Ty Mattingly. Notre Dame was successful in recruiting Salpointe’s Rock Roggeman.

Arizona got Sahuaro’s Skip Peete, CDO’s Cliff Thorpe, Cholla’s Vance Johnson and Tucson’s Danny Hill. And on and on.

Incredibly, the undefeated state champion Amphi Panthers did not produce a FBS college prospect. Starting QB Sam Molina wasn’t all-city. That was Flowing Wells’ Randy Sorich.

“We had no one close to being a Division I player,’’ said Amphi coach Vern Friedli, “although Idaho did sign (running back) Arlen Bethay. But as a whole, we were the best team in the state.’’

Friedli operated an option offense. He left the more popular passing offenses to his opponents.

It took a few years to add perspective to Amphi’s 1979 Class 5A state championship. It’s still the last Tucson school to win Arizona’s top-classification state football title. That’s 43 years and running. By the time Friedli became the winningest high school football coach in state history, retiring in 2011 with 331 victories, it was clear that Friedli made more out of less than almost any coach in Tucson history.

His undersized, numbers-challenged teams of the ’80s and ’90s had records of 13-1, 12-1, 11-1, 11-1-1 and 12-2 in the state’s largest classification, but could never win the Big One again.

It made his perfect 1979 season even more impressive.

“We had 19 senior starters on that ’79 team,’’ Friedli told me. “We had the best offensive line in the state, and none of them were recruited by four-year schools.’’

Indeed, the ’79 Panthers won with toughness, chemistry and intelligence. The starters on the offensive line — Neil Hamilton, Tim Jones, Craig Geyer, Jesse Shelton and David Osteen — were productive and consistent.

In the state championship game, a 27-0 rout over Mesa High School, the Panthers outgained Mesa 386-110 at ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium before a crowd of 11,000, about half of them from Tucson.

Molina, the QB, threw just three passes, completing all three, one of them a 57-yard touchdown to open the game. After that. Friedli kept it simple. Bethey ran 86 yards for a touchdown and gained 148 yards in the game. Backup running back Joey Canizales ran for 106 yards.

Defensive players like Kim Hewson and Kurt Werner kept Mesa to just 11 offensive plays in the second half. This was long before Friedli had the good fortune of sprinkling future NFL players like Michael and Mario Bates and future Pac-10 standouts like Jon Volpe into his Amphi lineups.

“That team just clicked, it was a joy to coach them,’’ Friedli told me. “If you had told me they’d be our last state champion, I wouldn’t have believed it. We came so close so many times, but the Phoenix schools kept growing and growing. When we’d play Mesa Mountain View in the state championship game, or some other Phoenix team like that, we’d be outnumbered 2 to 1 or more.’’

Until the 2000s, Friedli steadfastly declined chances to drop down a classification or two, suiting Amphi’s enrollment. Even in a period when Sabino, Sahuaro and Mountain View became state powers (and state champs) at what was essentially Division II, Friedli wouldn’t budge.

Friedli, who grew up in a small logging community in Northern California, moved to Tucson in the late 1950s as part of his military service commitment. He earned a degree from Arizona, got married, began a coaching/teacher career at Sunnyside Junior High School and later became the head football and baseball coach in the small towns of Morenci and San Manuel.

In 1976, Amphi hired Friedli to replace 1975 state championship coach Jerry Loper, who had moved to Mesa McClintock High School.

“I’m a wishbone coach,’’ Friedli says. “We won’t be flashy, but we’ll do what it takes to win.’’

He was true to his word.

Tucson was at the top of the list in the early 1950s when serious discussions began to find a permanent home for the College World Series.

The CWS, which began in 1947, had jumped from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Wichita, Kansas, as the game started to gain traction.

In 1954, the Wildcats became the first college baseball team to win 40 games in a season, and although there was no official list of the game’s attendance leaders, it was believed Arizona, which sometimes drew 2,000 to its modest on-campus field in Tucson, was at the top.

UA officials believed night games at what is now Hi Corbett Field could draw 4,000 or more.

Unfortunately, with day games made necessary by the CWS’ double-elimination format, Arizona’s summer heat led CWS organizers to settle on Omaha, Nebraska, where it has continued uninterrupted from 1950-2022.

It didn’t stop Arizona’s rise as a national power.

From 1954-56, Arizona became the first team to qualify for three consecutive CWS, and its 1956 team, which set an NCAA record with 49 victories, was a strong threat to become the first national champion, in any sport, at the UA.

The origin of coach Frank Sancet’s 1956 team began innocently when he was a catcher for the Class-B Tampa Smokers in 1930. Sancet, a catcher, became friends with Tampa’s top pitcher, Thornton Lee, who would go on to pitch 16 years in the big leagues.

Thornton Lee’s son, Donnie, a right-handed pitcher who became a top prospect while pitching at Phoenix North High School, signed with Arizona after his high school days. Good timing.

The Wildcats went 130-25 with Lee as the UA’s No. 1 pitcher. Lee was so dominant that today, 66 years after he made his last appearance as a Wildcat, he holds school career records for wins (36) and complete games (also 36).

Lee entered the 1956 World Series with a 13-0 record. His high school catcher from Phoenix, Jack Davis, was UA’s starting catcher on a team Sancet built around Arizona talent. Leadoff batter Tom Tomooka, a .368 hitting shortstop, and star outfielder Lee Myers were both from Tucson High School state championship teams. Third baseman Craig Sorensen, a .339 hitter, was from Yuma.

The big addition to the Arizona-loaded lineup was pitcher Carl Thomas, who had grown up in Minnesota but transferred to Arizona after a year at junior college. To this day, Lee and Thomas, remain the most imposing 1-2 pitching punch in UA history. Thomas finished his UA career with 35 victories, second only to Lee.

Once the Wildcats arrived in Omaha, Sancet had a difficult choice to make. He could save Lee and Thomas for what were likely to be more difficult games, against Minnesota and Ole Miss, or he could use one in an opener against lightly-regarded NYU.

Sancet opted to be safe. He used Lee in the opener. Lee shut out NYU, 3-0.

But opposing manager Dick Siebert of Minnesota held his ace, Jerry Thomas, out of the Gophers’ opening victory over Wyoming. It would turn out to be the biggest factor at the 1956 World Series.

A day later, Minnesota beat Carl Thomas and Arizona 3-1 behind the dominant Thomas.

Arizona was forced to play three elimination games the next three days, using Lee and Thomas to force a championship showdown against Minnesota. But in that game, the Gophers’ ace was fully rested while Lee and Thomas were spent.

Arizona started its No. 3 pitcher, Ernie Oosterveen, who was the losing pitcher in a 12-1 game.

Much has been made of the coincidence that Minnesota’s star player was shortstop Jerry Kindall, who would go on to play nine years in the big leagues and then replace Sancet as the UA’s baseball coach in 1972. Kindall had a good College World Series but only got three hits in the three games against Arizona.

It was the fully-rested pitcher, Thomas, who was named the CWS MVP.

Over the next 17 years, Sancet seemed sure to break through and finally win a national championship, but his powerful teams of 1958, 1959, 1960, 1963 and 1966 were similarly frustrated in Omaha. Sancet, who retired at the UA’s mandatory retirement age of 65 in 1972, went 831-272 in his UA career, but never finished higher than No. 2 in eight visits to the CWS. He died in 1985.

Lee and Thomas both became major-leaguers. Lee pitched nine seasons for the Tigers, Senators, Twins, Angels, Astros and Cubs and retired, still living in Tucson. Thomas pitched one year in MLB before leaving the game in 1962 to become a cement contractor in Phoenix. He died in 2013.

A lot of championship basketball teams are blessed with a Big Two or Big Three, but it’s rare when any coach is able to deploy a certifiable Big Four.

But that’s what Tucson High boys coach Tony Morales put on the court in the 1968-69 season: Guards Hoegie Simmons and Delano Price were clearly the state’s best backcourt. Small forward Kenny Ball might’ve been the top prospect in the state. And 6-foot 8-inch center Chuco Miranda developed into the state’s most dominating big man.

When the Badgers completed an epic 23-1 season by beating Tempe High 80-76 in the state championship game, Morales’ Big Four was too much to handle, scoring 79 of the team’s 80 points. Price and Simmons both scored 24 points, Miranda had 21 and Ball 10.

In a semifinal victory over Phoenix Brophy Prep, it was reversed: Price and Ball combined for 49 points, while Miranda and Simmons added 33.

“They really had difficulty guarding us,’’ Price told me recently. “We had so many options.’’

It wasn’t like the ’69 Badgers rolled through the season without tough opposition. From 1962-70, Tucson was the hub of basketball power among Arizona high schools. The Badgers won 1962 and 1969 state titles. Coach Galen Kintner’s Catalina Trojans won it all in 1963, coach Dick Kings Rincon Rangers were state champs in 1965 and Dick McConnell’s Sahuaro Cougars won it all in 1970.

Before the ’69 Badgers got to the state finals, played in Phoenix, they had already won a memorable best-of-three series against what they considered the state’s No. 2 team, Rincon.

The Rangers had been so good in the ’60s that they went on a 12-game winning streak against THS and beat the Badgers in a classic 86-84 finish on Jan. 24. It would be the only loss of the year for Tucson.

The five-year losing streak against Rincon ended in a Feb. 11 rematch at the THS gymnasium, 98-88 as Price, Ball and Simmons combined to score 77 points. Two weeks later, Tucson High again beat the Rangers in the region playoffs.

After hoisting the state championship trophy, Morales declined to compare his ’69 Badgers to his undefeated ’62 Badgers.

“I don’t want to compare them,’’ he said. “Both of them were really special.’’

Morales hadn’t told anyone outside of his wife and five children, but he planned to retire after the ’69 season, win or lose. His 14½ year journey as THS basketball coach had not always been smooth; he replaced five-time state championship coach Bud Doolen in mid-season, 1955, after Doolen died of a heart attack.

Morales’ Badgers went 178-113 during a period the local competition intensified as Catalina, Rincon and Sahuaro opened.

One of 11 children of a Douglas laborer and a stay-at-home mother, Morales became an all-state basketball player at Douglas High. After a four-year period serving in the Navy during World War II, Morales became a starter for the UA baseball and basketball teams. He was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.

Three days after winning the 1969 state championship, Morales announced he resigned his coaching position. He was 45.

“It’s been a grind, a tough grind,’’ he told the Star. “There are a lot of intangibles you have to deal with when you’re coaching. You are working with kids who are up one day and down another. I demand a lot of myself and the players. Sometimes I think I demanded too much.’’

Tucson has not won a basketball state championship since Morales retired. He moved to San Diego, where he died in 2014 at 89.

Neither Ball, Simmons, Price or Miranda became major-college basketball players, although Simmons became a star at small-school Texas A&I, and Price became an all-ACCAC guard at Phoenix College, while Ball and Miranda became standout players at Pima College.

Facing Tennessee’s Monica Abbott in the 2007 Women’s College World Series was a lot like facing the four or five most dominating pitchers in NCAA softball history: Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman, Lisa Fernandez and Alicia Hollowell.

The odds of beating Abbott twice in two days were somewhere between hopeless and insurmountable.

The 6-foot, 2-inch lefty was 50-3 when she stood on the mound in a best-of-three championship series against Arizona. She had already beaten Arizona 1-0 and 3-0 in Oklahoma City. Abbott would conclude the year with still-standing NCAA records in wins (189) and strikeouts (2,440).

A year earlier, Arizona eliminated Abbott and the Vols from the WCWS when Hollowell, 32-5 with an 0.89 ERA, out-pitched Abbott in the semifinals. But in ’07 Hollowell had graduated and Abbott was the No. 1 story in women’s college softball.

Until she wasn’t.

Until Arizona’s virtually unheralded junior Taryne Mowatt became the No. 1 story.

Mowatt had been Hollowell’s backup for two years. She wasn’t even the Pac-10’s leading pitcher in ’07. That was Washington’s Danielle Lawrie.

But over eight days in Oklahoma City, Mowatt won six games, throwing every inning (1,035 pitches), competing under the most difficult circumstances possible: winning five elimination games, including a stunning 1-0 and 5-0 sweep of Tennessee to win the national championship.

Mowatt wasn’t a power pitcher. She baffled the Vols by mixing up her pitches, using a change-up that so stymied Tennessee’s offense that Vols coach Ralph Weekly said “I’ve never seen anything like that style of pitching. She never showed us a pattern the whole time.’’

It wasn’t just Mowatt’s versatility, it was her endurance and toughness. The grind of pitching eight complete games in six days — all with unending pressure — was unprecedented at the WCWS.

She told the Star’s Patrick Finley “I haven’t had a good night rest for two nights. I’d just lay in bed and ache.’’

UA coach Mike Candrea was so impressed that he said his eighth national championship — which was also his last — “was by far the most memorable College World Series that I’ve been through in a long time.’’

Mowatt had gone 8-1 as a freshman and 21-5 as a sophomore while backup up Hollowell, a consensus All-American who set Arizona career records for wins and strikeouts. Many of Mowatt’s contributions in her sophomore year were as a designated hitter, of all things.

The Wildcats entered the ’07 season with two All-Americans, centerfielder Caitlin Lowe and shortstop Kristie Fox, but otherwise didn’t seem to measure up to Candrea’s seven national champions in pitching strength.

Mowatt changed all that.

Some had regarded her as the nation’s No. 1 high school pitching prospect after the 2004 season at Santiago High School in Corona, California, but she had to wait until Hollowell graduated to show her pitching chops.

In the penultimate game in OKC, Mowatt shut out Tennessee 1-0 in 10 innings to even the best-of-three series at 1-1. A day later, she beat Abbott again, 5-0, relying on a 4-for-4 day by Lowe, a four-time consensus All-American, a two-run single by Jenae Leles and a three-run home run by second baseman Chelsie Mesa.

It was the most runs Abbott had given up in a game all season.

Arizona’s starting lineup in 2006 included catcher Calista Balko of Canyon del Oro High School and swift outfielder Adrienne Action of Marana High School. The Wildcats won the Pac-10 with a 15-3 record.

There would be no repeat in 2008. Candrea took a leave of absence to coach Team USA in the Beijing Olympics, in which Abbott was one of his key pitchers. Team USA won a silver medal. Arizona finished third in the Pac-10 and was eliminated in the first two games of the World Series, losing to UCLA and Alabama.

Mowatt went from 42 victories to 29, but her legacy in UA softball history remains secure.

Arizona’s long climb to relevance in NCAA women’s volleyball included a 2000 Pac-10 championship, three bursts into the Sweet 16 and signing the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in the fall of 2001.

In a conference with national champions UCLA, Stanford and USC, that is known as swimming against the tide.

But coach Dave Rubio’s 10th Arizona team, 2001, broke through and went to the Final Four, which would’ve seemed impossible when he was hired from Cal-Bakersfield a decade earlier.

“I knew what I was getting into,’’ Rubio said. “The challenge of competing against Stanford, UCLA and USC is a great motivator. You can’t let up or you might never get back to that level.’’

Rubio’s Cal-Bakersfield club won the 1989 Division II national championship, but the challenge of being relevant in the volleyball-strong Pac-10 was a challenge at a higher level. This is what Arizona faced when it flew to San Diego to play in the 2001 Final Four:

Long Beach State. Record: 32-0.

Nebraska. Record: 31-1.

Stanford. Record: 31-2.

“We won’t be intimidated,’’ said Rubio. “Our conference has really prepared us to play against this level of competition. I don’t feel like an underdog.’’

Arizona’s 2001 volleyball team produced two first-team All-Americans, Dana Burkholder and Jill Talbot. Both of their jerseys hang in the Ring of Honor at McKale Center. Rubio surrounded his All-Americans with quality Pac-10 players Shannon Torregrosa, Stefani Saragosa and Lisa Rutledge.

That group enabled Arizona to be seeded No. 5 overall in the NCAA Tournament. Proof of the difficulty of Pac-10 volleyball: Stanford was the No. 2 seed and USC was No. 4. Arizona finished third in the conference that season, 14-4 overall and was 25-4 entering the Final Four.

A year earlier, Arizona reached the Elite Eight and before the ’01 season began Rubio said “this might be our best team; we’ve got to prove it night in and night out, but we’re going to be very good.’’

The only key losses from the 2000 Elite Eight team — which remains Arizona's only Pac-10/12 championship volleyball squad — were Marisa DaLee and Allison Napier. The ’00 Wildcats were eliminated by 34-0 Nebraska, which won the national championship.

The message had long ago been absorbed by Rubio and his volleyball players: There would be no easy touches in the NCAA Tournament.

In the ’01 NCAAs, Arizona opened with decisive victories over Eastern Illinois, Illinois and Pacific before rallying to beat favored USC in Los Angeles in the Elite Eight.

A week later, Rubio attended the annual NCAA volleyball coaches’ convention in San Diego two days before the Final Four. Even though he had coached Arizona to a 116-35 record over five seasons, he understood the meaning of being in the Final Four.

“I would come to the convention year after year thinking ‘am I ever going to get here?’ ‘’ he said. “I now understand how much of an accomplishment it is.’’

What came next was even a greater challenge. Long Beach State, which had won two NCAA championships, was loaded. The 49ers star player was 6-foot 7-inch Tayyiba Haneef-Park, who Rubio compared to a volleyball version of Shaquille O’Neal.

“We’re not going to be able to completely shut her down,’’ he said. “Unless I bring Luke Walton out here, I’m not sure we’ll be able to match up with her.’’

Long Beach State won close sets 30-27 and 30-25 before the Wildcats wore down. Hanceef was dominant. The 49ers won the deciding set 30-20. A day later, Stanford beat Long Beach State in the championship.

“As disappointed as I am that we lost, I’m stoked that we broke the barrier for Arizona and got this far,’’ said Burkholder. “It was a year I’ll never forget.’’

A year later, with high school All-Americans Kim Glass, a future USA Olympian, and Canyon del Oro’s national Gatorade Player of the Year Bre Ladd as Arizona freshmen, the Wildcats were again a national contender, reaching the Elite Eight, as they also would in 2005.

But the ’01 Wildcats remain the school’s only Final Four team in the school’s 48 years of volleyball competition.

Each time Salpointe Catholic High School wins another boys state soccer championship, I ask coach Wolfgang Weber: “is this your best team ever?’’

And each time he says, honorably, “it wouldn’t be fair to the boys to compare one team to another.’’

Salpointe has won five state championships in the last decade, compiling a 103-12-5 record. That’s a lot of bests. More impressively, since Weber created the Salpointe boys soccer program in 1982, the Lancers have won nine state championships.

His career record is 719-126-27, making him one of nine high school soccer coaches in the nation to win 700 games. It is fully understandable that there have been so many bests — so many highs and so few lows — that picking No. 1 would be almost impossible.

The more I research Weber’s remarkable career, the more I go back to 1985 — Weber’s third Salpointe team — and pay attention to its record: 16-0. Over four decades, it is the only undefeated, untied Salpointe boys soccer team.

It’s hard to top that. It set a standard that hasn’t been lowered.

High school soccer began in Tucson in 1982-83. That’s when TUSD funded nine varsity boys teams, joining Salpointe, Amphitheater and Flowing Wells in the competitive AAA South conference.

Salpointe quickly won 30 consecutive games, a break-in period in which Weber was often referred to as the Lancers’ “assistant coach,’’ which basically wasn’t accurate. Salpointe athletic director Eleanor Birmingham and Weber split the duties; Birmingham handled administrative roles, Weber did all the coaching.

But the native of Aachen, Germany, who moved to Tucson in the mid-1970s, was fine with whatever label he was given. His real title soon became “The Father of Tucson Soccer,’’ the most important figure behind what has since become 46 soccer state championships, boys and girls, in Tucson history. Ten different Tucson high schools have won boys soccer state titles.

Weber’s 1985 team was blessed with one of the most talented sophomore classes in our city’s history. Vince Bianchi and Trong Nguyen were probably the two leading players in Arizona during their four-year Salpointe careers.

Bianchi scored 27 goals in ’85, including the game-winner with 53 seconds remaining in the state title game against Glendale Deer Valley. Nguyen would become Arizona’s Gatorade soccer player of the year as a senior, 1987. Both left Salpointe with more than 100 career goals, which was almost unthinkable.

By ’87, Weber told the Star “I’m a little bit shocked at how far we’ve come. Soccer is getting better here and everywhere; all teams are improving. ‘’

Salpointe’s undefeated 1985 team also included all-city players Mike Makovic and Tim Hillenbrand and such productive players such as Greg Foster and Kevin Kinerk. They outscored the opposition 62-12. The Lancers repeated as state champs a year later, 1986, with an 18-1 record.

Weber’s state champions of later decades produced names that are probably more familiar to those who follow Tucson soccer: future Stanford and MSL standout Scott Leber, 1996; all-stater Corey Sipos, 2004; UMass All-American Doug Rappaport, 2004; and prolific scorers such as Arturo Vega and Fernando Gauna.

Salpointe has continued to prosper; the Lancers won state championships in 2019, 2021 and 2022 with a cumulative 52-8-5 record. But it was the foundation provided by Weber’s 1985 Lancers that made it all possible.

Nothing pointed to Arizona as the 2018 NCAA women’s golf champion. Really, nothing.

The Wildcats finished fourth in the Pac-10 behind legit NCAA championship contenders UCLA, Stanford and USC. More? Arizona then finished fourth in the NCAA Tallahassee regionals behind Alabama, Florida State and Furman. Yes, Furman.

And when four-days of individual stroke play concluded at the NCAA finals in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Arizona’s five golfers were stacked this way on the overall leaderboard:

2. Bianca Pagdanganan

48. Yu-Sang Hou

52. Sandra Nordaas

56. Haley Moore

76. Gigi Stoll

Coach Laura Ianello’s Wildcats had been playing at a deficit since Christmas Day five months earlier when the squad’s No. 2 player, Salpointe Catholic High School two-time state champion Krystal Quihuis, told Ianello she was leaving the team to pursue the LPGA Tour.

There was no time to find a replacement, especially for someone like Quihuis, who had been the Pac-12’s freshman of the year in 2016.

After four days of competition in Oklahoma, Arizona barely qualified for the field of 15 teams that would stage a one-day playoff to reach the eight-team match play finals. Then the UA established a new meaning for the word “barely.’’

At the 18th hole, Arizona was No. 9, trailing No. 8 Baylor by a stroke for the final berth in the match play finals. Pagdanganan, a junior transfer from Gonzaga, would need to eagle the par-5 18th hole to tie Baylor and force a playoff.

What were the odds of that?

Incredibly, Pagdanganan reached the par-5 in two shots and then, against the odds, made a 30-foot putt to force a sudden-death playoff against Baylor. Arizona won the playoff.

“In some ways, the pressure was off,’’ Ianello told me a few days later. “What we had overcome just to get to the match play was incredible.’’

Arizona upset No. 1 UCLA the next morning and No. 5 Stanford in the afternoon.

That put Ianello’s Cinderella Wildcats in the finals against No. 2 Alabama, which had been No. 1 most of the golf season behind players ranked Nos. 6, 10 and 13 in the nation.

By then, Arizona was awed by nothing. It split the first four matches against Alabama, meaning the final two golfers on the course — UA sophomore Haley Moore and Alabama All-American Lakareber Abe — would decide the national championship. It was a tense match that went to sudden death, requiring a 19th hole.

That’s when Moore made the putt of a lifetime — a 5-foot birdie — to give Arizona the national championship.

In the celebration that followed, TV microphones picked up Stoll saying “Is anyone NOT crying?’’

Moore wept on the green. So did Ianello and the other four Wildcat golfers as they embraced one another.

“It’s the best feeling in the world,’’ said Pagdanganan. “I’m so honored to have these girls as my teammates and to have met my coaches. They have made me a better person and player.’’

It was Arizona’s third NCAA women’s golf championship. The first two were achieved in 1996 under coach Rick LaRose and in 2000 under coach Todd McCorkle. The Wildcats had been a national-level program in the years since that ’00 championship, winning Pac-10/12 championships in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2010 and 2015, but it was Pagdanganan’s clutch eagle and Moore’s birdie-of-a-lifetime that restored them to No. 1 status.

A day after winning the title, the UA golfers flew to Phoenix and drove SUVs to Tucson, where a large crowd greeted them at the Jim Click Hall of Champions.

“So many things had to fall into place for us to win, we had no margin for error,’’ said Ianello, part of Arizona’s 2001 Pac-10 championship team. “In the last day or so I had to pinch myself a few times.’’

The 2018 team soon went its separate ways. Pagdanganan is now part of the LPGA Tour; she has played in 21 events over the last two seasons, earning $357,968. Stoll has been a regular member of the LPGA Symetra Tour. Moore has played 28 LPGA Tour events but is still trying to gain full-time privileges. Hou has played in six LPGA Tour events this year.

Leon Gray was a championship boxer from Tucson High School. a never-give-an-inch UA lineman who went on to become a decorated fighter pilot in World War iI and commander of two United States Air Force Bases.

Over the course of his storybook life, Gray had dinner with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was presented the British Flying Cross medal by King George VI and became close friends with Brig. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Yet when I met Gray in 1994 at a UA football homecoming party, he talked about Tex Oliver, his Arizona football coach, more than FDR or King George VI or the famous leader of the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo.

“Tex was like God to me and the boys on those great teams of the 1930s,” said Gray. “I always referred to him as Mr. God rather than Coach. We were so disciplined and tough, we had both fear and respect for Tex.”

In the first 60 years of Arizona football, Oliver’s five-year coaching period, 1933-37, was in a class by itself. His teams went 32-11-4, routinely filled all 9,000 seats at Arizona Stadium and boldly began to schedule higher-level schools like Oregon, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Michigan State and Minnesota.

An infantryman from an impoverished Texas family, Oliver went on to graduate from West Point and earn a graduate degree from Stanford. Oliver had no recruiting advantages when he arrived at Arizona in 1933 as, of all things, the school’s interim track coach.

“We were almost 100% young men from Arizona, mostly Tucson,” Gray told me. “We didn’t do anything fancy. We just beat you.”

Tucsonans referred to the ‘37 Wildcats as the “Blue Brigade” because of their all-blue uniforms. In an era when football players started on both offense and defense and rarely came off the field, Oliver’s 1937 team started four Tucsonans: Gray, Herb Moran, Carl Cooper, Henry Greer and George “Rattlesnake’’ Jackson. It also included Yuma’s Sid Woods, Chandler’s Roy Wigley and Peoria’s Tom Greenfield.

The only out-of-state players to start on the 8-2 team were Californian Walter “Hoss” Nielsen and Minnesota’s Bronko Smilanich.

Tucsonans bought in. The Star referred to the 1937 opener against Arizona State as a “spectacle” and an “ancient rivalry.” About 500 ASU fans traveled to Tucson on a special train for the game, which was sold out.

Arizona won 20-7 and followed that with a 22-13 upset of favored Oklahoma State in a “neutral field” game in Phoenix that attracted a sellout crowd of 12,000 fans.

The capper to Arizona’s best season from 1899-1961 took place on Dec. 4 at Arizona Stadium. Oregon had defeated a strong Stanford team and was favored to end the Blue Brigade’s season on a downer.

Arizona won 20-6, which would become the end of Oiiver’s years in Tucson.

The Ducks were so impressed with the rise of Arizona’s football program that they fired coach Prink Callison and pursued Oliver, who was making $4,500 per year on a one-year contract at Arizona. The Ducks offered a three-year deal worth $18,000.

Oliver was torn but ultimately drove to Eugene, met with UO officials and accepted the job.

He offered to return a $1,000 bonus paid to him a month earlier by the Towncats, the UA booster group. The Towncats declined. Either way, Oliver was gone and Arizona’s football program would go through a 22-year down period.

Oliver’s days at Oregon didn’t go well. He went 23-28-3, a tenure paused by a two-year break for World War II. Oregon fired him in 1947.

I called Oliver in the early 1980s. He was living in Costa Mesa, California, retired from a career as a high school administrator in SoCal. He was cordial and had no difficulty recalling his days with the Blue Brigade.

“Probably the worst thing I ever did in my professional life was to leave Arizona,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know this, but when the UA job opened in 1952, I applied and tried to get back to Tucson. But ‘Pop’ McKale and I had squabbled a lot when I was the coach. He didn’t want to spend the money to play teams like Minnesota and Oklahoma State. So I didn’t get the job.”

Oliver was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 1980. He died in 1988. He was 88.

Tucson’s all-city baseball team of 1980 included future major leaguers Tom Pagnozzi of Rincon, Mark Carreon of Salpointe Catholilc and Jim Olander and Sam Khalifa of Sahuaro, although some argued that Sunnyside third baseman David Page, who hit .539, or Sahuaro home run king Wes Kent were better.

The ‘80 all-city club was so deep in talent that after Arizona won that year’s College World Series, Wildcats coach Jerry Kindall offered scholarships to three Canyon del Oro players: first baseman Dave Cooper and the double-play combination of Murray Hicks and Phil Wright.

All three Dorados played key roles on CDO’s 1979 state championship team, the genesis of what would become Tucson’s leading high school baseball school of the last 45 years.

From 1994-2001, CDO became something of a major-league baseball factory, producing big-league players Colin Porter, Jason Stanford, Shelley Duncan, Chris Duncan, Brian Anderson, Ian Kinsler and Scott Hairston.

The most common denominator in the production and development of CDO’s remarkable baseball history was Wright, who played shortstop, batted third in the lineup, and hit a game-changing double in the 1979 state title game against Douglas High School.

Wright was only 24 in the spring of 1986, an assistant coach at NAIA national power Emporia State of Kansas, when he got a phone call from the CDO athletic department.

“Do you have any interest in returning to Tucson to be the head coach at CDO?” he was asked.

Wright eagerly accepted. He replaced his ‘79 state championship coach Roger Werbylo, who had also led the Dorados to the 1984 state title and had left to become the head coach at Pima College. At 24, Wright was one of the youngest head coaches ever at one of Tucson’s big schools.

Let’s just say it turned out to be a good decision for both sides.

Twelve years later, Wright retired from his CDO post. He had gone 248-101 and won 1994 and 1997 state titles. There is often a debate about which of CDO’s state baseball championships was the most impressive — was it Kent Winslow’s 31-5 club of 2005 or maybe Keith Francis’ 33-2 team of 2015? – but the debate always seems to detour to Wright’s ‘94 Dorados, who launched the unprecedented Tucson-to-the-big leagues highway.

CDO was so good in 1994 that it all but toyed with state playoff opponents, beating Phoenix Brophy Prep 26-4 in the semifinals and rolling over Glendale Deer Valley 11-5 in the championship game. It beat its last three playoff opponents by a combined score of 46-11.

“It’s almost like a dream,” Wright said after the game. “We had such high expectations put on us. There was so much pressure.”

In midseason, 1994, CDO played in the national Upper Deck Classic in California and went 3-1. Now, almost three decades later, Wright is somewhat awed by the talent on his ‘94 club.

We had 12 future college players,’’ he says, and to make sure there is no exaggeration, he lists all 12:

Arizona signed outfielder Russ Brown, who hit .419, future All-Pac-10 outfielder Colin Porter, who hit .382, and pitcher Chet Henderson.

ASU signed catcher Greg Halvorson, Kansas signed all-city MVP third baseman Nick Frank and all-city shortstop Andy Juday, New Mexico State signed first baseman Mike Marvel and pitcher Jay Gospodarek, who had gone 12-0, Charlotte signed soon-to-be big-league pitcher Jason Stanford, second baseman Jason Felix signed with New Mexico coach Rich Alday, Jason Lewis, now the head softball coach at Nicholls State, played at Louisiana-Monroe, Harvard signed pitcher Brad Wilford, and Centenary signed DH/catcher Kyle Crookes.

After leaving CDO, Wright moved to the greater Chicago area to teach and coach softball and baseball. He returned to Tucson a few years ago.

“The local talent was really good when I coached here,” he says. “Tucson High, Amphi, Sunnyside and Salpointe were all great. Sabino and Foothills were getting really good. We all made each other better.

“We really upgraded the schedule to travel to Phoenix and play great programs. I thought it was important for our kids to be road warriors and understand we had to be prepared to play the big boys on the road if we were going to get the big prize come May. It was an incredible era in Tucson.

“We built it into one of the greatest runs of baseball talent from any one school not only in Tucson but certainly in Arizona, and during that stretch, as good as anyone nationwide.”

Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711

If you crunch the numbers, you’ll find that the greater Tucson area has fielded close to 1,400 boys high school basketball teams since 1960. Five have gone undefeated. That’s .04%.

Across those six decades, the undefeated state champions were:

Tucson High School, 1962: 21-0.

Marana High School, 1969: 24-0.

Marana High School, 1972: 25-0.

Pueblo High School, 1978: 28-0.

Sunnyside High School: 1993: 29-0.

The 1962 Badgers got their start on an undefeated season in ‘61, when All-State center Ray Kosanke emerged as perhaps the state’s top player.

But just as the ‘61 Badgers began to threaten powerhouse Phoenix Union High School, winners of six of seven state championships from 1955-61, Kosanke was diagnosed with the mumps.

The 6-foot-9-inch junior missed the final two weeks of the regular season, returning for the state playoffs, although not close to 100% physically. The Badgers were eliminated by Catalina, which then lost to Phoenix Union.

But when the next season began, Kosanke was back to full strength — and so were coach Tony Morales’ Badgers. Four Tucson High players made the Star’s all-city first team: Kosanke, jet-quick guard Jessie Peoples, forward Leroy Taylor and shooting guard Chester Willis, who had moved back to Tucson from Southern California for his senior season.

When the ‘62 Badgers were inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2019, Mike Aboud said that just making the varsity roster, 12 players, was ridiculously difficult.

“You can’t imagine how many young men tried out for our team,” said Aboud, a long-time Tucson attorney, a junior in ‘62 who would go on to become a two-year starter for the Arizona Wildcats in the mid-’60s.

The Badgers rolled to 19 consecutive victories before reaching the state semifinals. The competition became much more intense. Taylor’s basket in the final 30 seconds gave Tucson a tense 54-52 win over Phoenix Central, which led to one of the most anticipated showdowns, then and now, in Arizona prep basketball history.

Tucson would face the greatest team in Flagstaff High School history, a 23-0 squad led by Jimmy Dugan, who might’ve been the top athlete in Flagstaff history. A crowd of 4,000 squeezed into the ASU gymnasium for a back-and-forth championship game. Tucson won 54-52 as Kosanke scored 28 points, while Dugan added 22.

Kosanke was chosen the state’s player of the year. There was much more to Kosanke than basketball. A 4.0 student, Kosanke chose to attend Stanford rather than stay home and play for the UA. He started for Stanford’s 1965 and 1966 teams, averaging 12.5 and 14.0 points as the Cardinal became John Wooden and UCLA’s top competition in the Pac-8, finishing second in 1965.

Kosanke then played in Belgium for several years before embarking on a distinguished business career. He founded the Cal Energy Group, became COO of the Kyocera Solar corporation and developed into a prominent author and magazine reporter, writing about NATO, OPEC and the renewable energy industry. Kosanke spoke fluent German, French and Dutch as he traveled internationally while becoming a global authority on renewable energy.

At the 2019 Pima County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony, Kosanke spoke about his ‘62 Badgers teammates rather than his career.

“The five starters got all the accolades, but those who didn’t start really kept us sharp in practice every day,” he said, pointing out the career success of ‘62 teammates such as Mike Butler, who was a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Marines, becoming a colonel in Washington D.C., Pete Samorano, who became captain of the Tucson Fire Department, and Don Bacon, who moved from a Sears sales position to become a TUSD dropout prevention counselor and volunteer coach.

Peoples, the all-city guard who played at Arizona Western College and then spent two years in the Army, was killed in an automobile accident in South Tucson in 1968. Willis, who worked for the City of Tucson, died in 2008.

“It was a special group,” said Kosanke, who lives in Southern California. “We came from all walks of life and together became champions.”

The soccer gods probably owed one to Dave Cosgrove when the Pima College Aztecs reached the 2018 NJCAA men’s soccer championships.

The top-ranked Aztecs had been one of the game’s four or five leading men’s soccer program for at least a decade, but had been unable to win the Big One.

That close-but-no-happy-ending story was beginning to wear on Cosgrove, a graduate of Amphitheater High School and the UA.

As a PCC sophomore in 1988, Cosgrove was on the field when Mercer Community College of New Jersey beat the Aztecs 1-0 in the national finals.

And as PCC’s head coach in 1999, Cosgrove was again on the turf when State Fair Community College of Missouri beat the Aztecs 3-2 in overtime in the NJCAA championship game. To make it worse, State Fair soon vacated the championship when it was discovered they used several ineligible players.

How close can you get? Cosgrove’s Aztecs had finished No. 3 in the championship finals in 2015 and No. 5 in 2017. Pima had replaced longtime ACCAC kingpin Yavapai College as the league’s most successful program about 10 years ago; all that remained was to win it all.

Finally, in November 2018 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Pima won the Big One and all the ones leading up to the national championship game. After finishing the ACCAC season with a school-record 18-2 conference season, Pima won eight consecutive elimination games to become No. 1.

The Aztecs beat Yavapai and Chandler-Gilbert to win the Region championship, then eliminated Laramie Community College and Snow College in the West Region finals.

“I can’t say I saw this coming,” Cosgrove told me before leaving for Florida. “We lost all but four guys from last year’s (19-5-3) team, and as you know, this conference is as good as it gets.”

This time Cosgrove and PCC had a little serendipity on their side. Hugo Kametani, an elite talent from Japan, hoped to move to America to play college soccer and get exposure from four-year schools and, ultimately, the pros.

Kametani initially planned to enroll at a Kansas junior college but discovered that PCC had a stronger English as a Second Language program, and chose to move to Tucson a month or so before the soccer season.

Kametani was a game-changer. He became the ACCAC and NJCAA player of the year, scoring a school-record 30 goals, combining with Swiss goalie Nils Roth to become a first-team All-American. After that, Cosgrove surrounded them with the typically strong Tucson talent, including Kaskile Zawadi (Cholla), Martin Cardenas (Sabino), Daniel Suazo (Tucson High) and Alec Nguyen (Sahuaro) as Pima rose to No. 1 in the NJCAA poll in early November.

“This journey has humbled me,” said Cosgrove. “I have learned that it’s not always talent — and we have talented kids — but also character is a big part of it. This team has the talent and character.”

Once at the NJCAA finals in Florida, the Aztecs peaked.

They routed Muskegon College 5-0 in the opener, beat Northeast Texas College 3-2 on Kametani’s “golden goal’’ in overtime, and then eliminated New York’s Monroe CC 1-0 in the semifinals as Kametani’s goal in the 72nd minute made the difference.

The finals against No. 3 Barton CCC was won 2-1 when Kametani scored in the game’ 106th minute.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Cosgrove. “We’ve had a lot of terrific players. We’ve had unbelievable support from Pima College over my 30 years here. It feels very good to reward our alumni, reward all the support staff and administration.

“These kids always found a way to win. It was an unbelievable quality they had.”

Four years later in Wichita, Kansas, Pima College won its second NJCAA title, beating Essex Community College of Maryland in overtime.

A few months later, Pima College was chosen to host the 2022 NJCAA men’s soccer championships. The tournament will run from Nov. 14-22 at Kino North Stadium.

If I could go back in a Tucson sports time machine, one of my first choices would be the 1961 Territorial Cup game at ASU.

A state-record crowd of 40,164 squeezed into ASU’s old stadium as the first nationally-ranked team in Arizona history — the 7-1-1 Wildcats were No.20 in the AP poll — played Frank Kush’s fearsome Sun Devils, who were 7-2.

ASU led 13-3 at half, shutting down the most celebrated backfield in UA history: quarterback Eddie Wilson, running back Bobby “The General” Thompson and Jackrabbit Joe Hernandez.

Three hours later, the Wildcats partied at a Tempe restaurant, eating steaks, smoking cigars and celebrating what to that point was the greatest football victory in UA history.

“Lordy, lordy,” said UA coach Jim LaRue, “that was the greatest comeback I ever saw.”

Arizona won 22-13 after Thompson ran 67 yards for a touchdown with 5:48 remaining, a historic burst from scrimmage through the ASU defense during which he appeared to be stopped three times.

I’ve been fortunate to watch Thompson’s 67-yard run on film several times and it ranks with any in UA history, a dramatic turn of events just when it seemed Kush’s Sun Devils would spoil Arizona’s rise from football perdition. Arizona had gone 1-8-1 in 1957 just as ASU rose to prominence under Kush and Dan Devine.

LaRue was often referred to as “Gentleman Jim.” He was soft-spoken, didn’t curse or yell at his players. His players carried him off the ASU turf that night in Tempe. When he was lowered to the ground, he told the Star’s Abe Chanin: “Brother, I am sure glad there are two halves to a football game.”

Arizona’s ’61 Wildcats were known locally as the “Cardiac Kids,” winning comebacks against Oregon, New Mexico, Wyoming and ASU. They also tied Nebraska, 14-14, in Lincoln, in Game 2, which led to a school-record attendance at Arizona Stadium, 24,255 per game.

A few years before LaRue died in 2015, I was fortunate to visit him at his home bordering a fairway at Forty Niner Country Club. He had retired from coaching in 1989, a career that began as an assistant coach at Maryland in the early 1940s and bounced to Kansas State, Houston, Arizona, Utah, Wake Forest and with the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears.

LaRue was the secondary coach for the epic 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl championship team, coached by Mike Ditka. LaRue worked under well-known defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan during a 15-1 regular season.

I asked LaRue how coaching the ’61 Wildcats compared to being on the staff of the ’85 Bears and, to my surprise, he went on and on about UA center Bob Garis, a center from Tucson High School, who played 60 minutes a game, never coming off the field.

“Bob never played a minute in the NFL,” said LaRue. “But when you coach a young man like him it’s a joy to be in the coaching business.”

That told me a lot about LaRue. It wasn’t about glamour. It was about getting the job done. It had been almost 50 years since Garis played for LaRue, but he chose to speak about him rather than the all-pro Bears like William “Refrigerator” Perry or Walter Payton or Mike Singletary.

The ’61 Wildcats deployed Garis-type players all over the field. Starting guard Howard Breinig, an undersized 5-foot-8-inch fireball from Pennsylvania, held his own against much bigger opponents from Nebraska, ASU and Oregon. (Breinig went on to coach Sahuaro High School to a 1994 state championship). So did Tucson High grad John Smull, a lineman who weighed 190 pounds.

LaRue recruited Wilson from Chandler, and his prized running backs Hernandez, from Bakersfield Junior College, and Thompson, from a junior college in Compton, California. All three played in the NFL.

Thompson remains one of the four greatest running backs in school history, with Trung Canidate, Art Luppino and Ka’Deem Carey. Wilson surely ranks as one of the UA’s three leading QBs, with Fred Enke and Nick Foles.

LaRue told me he regretted his exit from Arizona; he was forced to resign in 1967 after consecutive seasons of 3-7 and 3-7.

“We didn’t have any money in the athletic department, and it was difficult just to beat our WAC opponents like BYU, Utah and Wyoming,” he said. “But to raise more money, we scheduled Ohio State, Iowa, Missouri, Washington State and Oregon State, all teams who played at a higher level. It was rough.”

But it all worked out. LaRue showed me his 1985 Super Bowl ring but said he also cherished his days at Arizona.

“I’ve lived in Tucson for more than 30 years,” he said. “This is my home.”

Dwight Rees was the Star’s boys basketball coach of the year in 1977, 1987, 1989 and 1993 and he did so without the benefit of open enrollment, the resources of a private school or a suburban setting flush with the economic power for year-round, travel-ball team development.

Except for a three-year period in the early 1980s when he was the head basketball coach at Pima College, Rees coached the Sunnyside Blue Devils to more than 300 victories.

One season the talent was so thin that Rees’ Blue Devils went 0-24. Another year, Sunnyside was perfect, 29-0, winning the 1993 Class 4A state championship.

“You took the kids from the neighborhood who walked through the door,’’ Rees told me. “Some years were obviously better than others. The challenge of coaching was to get the most out of your kids and make it a positive experience no matter how many games you won.’’

No year was better than 1993. That was a year Jermaine Watts walked through the door.

Watts, a junior guard, averaged 25 points in the ’93 season. He would finish his Sunnyside career with 2,055 points, then fourth in Tucson history, before signing to play at DePaul.

“Jermaine is a step ahead of everybody,’’ Rees said after Sunnyside won its closest regular-season game of the year, 77-72, in overtime against Tucson High, with Watts scoring 34 points.

When Sunnyside routed Peoria 74-57 in the first round of the state playoffs, with Watts scoring 32, Peoria coach Lonnie Cavalier said “Watts is the best player I’ve ever seen at this level.’’

Watts had basketball genes like few in Tucson prep history. He is the nephew of Tucsonans Randall and Jeff Moore, key figures in Pueblo High’s to back-to-back state championships in 1977 and 1978.

But it wasn’t all about Watts. All-city forward Anthony Figueroa was a defensive stopper. William Sims averaged 14 points a game. Hector Montano, Quinton Guarzo, Jason Holmes and David Miller were productive pieces to what became a historic season, the last undefeated team in Tucson boys prep basketball.

Rees couldn’t have seen an undefeated season coming. The Blue Devils went 19-9 a year earlier but lost two of the team’s top three scorers, Gabe Moraga and Billy Felix. But Rees did sense the ’93 Blue Devils had a chance to be a very good.

In November of ’92, Reese wrote a letter to his 12 varsity players. “We have the potential to win 20 games,’’ he wrote. “We have the potential to challenge for the state championship.’’

Rees knew the landscape as much as he knew how to coach basketball.

He grew up in Long Island, New York, and played college basketball at Cortland State, enticed to move to Tucson when he watched the PGA Tour’s Tucson Open on TV one cold winter afternoon in New York.

He moved to Tucson, enrolled in graduate school at the UA and found work as a graduate assistant coach on Fred Snowden’s first McKale Center basketball team, which prepared him for his first head coaching job — at tiny Globe High School.

After two years at Globe, where he drove the team bus as well as coaching, not much intimidated Rees. He knew that Sunnyside had experienced 16 losing seasons in its first 18 years of boys basketball but accepted the Blue Devils job in 1977 and immediately went 23-5, reaching the Arizona big-schools state championship game that year, losing to Pueblo, 42-37.

At Sunnyside, Rees was blessed with three once-a-decade type players: Greg Cook, who would go on to play at Arizona; Deron Johnson, the state’s leading scorer, who also went on to play for Arizona; and Watts. Not bad for a 15-year period.

He also knew the hard times between Cook, Johnson and Watts. Sunnyside went 7-15 in 1986 and 4-19 in 1990 before the 1993 state championship came into view.

After the Blue Devils beat Sabino High 60-53 in overtime at America West Arena to complete its 29-0 season, Sunnyside was treated to a pizza party celebration in the same room where the NBA Phoenix Suns lodged.

“We thought we were celebrities,’’ said Montano.

And in 1993, they were just that.

The day Arizona flew to Oklahoma City for the 1997 Women’s College World Series, Wildcat coach Mike Candrea dismissed pitcher Carrie Dolan from the team for a disciplinary issue.

Dolan had gone 24-3 that season and a school-record 35-6 a year earlier. What team survives that?

In an instant, the nation’s No. 1 team became vulnerable and then some. It meant that junior Nancy Evans would likely have to pitch every game — every inning — at the WCWS. And it didn’t get any easier when Evans pitched 22 innings in the first two games, an eight-inning triumph over UMass and a 14-inning survival over No. 2 UCLA.

She then had to pitch 14 innings in a Sunday survival series against Fresno State, in which Arizona lost the first game to the Bulldogs but won the second to advance to the championship game against UCLA.

“Nancy told me she’d get stronger with each game,’’ Candrea said. “I believe her. She’s so damn competitive.

“When Fresno jumped ahead of us, I thought ‘oh, boy.’ Nancy has hit the wall. Then what does she do? She bounces back and was better than ever.’’

A day later, Arizona won the national championship, beating the rival Bruins 10-2 in a five inning, mercy-rule blowout. Evans had pitched 40 innings, setting the school record for wins in the rout of UCLA.

The ’97 WCWS didn’t follow script for Arizona. The Wildcats went to Oklahoma City as the nation’s mightiest offensive team. Junior outfielder Alison Johnsen hit an NCAA-high .534 in the regular season, which remains a UA record. Senior first baseman Leah O’Brien, a 1996 Olympian, hit .467 and joined Johnsen as a first-team All-American. Catcher Leah Braatz hit .367 with 21 home runs and junior third baseman Lety Pineda hit .356 with 16 homers.

The Wildcats, who finished 61-5, hit an NCAA-high .375 as a team and scored exactly 500 runs to lead the nation. Not many talked about the 1-2 pitching punch of Evans and Dolan.

But when things got tough in OKC, it was all about Evans and pitching. Evans finished the season 36-2 and was MVP of the WCWS.

Said Candrea, whose team won its fifth NCAA championship in seven years: “That title was by far the toughest. By far. By far.’’

The ’97 Wildcats didn’t sneak in the back door. They began the season on a 30-game winning streak, lost two games to Fresno State and another to UCLA, and then rolled off 26 consecutive wins until losing to Fresno State in Oklahoma City.

Arizona went 26-1 in the Pac-10, swept the regionals and couldn’t have felt better about its chances to win the WCWS — until Dolan was dismissed from the team two days before the opener in OKC.

It was then that Evans took charge.

“Nancy has been a little bit overlooked because we average six or seven runs a game,’’ said Candrea. “But Nancy is special. She’s starting to get her due.’’

There was another outside variable that was a factor at the ’97 World Series. UCLA had beaten the Wildcats in the finals of the 1995 WCWS but it was later discovered that the Bruins used an ineligible pitcher, Australia Olympic star, Tanya Harding. The NCAA ruled UCLA ineligible for the 1997 postseason but the Bruins appealed, and their postseason ban was delayed until 1998.

“This is sweet revenge,’’ said Johnson.

The ’97 championship game was the last O’Brien played at Arizona. She remains one of the most dominant players in the history of the NCAA tournament. She went 31 for 55 (.564) across four WCWS trips, finishing with a 15-game hitting streak, including two hits in the title victory.

Unfortunately, not all turned out so happily for the ’97 Wildcats. A month after the championship win, senior outfielder Julie Reitan of Sahuaro High School, who hit .318 as the club’s starting left fielder, died of diabetes and a low blood sugar disorder at her Tucson apartment. She was 21.

Most of her teammates and coaches attended a memorial service for her at McKale Center.

Tipoff for the Feb. 18, 1989 UCLA-Arizona game at McKale Center was pushed back to 4 p.m to satisfy CBS’s Saturday schedule, giving Sean Elliott time to get a haircut.

By the time Elliott walked onto the court in mid-afternoon, he had a new look: a shaved head. Upon first sight of their new-look superstar, the raucous McKale Center crowd gave Elliott the first of what seemed like endless standing ovations.

“It should make me more aerodynamic,” Elliott said with a laugh.

Elliott wasn’t just aerodynamic that afternoon, he was in orbit. He scored 35 points in a 102-64 victory over the Bruins, then the worst loss in UCLA history. Elliott’s free throw with 7:10 remaining — his 35th point — made him the Pac-10’s career leading scorer, passing UCLA’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

I walked into the UCLA dressing room a few minutes after the game and Bruins coach Jim Harrick — an old friend since his coaching days at my alma mater, Utah State — pulled me aside and shook his head.

“How many guys have you ever seen better than he is?” Harrick asked. “Really? How many?”

In 1989, it was a very small number.

The Wildcats opened the year ranked No. 9 in the AP Top 25 poll, but rose to No. 1 by Feb. 6 and were again voted No. 1 on the weeks of Feb. 27, March 6 and March 13.

Tucson had never experienced anything like the Sean Elliott Story. Raised by a single mother, Odiemae Elliott, a nurse, Elliott emerged as a basketball standout at Cholla High School in the mid-1980s, although few outside Tucson noticed.

Elliott chose Arizona over UTEP, which was a remarkable bit of timing for UA coach Lute Olson, who moved to Tucson when Elliott was completing his sophomore year at Cholla.

After Elliott’s 35-point outburst against UCLA, Olson said: “Sean is the best big-game player I’ve ever seen or coached.”

The 1988-89 season was nothing if not a series of Big Games.

In early November, the Wildcats lost 79-72 to No. 10 North Carolina in a made-for-TV game in Charlotte. They returned to Tucson and whipped No. 9 UNLV as Elliott scored 35 points and gathered 15 rebounds.

In early February, the top-ranked Wildcats played at No. 5 Oklahoma, the team that had ended their national championship hopes 10 months earlier at the Final Four. OU won in a dramatic 82-80 finish as Elliott scored 26.

The month ended with a made-for-TV game in East Rutherford. New Jersey. Elliott all but clinched national player of the year honors with a game-clinching 3-pointer and the Wildcats beat No. 9 Duke, 77-75.

The ’89 Wildcats played at a higher level than their Pac-10 partners, finishing 17-1. The only loss was at No. 19 Stanford on Jan. 5, 83-78. Arizona had winning streaks of 11 and 10 games and routed Stanford in the Pac-10 Tournament finale, 73-51.

On Selection Sunday, Arizona earned a No. 1 seed and was also ranked No. 1 in the AP poll.

Its route to a second consecutive Final Four looked clear. After routing Clemson to reach the Sweet 16, the Wildcats were sent to McNichols Arena in Denver for a rematch with Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV Rebels.

UNLV had been the West’s leading basketball power in the 1980s, going 165-23 in the previous five seasons and reaching the 1987 Final Four. And although the ’89 Rebels had considerable talent with guards Greg Anthony, Anderson Hunt and defensive stopper Stacey Augmon, most thought UNLV was a year away from another Final Four.

But in the Sweet 16 in Denver, neither the Rebels nor the Wildcats flinched. An Elliott jumper over Augmon gave Arizona a 67-65 lead in the final minute. But everything changed when Arizona was called for a traveling violation with 29 seconds remaining.

After working the clock to the final five seconds, Hunt positioned himself to shoot a 3-pointer over Arizona guard Kenny Lofton, the UA’s top defensive player. What happened next will be debated forever.

Hunt appeared to push off, giving Lofton a forearm to clear space for a shot.

Lofton fell to the court. There was no whistle from an official.

Anderson’s 3-pointer swished. UNLV won 68-67 as Elliott’s career came to a tearful end.

Olson described his team’s loss as “bitter.” Elliott embraced his mother, Odiemae, in a corridor outside the UA locker room and wept on her shoulder.

The Wildcats finished 29-4, gone too soon, a loss that took years to process.

Among the dozens of applications to become the first-ever football coach at Mountain View High School included one that stopped the hiring process in its tracks, one that sounded too good to be true.

Wayne Jones’ resume included the following:

Quarterback, Purdue Boilermakers, 1956-59.

Head coach, Marion High School (Indiana), undefeated state champions, 1968.

Assistant coach, Purdue and Cincinnati, 1970-76.

Assistant coach, Arizona, 1977-1978.

Not only that, in 1987 Jones and his family lived near the new high school on Tucson’s far northwest side.

The Mountain View administration acted quickly. It offered Jones the job only to learn that it had rushed the process, eager to hire a man of Jones’ qualifications and get started. It was forced to reopen the coaching search and force Jones to reapply.

Jones, who had left coach Tony Mason’s Arizona staff in 1979 to become a sales executive for a national industrial supply firm, was aching to get off the road and back into coaching. Once all the t’s were crossed and i’s dotted in the hiring process, Jones was again a coach.

It wasn’t easy. The Mountain Lions went 0-10 his first season, 1988.

But as the school grew, Jones’ coaching chops became manifest. By 1991, Mountain View went 9-2, reaching the state quarterfinals. A year later, Jones’ club went 10-2, losing to undefeated state champion Sabino in a thrilling semifinal game, 14-10.

And in 1993, Mountain View didn’t lose a game, going 14-0 — so dominant it routed Sahuaro 63-32 in the state championship game at Arizona Stadium.

Jones didn’t do it by himself. He surrounded himself with top assistant coaches, such as 1970s Arizona football standouts Mike Dawson and Paul Schmidt.

With most state championship seasons, a little serendipity is involved, and Jones’ Mountain Lions had their share of good fortune. Before the 1991 school year, Gerard Schmidtke — a dentist from Stevens Point, Wisconsin — relocated his family and dental practice to Tucson. They moved to the new North Ranch development, about a mile from the Mountain Lions’ football field.

The Schmidtke family included sophomore running back Kevin and freshman quarterback Gabe. By the ‘93 season, they had become the leading faces of Tucson prep football.

Kevin Schmidtke gained 2,522 yards his senior season, giving him a career total of 5,410 — by far the highest total in Tucson prep football history and a state record. Gabe Schmidtke was a dual-threat quarterback who would go on to accept a scholarship to play at Oregon State.

The Game of Year in Tucson prep football in 1993 was a showdown between Mountain View and Sabino, played before 7,500 fans at Tucson High School on a chilly December evening. Kevin Schmidtke rushed for 193 yards and got considerable help from offensive linemen Mike O’Haver and Robert Sentelle, as well as all-city linebacker Ben Lee and lineman LeJon Brown, who blocked a late-minute field goal attempt to preserve a 25-24 victory.

As I sat in the cold bleachers at THS that night, I became absorbed by Schmidtke’s toughness and talent. In the previous decade I had watched future Pac-10 running backs such as Amphi’s Michael Bates (Arizona), Mario Bates (ASU), Jon Volpe (Stanford) and Sunnyside’s David Adams (Arizona) and thought Schmidtke was a better high school player than any of them.

Schmidtke didn’t have five-star speed or size, but as a 17-year-old, he was unstoppable. He was the kind of player you must have to win a state championship. His career at Arizona was unspectacular — he gained 774 yards as a four-year backup, 1994-97 — but he was a special high school player that comes along once a generation. (He now operates a dental practice in Tucson, near his old high school).

It wasn’t that Jones didn’t suffer misfortune as he built Mountain View’s state championship team. The club’s top lineman, and perhaps the top lineman in the city, Marty Young, tore his ACL in early October and missed the rest of the season.

Jones became an iconic figure at Mountain View, winning 134 games until he retired from coaching in 2006. The football facility at the school was named in his honor in 2016.

All five Pima College starters, including All-Americans Abyee Maracigan and Tia Morrison, exhausted their eligibility in 2010, a memorable season in which the Aztecs finished No. 5 in the NJCAA Division II women’s basketball championships.

That seemed to make the upcoming season a humbling, start-over process.

Yet exactly a year later, in Peoria, Illinois, coach Todd Holthaus’ Aztecs entered the NJCAA Division II Tournament ranked No. 1.

It was one of the epic rebuilding jobs in the history of Tucson sports.

Holthaus wasn’t new to winning. He had coached Flowing Wells High School’s girls basketball teams to a 164-60 record and served as an assistant on UA women’s basketball coach Joan Bonvicini’s staff. Holthaus then agreed to rebuild a long-stagnant PCC women’s program. In his second season, Holthaus coached the Aztecs to a third-place finish in the 2009 tournament.

Word spread. Pima’s 2008 All-American guard Jessie Ingraham had moved on to play at Utah’s Dixie State where she met Deanna Daniels, an all-conference freshman center. Daniels wasn’t happy at Dixie State and was looking to transfer.

Ingraham spoke about the positive and winning culture Holthaus established at PCC. A few months later, Daniels moved to Tucson.

“Deanna was a wrecking ball,” Holthaus says now, 11 years later. “She averaged 18 points and 14 rebounds.” She became the ACCAC Player of the Year and a first-team All-American.

Pima’s 2010-2011 team was on the launching pad.

In late December of 2010, Pima upset No. 2 Parkland College of Chicago in a Christmas tournament. Expectations grew.

Holthaus had recruited one of the most successful girls basketball players in Tucson prep history: Nadi Carey, a freshman guard who had played on both the 33-1 Flowing Wells state championship team of 2008 and the 32-1 Canyon del Oro state championship team of 2009.

Carey, sister of Arizona All-American running back Ka’Deem Carey, was a winner, something of a basketball Swiss Army knife. She averaged 7.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game and was a leading defensive player.

Carey blended nicely with sophomore guard Sara Nicholson, a sub on the 2009-10 club who became an All-ACCAC choice by averaging 11 points per game. Sophomores Gaby Ayon of Rio Rico High School and Patricia Ramos of Peoria High School became steady contributors.

Pima rolled past traditional power Mesa College 61-37 in the region title game, clinching a berth in the NJCAA Division II tournament — a 16-team event in Peoria, Illinois. It would take four victories in five days to win a national championship.

In the opener, Pima beat Genesee College of New York. Daniels had a 26-14 double-double, while Nicholson, Ramos and Ayon all scored in double figures.

A day later, Holthaus’ team beat 28-1 Harcum College of Pennsylvania 74-66 to reach the semifinals, a tense game it won against Iowa Central College, 69-68, as Ayon scored with 3 seconds to play on an offensive rebound put-back.

“We are where we want to be,” said Holthaus. “We understand the difficulty and the caliber of competition. We need 40 good minutes to become a national champion.”

Holthaus was correct about the caliber of opposition. The Aztecs would meet New York’s Monroe College in the championship game. The Lady Mustangs, whose roster was made up of New York City players, had gone 180-35 in coach Seth Goodman’s eight seasons, winning two NJCAA championships.

Unfortunately, the Aztecs lost 78-74 to Monroe in the title game. They finished 26-7.

Holthaus and the Aztecs survived. Daniels accepted a scholarship to Grand Canyon and Carey to Eastern Washington. Nicholson earned a scholarship to Concordia. Holthaus would coach Pima College to a third-place finish in the 2016 NJCAA finals and a fifth-place season in 2019.

Unlike so many other high school sports in Arizona, state volleyball championship games aren’t staged in NBA arenas, 60,000-seat football stadiums, spring training baseball facilities or historic softball venues like Hillenbrand Stadium.

In May of 2010, Catalina High School coach Heather Moore-Martin was informed her boys volleyball team would play 2006, 2007 and 2008 state title dynamo Catalina Foothills in the gymnasium at Pueblo High School.

They made the best of it.

About 1,000 of the Trojans, who had won 42 consecutive matches leading to the state championship game, filled the south side of the bleachers. Catalina didn’t disappoint, winning its first state championship in any boys sport since the tennis team won it all in 1989.

After the match, celebrating with his teammates on the Pueblo court, Catalina junior Ryan Graham told me: “It’s a fairy tale. We should be even better next year.”

Almost out of nowhere, Moore-Martin, hired to start a boys volleyball program in 1998, had built Catalina into a state powerhouse. Her 2010 state champs went 21-0 against Southern Arizona opponents with just one contributing senior, Oybeq Kholiqov.

Foothills coach David Thistle, owner of three state championships, was impressed. “If you watch Catalina,” he said, “they don’t make a mistake.”

At the start of the 2011 season, Moore-Martin didn’t temper her expectations.

“We want to be the best team Tucson has ever seen,” she said. “We’re aiming to play volleyball in a way Southern Arizona has never seen before. The senior leadership on this team is unparalleled.”

Bingo.

The Trojans went 29-0 against Arizona teams (it lost twice to California teams in a midseason tournament) and won it all again, this time with an exclamation mark. This time the venue changed — from Pueblo to the gym at Amphi — but the results were the same.

The senior-laden team led by all-city performers Josh DeYoung, Cooper Kowalski, Lorenzo Gonzales and Marcellius Gibbs were rarely challenged.

“We wanted to leave a mark in Tucson volleyball and I feel like we’ve really done that,” said Moore-Martin, who played on Catalina’s 1983 girls state championship team and later coached at Green Fields Country Day School and as an assistant at Pima College. “We dominated all season.”

Most of the ’11 Trojans had played volleyball together since middle school; after they graduated, the only Tucson school to win a boys volleyball title is Cienega (2017, 2022). But what makes the ’10 and ’11 Trojan champs so memorable is that they overcame a declining enrollment. the lack of tradition and participation numbers to become champions at a non-traditional sports school.

Moore-Martin attracted immediate attention. She not only coached the Catalina boys to back-to-back state championships, she also coached the girls team to the 2011 state finals.

She was in demand. After the 2013 season, Moore-Martin was hired to be the girls volleyball coach at Salpointe Catholic. At the time, no Tucson school had won a girls state volleyball championship since the days of Rincon’s Juanita Kingston (1993) and Flowing Wells’ Ed Nymeyer (1991)

Moore-Martin soon proved that her days at Catalina were no fluke.

She has coached Salpointe to state championships in 2016, 2017 and 2020, as well as coaching the Lancers’ beach volleyball team to 2021 and 2022 state titles. That gives her seven overall, putting her in a class with her mentor, Catalina coach Mary Hines, who is often viewed as the leading volleyball coach in Tucson history, any level, any gender.

Moore-Martin is the only girls volleyball coach in Tucson to win a state title in the last 29 years. But it was her work with the Catalina boys teams of 2010 and 2011 that remains groundbreaking and memorable.

A day before Sahuaro High School won the 1992 state softball championship, coach Billy Lopez informed his team that he planned to retire from coaching a week later.

No one could’ve blamed Lopez. He had coached the Cougars to state titles in 1988, 1989 and 1991 with a combined 75-9 record. And in addition to teaching a full schedule of Spanish classes, he had been coaching the Cougars’ freshman football team since 1969, as well as coaching Sahuaro’s wrestling team for 20 years.

Why not go out on top?

Lopez’s Cougars won a fourth state softball championship a day later, finishing 26-3.

But if you check the record books you’ll notice that Lopez didn’t retire at all. He coached Sahuaro to Class 4A state softball championships again in 1993 and 2001, the latter of which was his most impressive of six state titles. The ’01 Cougars finished 36-2 during a period softball became Tucson’s most accomplished sport.

The Cougars’ 2001 state champions were loaded. All-State pitcher Courtney Foster was almost unhittable, finishing the season with 15 straight victories, aided by all-city players T.J. Eadus, Pauline Glenn and Helen Smith.

Again, Lopez told his players that the ’01 state championship game against Catalina Foothills would be his last.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I almost quit last year, but I saw the girls we had coming back and I said I will do it one more year. I will definitely miss it.”

But it wasn’t until 2005 that Lopez ended one of the most remarkable coaching performances in Tucson history. After requiring surgery for a knee injury, Lopez, then 66, said he was retiring from coaching and would teach two Spanish classes at Pima College to stay busy.

He had gone 425-73 as Sahuaro’s softball coach over 17 seasons. His six state championships speak loudly; iconic Tucson prep softball coaches Kelly Fowler of Canyon del Oro, Eric Tatham of Cienega, Amy Rocha of Salpointe Catholic and Amy Swiderski of CDO all have won three state titles.

Lopez is in a class by himself.

“Billy is pretty much the standard by which you measure success in Tucson high school sports,” said former Sahuaro athletic director Bob Vielledent.

And it went beyond wins and losses. Maren Christensen, the Star’s 2001 player of the year, said Lopez “taught me more about being a good person than he did about softball.”

During the sport’s formative years in Arizona, Sahuaro had won state softball championships in 1984 and 1985 under coach Jim Higgins. When Higgins retired, Lopez took over for what he thought would be a few years until the school found someone with a background in softball.

But that never happened.

Lopez, the 12th of 13 children to immigrants from Zacatecas, Mexico, had been an all-city football receiver at Tucson High in the late 1950s and also a sprinter on the THS track team. He enrolled at NAU, earned a degree and taught for four years at Prescott High School before he got a chance to return home.

A year after Sahuaro High School opened, 1968, Lopez was hired to teach Spanish and coach freshman football. Who could’ve guessed that 37 years later he would retire with six state softball championships in the books?

And he really didn’t retire after his softball days. He began coaching Sahuaro’s girls golf team. He was elected to the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Sahuaro Cougar Hall of Fame in 1999.

After retiring, Lopez reflected on his coaching career. “Success is not a game, it is not winning a state championship,” he told the Star. “I always ask my players, ‘What are you going to be doing 10 years from now?’ That’s what matters.”

A small signboard outside the UA’s jumbo Davis Sports Center is meant to remind visitors that from 1967-2011 it was hallowed turf, home of Kindall/Sancet Field.

Arizona’s baseball teams won national championships in 1976, 1980 and 1986 while occupying the field adjacent to McKale Center. It has now been replaced by a 74,000-square foot indoor practice facility that cost $17 million.

But if you close your eyes and try to transport yourself to May 10, 1980, you can imagine the bedlam produced on one of those magical evenings at Kindall/Sancet Field.

That was the night that a record 9,722 fans squeezed into the modest ballpark as Arizona attempted to win its first-ever Pac-10 championship in any sport. The guest of honor? Arizona State.

The Wildcats had a one-game lead over the Sun Devils on the final day of the regular season; getting a berth in the NCAA Tournament was uncertain. Arizona and Cal were 16-13, ASU 15-14. The Sun Devils had won the first two games of the series. Tension grew.

In one of the most celebrated victories of the frenzied UA-ASU baseball series, Arizona won 22-4.

Said UA catcher Don Hyman: “The cream always rises to the top. It was our best game of the year.’’

Three weeks later the Wildcats were in Omaha for the College World Series, where it lost the opener to St. John’s and then generated one of the epic runs in school history, winning consecutive elimination games against Florida State, Michigan, Hawaii, Cal and then Hawaii again to become national champs.

UA coach Jerry Kindall told reporters that the momentum created by that five-game winning streak was such that “There was no way we were going to lose.’’

Tucsonans bought in. The ’80 Wildcats set a single-season attendance record of 113,957, rallying around a team that featured five contributing Tucson high school players: pitcher Ed Vosberg of Salpointe Catholic, shortstop Clark Crist of Palo Verde, and three Catalina standouts: outfielder Scott Stanley and pitchers Joey Kellner and Jeff Morris.

Future major-leaguer Craig Lefferts, who moved to Tucson with his family four years earlier and was a walk-on on Arizona’s 1976 national championship team, was the winning pitcher in the 5-3 victory over Hawaii in the ’80 championship game.

The headliner on the ’80 Wildcat team was junior outfielder Terry Francona — yes, that Terry Francona — who hit .401 and was selected the NCAA player of the year.

The legacy of the 1980 national champs goes beyond a Pac-10 title and an inspiring series of victories in Omaha.

Six of those players reached the major leagues: Francona, Vosberg, leadoff hitter Dwight Taylor, third baseman Casey Candaele, centerfielder Johnny Moses and relief pitcher Greg Bargar. Beyond that, 11 of the 1980 Wildcats have made pro baseball their life’s work.

That’s got to be some type of record for one college baseball team.

Francona was manager of the Boston Red Sox’s 2004 and 2007 World Series championship teams. Today he is the manager of the Cleveland Guardians.

Candaele, who has coached in the big leagues and minor leagues for almost 30 years, is the bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays.

First baseman Wes Clements, who led the club with 14 home runs and was a first-team All-American by the Sporting News, was a long-time minor league coach, manager and radio/TV analyst. He is now a hitting coach for a South Korean pro team.

Vosberg pitched for eight MLB teams from 1986-2002.

Morris has been a scout for the Cincinnati Reds for the last 18 years, and for the Baltimore Orioles eight years previously.

After 40 years in baseball, third baseman Pat Roessler is the assistant hitting coach for the Washington Nationals.

Stanley is a scout for the Miami Marlins and has been employed by MLB teams for 30 years.

Outfielder Alan Regier, also a career professional coach/scout, is an advance scout for the Colorado Rockies.

Lefferts is the Oakland A’s minor league pitching rehab coordinator, with about 20 years of coaching service.

Moses coached for the Mariners, Reds, Braves and Dodgers for 30 years.

Crist is manager of the Appalachian League Pulaski River Turtles, an assignment that followed 30 years as a scout for the Cardinals, Mets, Red Sox, Indians, Reds and Diamondbacks.

What made the journey of the 1980 Wildcats so compelling is that they opened slowly, 17-11 overall, before rallying to win the Pac-10 and national championship, finishing 45-20 overall.

“It was a team whose baseball IQ was exceptional,’’ Kindall told me in 2010, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the championship. “I was fortunate to be able to coach a group of young men like that.’’

The most humbling post-season faceplant in UA sports history probably doesn’t belong to Lute Olson’s 1993 Wildcats, eliminated by 15th-seeded Santa Clara, or Sean Miller, whose 2018 club was bombed by 13th-seeded Buffalo.

It was most likely Arizona’s 1991 men’s golf team, ranked No. 1 after winning the loaded Pac-10 and setting a still-standing school record with eight tournament victories.

At that year’s NCAA finals, Arizona finished a distant 18th by 40 strokes.

Arizona returned all five starters for the ‘92 season but it paled next to ASU, which returned two-time NCAA champion Phil Mickelson, prompting Arizona coach Rick LaRose to say “all the rest of us are playing for second.”

It was difficult to determine if LaRose was using Mickelson’s presence as motivation, or whether he truly thought the Sun Devils were unbeatable. It was probably a combination of both. The Sun Devils were ranked No. 1 when the NCAA finals began in Albuquerque the first week of June, 1992.

This is how good Arizona was: future 10-time Ryder Cup golfer Jim Furyk was the UA’s No. 5 golfer that season, his senior year. The UA was led by 1990 and 1991 U.S. Amateur runnerup Manny Zerman, U.S. Public Links champion David Berganio and senior Harry Rudolph, who led the Wildcats with a 71.5 scoring average that season.

In Albuquerque, Mickelson was as good as feared, and then some. He shot opening rounds of 63-65 — 10 strokes better than anyone else — and ASU took lead by six strokes over Arizona.

Said Zerman: “ASU can’t lose unless Phil doesn’t break 70.”

In Round 3, Mickelson shot 69, but Arizona had a historic round. All five Wildcats broke par: Rudolph at 65, Zerman at 67, Rob McIver at 70 and Furyk and Berganio at 71. It enabled Arizona to take the team lead by six strokes over ASU.

A day later, in the final round, Zerman’s words came true. Mickelson shot 74, and although he won the individual championship — Rudolph was No. 2, seven strokes back — the collective Arizona lineup rose to the occasion and won the national championship.

Zerman and Berganio both shot 70s, Rudolph had 72 and Furyk 73. Arizona won the team title, but not without considerable angst.

“Our lead was down to one stroke at the 14th hole,” said LaRose. “But after that, our guys responded and overcame the pressure. Berganio made 80 feet of putts on the last three holes. Harry and Manny were clutch down the stretch. If that doesn’t happen, we don’t win.”

Arizona beat ASU by seven strokes and No. 2-ranked Oklahoma State by 15 on a week the field in Albuquerque was stacked with future PGA Tour winners such as Mickelson, David Duval, Justin Leonard, Stewart Cink, Mike Weir and Notah Begay.

“I’ve been part of really good teams the last three years,” said Zerman, who grew up playing in South Africa and today is the teaching pro at Miami Shores Country Club. “But we didn’t win a national championship until my last year. We knew we could, but it took a while to get it all together.”

From 1988-2004, LaRose’s Wildcats were a constant threat to win The Big One. The Wildcats finished third in 1990, 2000 and 2001, fifth in 1996 and sixth in 1988 and 1989. But the competition was fierce and the ‘92 team remains Arizona’s only men’s NCAA golf champion.

The future was kind to Furyk, who has earned more than $75 million on the PGA Tour with 17 victories, but Rudolph, Zerman and Berganio struggled to make it on the PGA Tour. Berganio had four top-10s, but bounced on and off the tour before losing his playing privileges in the late 1990s. Rudolph, who grew up playing against Mickelson in San Diego-area junior events, never could secure a PGA Tour card; he instead played for a decade on the Nike, Canadian, Asian, Australian and South America tours.

Zerman chose to make a living as a golf instructor.

“That was a special era,” said LaRose. “We had 15 years or so we were on the cusp of winning a national championship almost every year, but that ‘92 team broke through, beating Mickelson and ASU when no one thought we could.”

Tucson had three must-see high school football rivalries in the early 1990s:

Amphi vs. Sabino.

Sahuaro vs. Sabino.

Mountain View vs. Sabino.

Notice the common denominator?

It was Sabino coach Jeff Scurran, who had coached the Sabercats to a 14-0 state championship in 1990. Scurran’s confident persona stirred strong emotions from Amphi coach Vern Friedli, Sahuaro’s Howard Breinig and Mountain View’s Wayne Jones, all of whom would win state championships themselves.

When Sahuaro and Sabino kicked off the ‘92 season with their heated neighborhood rivalry, Scurran didn’t play the poor-me card. “I think we have the ingredients to win a state championship.” he told the Star.

Sabino won 10-6, after which Breinig, a never-give-an-inch competitor, said “You don’t get any free lunch when you play Sabino. They’re well-coached and disciplined. They’re not going to beat themselves.”

No one was able to beat Scurran’s Sabercats in 1992.

They not only flew to Honolulu to beat Waianae High School 31-12 in the annual Akina Classic, they went 8-0 in Southern Arizona, winning by a cumulative score of 238-37.

Then, as if scripted, the 9-0 Sabercats played 9-0 Mountain View in the final regular-season game. The Sabercats won 14-10, after which Scurran said “there isn’t a weak link in our defense.”

The state tournament was more of the same. Sabino overpowered Phoenix Sunnyslope 31-10, shut out Phoenix Mountain Pointe 36-0 and then rose to the occasion to beat defending state champion Avondale Agua Fria 35-25 in the semifinals.

In the state title game, played at Arizona Stadium, Sabino toyed with Phoenix Washington High School, 28-3, a game in which Scurran chose to play a between-the-tackles game, rushing for 350 yards to out-muscle his Phoenix opponent.

“We don’t have a bad defense,” said Washington coach Steve Chisman, “but we couldn’t bring them down. We took our shots, but we just weren’t good enough. They put a whipping on us.”

Scurran, who is entering his first season as Rio Rico High School’s football coach, led Sabino, Santa Rita, Canyon del Oro and Catalina Foothills to 251 victories and eight state championship games in his Tucson career. He became known as an offensive guru, but in ‘92 he served as both Sabino’s offensive and defensive coordinator.

His ‘92 Sabercats won with defense.

Defensive linemen Jeff Saffer and Travis Miller, linebackers Jason Montano, Chad Brewer, cornerback Corey Hill and defensive back Justus Miller were all-city selections. No wonder Sabino limited its opponents to just 6.1 points per game.

The offense was keyed by quarterback Ben Thrush, who threw just one interception all season, as well as dominant offensive linemen James Johnson and Ian Woodford.

Sabino split its running back duties between Hill, Chase Newell and Brendan Bolton as the Sabercats generated momentum for what might’ve been the most successful decade by one Tucson prep football team ever.

In the ‘90s, Scurran’s Sabercats won 118 games. It’s difficult to determine which Sabino team of the ‘90s was the best. Scurran’s undefeated state champs of 1990 and 1992 are strongly challenged by his 12-1-1 state title team of 1998, and also by his 13-1 team of 1999 in which it stepped up in class, from 4A to 5A, losing only to mega-power Mesa Mountain View in a tense 21-14 state championship game.

After leaving Sabino in 2000, Scurran became the first-ever head coach of Pima College’s football program, opening the school’s brief football era with a stunning upset victory over defending NCJAA champion Scottsdale Community College.

He later coached football-poor Santa Rita to back-to-back state championship games in 2008 and 2009 before taking over an 0-10 Catalina Foothills program and leading the Falcons to the 2016 state finals.

Now, at 74, Scurran has taken command of a Rio Rico team that was 0-8 last season and hasn’t had a winning season since 2013.

It has been 30 years since Scurran’s 1992 Sabino team went undefeated, but he doesn’t seem deterred.

“The game hasn’t changed much,” he said. “If you put in the time and effort — and we will — you”ll win.”

No free lunch, right?

Here’s what it’s like to be an underdog: As a 27-year-old rookie head coach, Brian Peabody coached Class 1A Green Fields Country Day School to the 1991 state championship game.

The Griffins wore patched up uniforms from previous Green Fields teams; some of the colors didn’t fully match. Beyond that, when Peabody’s young team, led by 5-foot-8-inch Ethiopian point guard Sof Astatke, prepared to play undefeated and 24-0 Seligman High School, they felt they were at a disadvantage by not having a cheerleadering squad.

So on that afternoon at Tempe High School, Peabody worked a deal to “borrow” St. David High School’s cheerleaders for the game; St. David had been eliminated earlier.

Peabody’s team won, 61-56.

It was almost 10 years to the day that Peabody, the sixth man on coach Dick McConnell’s powerhouse 1981 Sahuaro High School team, felt the pain of losing to 27-0 Phoenix East High School in the state semifinals.

That might’ve been a career-high for a lot of coaches. The pursuit of championships is sometimes a futile exercise, and few know that more than Peabody.

After leaving Green Fields, he coached Salpointe Catholic to 1997 and 1999 state title games, losing both in heart-breaking finishes. Finally, in 2008, Peabody coached Ironwood Ridge to the state championship.

Yet the coaching challenge of his career awaited.

In the spring of 2013, Peabody agreed to be the head coach at Pima College. Many — most? — coaches would’ve turned and ran from the type of reconstruction job that awaited Peabody. The Aztecs had gone 1-21 in the brutally difficult ACCAC and only offered part-time pay to its basketball coach.

He accepted anyway.

In an Adia Barnes-type building job, Peabody coached the Aztecs to successive records of 15-16, 18-13, 17-14 and 22-13. His fourth PCC team finished seventh in the NJCAA championship tournament. The celebration didn’t last long: all five starters from that team graduated.

No one would have guessed that Peabody and the Aztecs were 12 months away from the single greatest men’s basketball season since the school opened in 1972.

In the 2017-18 season, Pima College went 31-5 and reached the NJCAA championship game. The Aztecs led the nation by averaging 102 points per game and did so by using four Tucsonans extensively in one of the most compelling basketball seasons in city history.

Pima won the ACCAC with an 18-4 record and beat established power Phoenix College for a berth in the NJCAA Division II tournament. The Aztecs had gone 13-1 against Division I schools, which is remarkable. Pima is a Division II NJCAA school, meaning it doesn’t supply its student-athletes with housing and monthly cost-of-living payments.

Cienega High School grad Keven Biggs averaged 17 points a game and became a first-team All-American. Cholla High’s Abram Carrasco, a sixth man, averaged 16.6 a game. Another Cienega product, forward Isaiah Murphy, averaged 15.9 points, while Salpointe Catholic grad Robby Wilson, a walk-on, came off the bench to average 7.8 points and 7.5 rebounds.

Ranked No. 2 entering the NJCAA tournament, Pima rolled. It routed College of Southern Maryland 108-84 in the opener, overpowered Delta College of Michigan 102-94, and qualified for the championship game by beating Highland College of Kansas, 103-88.

The Aztecs lost the title game to No. 1 Triton College of Illinois, 89-85,

“We got everything out of our kids,” said Peabody. “It was such a great season that I think we all walked away with our heads high.”

It wasn’t a fluke; a year later, Pima won 29 games and finished No. 5 nationally.

Peabody has been so successful that a few years ago Pima College began to pay its basketball coach a full-time salary for the first time ever. Talk about well-deserved. Peabody’s career head-coaching record is 620-115 over 30 seasons. He was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.

“I love my situation,” he told me recently. “I love what I do. I love the challenge of it all. I love to compete with the big boys. It’s fun to me. People ask me if I’m applying for another job? The answer is ‘no.’”

If all had gone smoothly, Amphitheater High School might’ve won five consecutive state track and field championships at Arizona’s big-schools level, 1985-89.

After a decade of building the Panthers’ track program, coach Raul Nido broke through in 1985 and led Amphi to the state title.

“This program used to be nothing,” said Nido, who is one of the leading distance runners in Tucson history, winning a state championship cross country title at Sunnyside High School and then breaking the UA’s record in the steeplechase.

By ‘85, the Panthers track team had gone from nothing to something big.

Amphi was led by state championship sprinter Bernie Wharton, who won the 100 and 200; Nido referred to Wharton as “the franchise.” Nido was replaced by an even greater sprinter: Michael Bates.

Bates was a once-a-lifetime athlete, a Parade Magazine running back in 1988 and perhaps the leading football recruit in UA history. Bates won a bronze medal at 200 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and then became a five-time Pro Bowl football player in the NFL.

As an Amphi freshman in 1986, Bates state titles in the 100 meters, 200 meters and in the 110 hurdles. The Panthers finished second in the state finals, but it wasn’t an exaggeration to think that Amphi would win the next three state titles with Bates and his older brother, Marion, among others.

At the ‘87 state finals, Bates was even better. He again won the 100, 200 and 110 hurdles, all in state record times. Joined by his brother, Marion, who was second in the 200 and helped Amphi win the 4x100 relay, Amphi easily won the state championship.

It wasn’t all the Bates brothers, either. Teammate Kurt Browning was third in the long jump, Ed Mandelburg was fifth at 1,600 meters and discus thrower Kurt Nelson was sixth. In two years, Bates had won six state championships while becoming perhaps Arizona’s leading prep football player.

Better yet, he had two years remaining at Amphi.

“People say I’m going to burn out or something,” said Bates. “But I don’t think that will happen. I’m just going to keep getting faster and stronger.”

Which he did. But then outside forces knocked the Amphi program off track.

Nido announced he was resigning from coaching and would not return in 1988.

“I was just being pulled too many ways,” he told the Star. “There wasn’t time to go to school, coach and teach at the same time. Something had to give, so I decided to take a year away from teaching and coaching and go back to school to get a master’s degree.”

By 1990, Nido was the principal at his alma mater, Sunnyside, where he remained for almost 20 years.

Five months later, the Arizona Interscholastic Association placed an asterisk by Amphi’s 1987 state track championship, ruling that one of the Panthers’ distance runners was not eligible. Amphi disputed the ruling. But the asterisk remains.

Under new coach Ron Englehard, Amphi was again the favorite to win the state title, in 1988. But the day before the AAA-South region track meet was held on Amphi’s track, Bates and eight other Panthers showed up for an unsupervised workout.

A rival sprinter athlete reported that he saw a handful of Panthers jogging and exercising at the track. A day later, the Arizona Interscholastic Association ruled those nine Amphi athletes ineligible for the rest of the year. It was like issuing a ticket for driving 56 mph in a 55 mph zone.

When Catalina sprinter Pat Thomas won the 100 and 200 meter events at the region meet a day later, he said: “The medals are like plastic to me.” He had hoped to run against Bates.

No one in Arizona prep sports would run against Bates again. He was forced to miss the state finals for the minor offense of jogging around the Amphi track a day before the region meet.

“We thought the rules pertained to organized practices,” he said. “We were just working out.”

A year later, Bates chose not to compete in the high school track season, partly out of a distaste for the AIA’s ruling and partly to concentrate on completing academic requirements so that he could enroll at Arizona in the fall of 1989.

At Arizona, Bates became a school-record holder in the 100 and 200 meters, winning Pac-10 championships in both events in 1990 and 1991 before leaving school to concentrate on the 1992 Olympics and then prepare for the NFL draft.

Amphi’s track legacy of the 1980s remains intact. The Panthers were the last Tucson school to win the state boys track championship at Arizona’s highest classification.

From 1990 to 2018, Salpointe Catholic’s girls soccer program won six state championships with six different head coaches. I don’t know if anyone keeps statistics on that sort of thing, but it must be a record.

The only constant has been that the Lancers’ girls soccer program has been stocked with such abundant talent that the coach — whoever he or she has been — didn’t have to start at the bottom.

In 1990, Salpointe won its first state championship, finishing a perfect 21-0. It was coached by Matt Panipinto, who then left his position to complete his engineering degree at Arizona.

Panipinto has since gone on to coach at FC Tucson and Pima College and has been a force in Tucson’s growth as a youth and high school soccer power. He is the son of Nina Panipinto, the late wife of Salpointe’s boys coach, Wolfgang Weber, considered by many to be the “Father of Tucson soccer” with nine state championships from 1985-2022.

Once Panipinto established the Lancers as one of Arizona’s elite girls soccer programs, success flowed. It wasn’t a mystery: Panipinto’s 1990 state champs included three of the leading girls soccer players in Tucson history: sophomores Christine Keeley and Kelly Walbert as well as junior Erin Fahey.

It was probably the most talented threesome in Tucson girls soccer history, and 1990 was just the beginning.

When Panipinto departed, Salpointe hired Julian Friend from the Carmelite organization, a religious order in the Catholic church.

In ‘91, Friend’s Lancers reached the state championship game, running Salpointe’s streak to 41-1-1. But it was in ‘92 that Salpointe’s girls soccer program peaked. Behind Keeley and Walbert, the Lancers went 16-0 and breezed to the state title with a 5-1 victory over Phoenix’s Xavier Prep.

It was the last soccer match at Salpointe for Keeley, Walbert and Friend, along with all-city players Erin Trujillo, who scored 15 goals, and midfielder Margo Davis. Talk about going out on top.

Keeley, who signed a scholarship to attend Washington, scored 30 goals. “With her accuracy,” said Friend, “she could score anytime.”

Keeley — now Christine Spencer — ultimately transferred to Arizona and became a team captain and all-conference second team choice. She later coached at Utah and Virginia Tech.

Walbert — now Kelly Cagle — scored 29 goals and had 20 assists. She accepted a scholarship to Duke and became a three-time All-American and the ACC’s 1995 player of the year. She became the head coach at Virginia Tech.

“Kelly is the complete player,” said Friend. “She has the type of talent and desire that allows her to carry a team on her back when necessary.”

Once the ‘92 season was in the books, it took Salpointe six years to win another state championship, 1998. Jill McCartney was the coach. She was followed a year later when first-year coach Alisha Kientzler coached the Lancers to the 1999 state title. Then came a significant down period; Salpointe won its next championship in 2017 under Becky Freeman, and a year later, in 2018, under Kelly Pierce.

Pierce has since established something of a soccer dynasty at Salpointe, winning four state championships in the last five seasons. But no Lancers team since Friend’s ‘92 state champs have been undefeated and untied.

In the days leading up to Arizona’s nationally-televised game against USC on a sunny October afternoon, 1993, Trojans coach John Robinson was quoted as saying: “It’s not acceptable for USC to be an underdog.”

The Trojans were 2-point underdogs that day at Arizona Stadium when a capacity crowd of 58,065 filled every seat. Underdogs? Arizona won with such force, 38-7, that UA offensive coordinator Duane Akina said, “you dream about these kind of games.”

The ’93 Wildcats were introduced to the nation as “Desert Swarm,” leading the NCAA in rushing defense, allowing a hard-to-believe 30.1 yards per game.

What looked like a dream season — Arizona went 7-0 and climbed to No. 7 in the AP poll, the greatest start in school history, then or now — didn’t go as planned.

In Game 8, at UCLA, UA quarterback Dan White and his backup, Brady Batten, both were injured, forcing walk-on Ryan Hesson of Sahuaro High School to play the final 2 ½ quarters. The dream was rudely interrupted as the Bruins won 37-17.

Two weeks later, blowing a 20-0 halftime lead, Arizona lost at Cal on a freak, late-game tipped pass the Bears returned for a touchdown, to win 24-20. It eliminated the 8-2 Wildcats from the Rose Bowl.

About 20 minutes after the game, walking up stairs to his team’s locker room, UA coach Dick Tomey turned to me and pulled a wallet from his back pocket. He opened the wallet, which was about an inch thick.

“I’m as flat as this wallet,” he said.

What looked to be the best season in school history had gone bust at the worst possible time. Cal had lost four consecutive games and critics blamed Tomey for taking his pedal off the gas in the second half, protecting a lead, allowing the Golden Bears to come back.

Now, 29 years later, the perspective is a bit different. Arizona lost to Cal — its best chance ever to go to the Rose Bowl — because it played the second half without four injured starters: safety Brandon Sanders, defensive tackle Jim Hoffman, defensive end Jimmie Hopkins and All-Pac-10 guard Warner Smith.

Tedy Bruschi, who tied the NCAA record with 19 sacks that season, hobbled to the team bus.

“I was banged up all day,” he told me. “But I couldn’t take myself out because we had so many other guys hurt worse than I was.”

The hurt soon vanished.

A week later, before a sellout crowd of 73,185 at Sun Devil Stadium, the Wildcats routed ASU 34-20 to finish 9-2 in the regular season and climb back to No. 16 in the AP poll. A few days later, they were invited to the Fiesta Bowl against No. 10 Miami, then the top program in college football.

There would be no Rose Bowl. but the Wildcats tied for first place in the Pac-10, squared at 6-2 with USC and UCLA for first place. Alas, UCLA won the tiebreaker given its mid-October victory over the QB-thin Wildcats.

If anything could ease the sting of getting so close to the Rose Bowl, it was blowing out Miami 29-0 in the Fiesta Bowl.

The Wildcats were so dominant that day, outgaining the Hurricanes 409-182, that the esteemed Jim Young, Arizona’s head coach in the mid-1970s during a period he coached the Wildcats to back-to-back 9-2 seasons, called it a historic season.

Young, who had retired as Army’s head coach and returned to Tucson to be Tomey’s offensive line coach from 1992-94, told me in the happy locker room that “it’s the biggest win Arizona has ever had. To beat a team of that stature, and to beat them so thoroughly, is about as good as it gets.”

Arizona finished 10-2 and ranked No. 10 in the AP poll.

Looking back, the only thing that kept Arizona from the Rose Bowl was a late fourth-quarter pass to Terry Vaughn that he appeared to catch, only to lose his grip on the ball. It bounced directly into the hands of Cal safety Eric Zomalt, who ran 29 yards, unopposed, for a touchdown that kept Arizona from the Rose Bowl.

I was standing on the 30-yard line at that moment, maybe 10 yards from Bruschi. I asked him about it after the game. “It was a helpless feeling,” he said. “I was standing right there. I wanted to run out and tackle him.”

It remains the most damaging play in UA football history. One dropped pass at the wrong place and the wrong time.

A few years ago, I calculated the odds of a Tucson high school team becoming an undefeated state champion. It was 0.6%.

But what would the odds be of a Tucson team winning back-to-back state championships with twin 26-0 records? Something close to 0.1%, right?

That’s what Catalina Foothills girls soccer coach Charlie Kendrick did in 2006 and 2007. The Falcons were so good they built a 72-0-1 streak. Two years later, Kendrick coached Foothills to another undefeated state championship.

Kendrick, who graduated from Palo Verde High School, went on to play for the UA club soccer team for five years before entering the workforce. His first job: an at-risk school counselor in Eloy.

Before Kendrick found his true calling as a soccer coach, he worked in marketing for the Santa Cruz Pecan Co., and as an Orange Grove Middle School teacher.

After Christie Monroe coached the Falcons to the 2003 state championship, she moved to the East Coast to pursue other ventures. The Foothills administration didn’t take long to promote Kendrick to the job; he had been an assistant coach on the school’s boys soccer team and had been an assistant coach for the Pima College women’s team. He was also heavily involved in the Tucson Soccer Academy, now FC Tucson Youth.

It was the definition of “home run hire.”

In 11 seasons at Catalina Foothills, Kendrick went 246-18-5, which is a 93% winning ratio. He left his post in 2014 with seven state championships and a legacy that will stand for decades.

What makes Kendrick’s undefeated 2007 team stand out is that the day before the state championship game against Cienega High School, he suspended six players for breaking team rules. Four were starters.

Beyond that, starters Alex Baker and Elly Havel were injured in the Class 4A-I championship game, spending considerable time on the bench. Yet Foothills won 1-0 when reserves like Nooria Sufi, Tamra Jones and Kristin Bratton came off the bench with winning performances.

“This is my proudest moment as a coach,” said Kendrick. “Everybody was gunning for us, so you know it didn’t happen by luck.”

A goal by Sara Walker in the 68th minute was the game-winner.

The ‘07 Falcons didn’t lack talent. Lee Ann Felder had been the Star’s 2006 Southern Arizona Player of the Year, and standout players such as Samantha Monahan, Stephanie McCurry and Alex Balcer were all-city selections. Gabby D’Arrigo and Kacy Lebby were strong contributors. Over a three-year period, the Falcons went 76-1-1 and won three state championships.

Kendrick’s teams didn’t lose from Nov. 29, 2004 to Dec. 4, 2007.

Before he stepped away from high school coaching to return to the FC Tucson Youth program, coaching much younger players, Kendrick led Foothills to state championships in 2011, 2012 and 2013. At the time, it was the most state championships (seven) by any Tucson prep soccer coach, boys or girls. It has since been topped by Salpointe Catholic’s boys coach, Wolfgang Weber, who has nine.

Ironically, Kendrick hoped to play for Weber at Salpointe in the early 1990s, but Salpointe didn’t have an orchestra. Kendrick, a cello player, enrolled at Palo Verde, which did.

He made the move pay off. Palo Verde reached the 1991 state championship game before losing to Glendale Cactus High School; the Titans finished 16-3-1. Kendrick became an all-city player at Palo Verde in 1991 and 1992, scoring 33 total goals.

Since Kendrick left Foothills, the Falcons haven’t won another girls state championship.

Michigan’s famed “Fab Four” walked into McKale Center a few minutes before Arizona ended its practice a day before the Dec. 29, 1993, Fiesta Bowl Classic championship game.

Everybody knew the Fab Four’s names and faces: Juwann Howard, Jalen Rose, Ray Jackson, Jimmy King.

A moment later, after Lute Olson excused the No. 12 Wildcats from practice, I was standing next to Jon Wilner, the Star’s beat writer, when Arizona senior guard Khalid Reeves approached.

“When are you going to get me some front-page pub?” Reeves asked in his quiet manner.

Wilner smiled and pointed to the Fab Four. “There’s the front-page pub,” he said without missing a beat.

But that all changed 24 hours later. Reeves scored 40 points as Arizona creamed the seventh-ranked Wolverines, 119-95. By season’s end, Reeves had become a bigger name than any of the “Fab Four.”

“Khalid is as good a player as I’ve had the misfortune to sit on the opposite bench and coach against,” said Michigan coach Steve Fisher.

And he was. The 1993-94 Wildcats won a rugged Pac-10, routed Missouri’s once-a-generation Big Eight champions 92-72 in the Elite Eight and Reeves set a still-standing Arizona record of 848 points in a season. He also set the UA’s season scoring record of 24.2 points per game.

The normally camera-shy guard from New York City led Arizona to a 29-5 record until it ran into Arkansas’ “40 Minutes of Hell” defensive force at the Final Four in Charlotte. The Razorbacks beat Arizona 91-82 as Reeves and fellow All-Pac-10 point guard Damon Stoudamire combined for their least productive game of the season, shooting 2 for 22 from 3-point distance.

Now, 28 years later, the Wildcats are viewed as a colossal success rather than the club that lost to Nolan Richardson’s national champs in North Carolina.

As with most Lute Olson teams, the 1993-94 Wildcats took on all comers. They went 8-4 against top-25 teams, a wickedly tough schedule that included victories over No. 5 Missouri, No. 8 UCLA, No. 9 Oklahoma State, No. 10 Louisville and a road win against a No. 18 Cal team blessed with formidable point guard Jason Kidd.

The Final Four first came into view in the championship game of the Maui Invitational in Hawaii two days before Christmas. Kentucky beat Arizona on a last-second shot, 93-92, but it was enough to convince Arizona fans that two difficult seasons — first-round NCAA losses to East Tennessee State in 1992 and Santa Clara in 1993 — wouldn’t be repeated.

The 1993-94 Wildcats became known as “Thunder and Lightning,” a tribute to the backcourt of Reeves and Stoudamire, who combined to average 42.5 points per game, surely the best guard tandem in school history.

There was nothing superficial about Reeves. A day before Arizona was to meet Virginia in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Sacramento, Reeves was asked about Cornel Parker, Virginia’s defensive hotshot.

A week earlier, ESPN’s Dick Vitale had anointed Parker as the top defensive player in college basketball.

“Who’s that?” asked Reeves, who didn’t mean it as an insult; he wasn’t simply one who didn’t follow much college basketball news.

Parker was suitably motivated, but it didn’t help. Reeves scored 30 as Arizona hammered Virginia, 72-59.

Reeves and Stoudamire combined to score 53 points in the Final Four-clincher against top-seeded Missouri, and although the second-seeded Wildcats celebrated in their locker room, Olson didn’t join in.

In his press conference Olson spent 40 minutes roasting the media for being critical of his club’s first-round losses of 1992 and ‘93.

“I’m bitter,” he said. “I’ve been dealing with this for two years.”

There wasn’t much Olson could say after the Final Four loss. Arkansas, a No. 1 seed, was clearly the better team. There were no tears shed in the UA locker room; the Wildcats had got the most of their material. They averaged a school-record 89 points per game, which has only been topped by the 1997-98 UA club, the defending national champions.

“We weren’t happy just to get to the Final Four,” said Stoudamire. “I think years from now when we look back, we’ll be happy at what we accomplished.”

In the public mind, the most celebrated play in UA sports history — a home run, a buzzer-beating basket, an unforgettable touchdown — is something close to this order:

Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception return to stun Rose Bowl-bound Arizona State in 1986.

Dave Shermet’s walk-off grand slam at the 1986 College World Series, overcoming a 7-0 Maine lead and opening the door for a UA national championship.

Salim Stoudamire’s 3-pointer with two seconds remaining to beat Oklahoma State in the 2005 Sweet 16.

Because women’s college golf doesn’t have a wide audience, few Wildcats fans even know that in 1996, Arizona freshman Marisa Baena authored the single greatest “buzzer-beater” in school history.

In a sudden-death playoff at the NCAA championships, Baena holed a 147-yard 7-iron shot — an eagle — giving Arizona the national title.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Baena, who not only gave Arizona the national championship, but also won the NCAA individual title that hot afternoon near Palm Springs, California.

Who could?

The Wildcats tied San Jose State for the team title after four days of competition and were sent to a sudden-death playoff against the Spartans. All five players from both teams would play the par-5 18th hole; the team with the lowest cumulative score would be the national champion.

As Baena, the UA’s cleanup hitter, stood over her historic approach shot to the green from 147 yards, Arizona needed a birdie to tie the Spartans. The drama intensified. Three times Baena got in position to swing, and then backed away as ESPN personnel hustled to get in position.

“This is the beginning of a really, really good history for the program,” said Baena, who was correct. The Wildcats followed by winning 1997 and 1998 Pac-10 championships and the 2000 NCAA title.

Said Rick LaRose, who served as head coach of the UA men’s and women’s teams from 1995-97: “I’m a little surprised we won it so soon; we don’t have the great depth, but the bottom of our lineup stepped up this week.”

It was a good story. Baena was almost a Wildcat by accident.

A foreign exchange student from Colombia, Baena spent her senior year of high school at Dixie High School in St. George, Utah. She agreed to attend UCLA, but that fell through when she struggled with high school English classes.

UCLA withdrew its scholarship offer in May 1995 and gave it to another recruit. That’s when LaRose and UA assistant coach Tom Brill got strongly involved in recruiting Baena, who had won the World Golf Junior championship when she was 14.

Baena said the most difficult part of becoming eligible at Arizona (or anywhere) was learning English.

“I’d study for three hours a night,” she told the Star. “I’d look up almost every word in the dictionary. It was a long process.”

She was so successful in adapting to the United States that she made the All-Pac-10 academic team in 1996, 1997 and 1998. She was also the NCAA Player of the Year in 1996 and 1997.

The ‘96 Wildcats were unusually young. Baena, a freshman, joined sophomores Heather Graff and Krissie Register to form a strong threesome. At the NCAA meet, Baena opened with a 70 to lead by four strokes on a day of strong winds and 100-degree temperatures. Arizona State, which had won NCAA championships in 1990, 1993, 1994 and 1995 was the favorite, and put itself in position to win again.

Entering the final round, Arizona and Stanford were tied for the lead. ASU was one stroke back.

But in the final round, Baena, Graff and Register rose to the occasion in a tight finish. San Jose State tied for first, with Texas one stroke back and UCLA three behind. ASU finished fifth.

Baena finished second in the U.S. Women’s Amateur that summer, but declined a chance to leave Arizona and turn pro.

“I’ve never taken golf as an obsession,” she told the Star. “I’m not someone who spends four hours a day on the driving range.”

Arizona entered the 1998 season, Baena’s junior year, as a favorite to win another national championship. Baena was ranked No. 1 in college golf. But she suffered a left shoulder injury in February and it lingered for months.

Even though the UA finished No. 3 at the NCAA finals, Baena struggled, finishing 20th overall. UA freshman Jenna Daniels, who would win the 2000 national title, was Arizona’s top finisher at No. 5.

“My life was miserable for the last five months,” said Baena, who turned pro in August 1998. “It made me realize how short your time can be to play golf at the top level.”

Baena’s LPGA Tour career resulted in one victory — the 2005 HSBC World Match Play Championship — and 13 top-10 finishes. She earned $1.9 million in official money before retiring from the Tour in 2010.

Married with two children, Baena today lives in South Florida.

Imagine the softball coaching job market when Stacy Iveson announced she would be leaving Arizona’s staff after the Wildcats won the 2001 Women’s College World Series.

She had coached Salpointe Catholic to the 1993 state championship and then joined Mike Candrea’s staff, helping the Wildcats win the NCAA championship in 1996, 1997 and 2001. She was anything but damaged goods; in her final season at Arizona, Iveson was the coach for All-American pitcher Jennie Finch, who went 32-0.

Iveson, who had been sought as the head coach at LSU, was in high demand.

Ironwood Ridge High School, which would open the 2001-02 school year, offered Iveson its softball coaching job even though she had just become a first-time mother and planned to work part-time only.

It was do-able.

A bit later, Pima College offered Iveson its softball coaching job. The Aztecs were coming off eight consecutive losing seasons and had only six players on the roster.

She chose Pima College anyway. What was she possibly thinking? The Aztecs had a softball budget of just $35,000 a year and a facility badly in need of upgrades..

“Tucson has so many top players,” she told me. “We have more good players than Phoenix, even though Phoenix is so much larger. But so many of our top players leave home. My plan is to give them a reason to stay home.”

Fast forward to May of 2006. In her last four seasons at Pima, Iveson had coached the Aztecs to a 248-38 record and the NJCAA’s No. 3 ranking. Tucson’s top softball players were indeed staying home.

At the NJCAA Region finals at No. 1 Central Arizona College, the defending national champions, Pima rallied to win two straight elimination games as freshman third baseman Kelly Nielson of Sahuaro High School was named the region’s MVP. She was helped greatly by freshman catcher Amanda Duran of Salpointe Catholic High School, who hit an amazing .531 with 22 homers and a nation-leading 114 RBI.

The Aztecs’ top pitcher was also a home-towner; Canyon del Oro High School grad Dana Alcocer went 27-3 with a 1.82 ERA.

Seeded No. 4 in the NJCAA championship tournament, Pima College won the national championship in Plant City, Florida, winning five straight games over four days.

“To go undefeated in this tournament against the best teams in the country is so great,” said Iveson, who had been a schoolgirl standout at Catalina High School and played on Candrea’s first two Arizona softball teams in the late 1980s. “They were in such a zone that I just wanted to get out of their way and let them do their thing.”

Her modesty worked.

The ‘06 Aztecs went 60-11 after starting the season 19-0. In the NJCAA finals, they beat teams from Ohio, Missouri, Texas, Iowa and Florida to win it all. Alcocer, who had been the Star’s 2005 Southern Arizona Player of the Year, was the national MVP.

It wasn’t a total surprise. Iveson had coached PCC to the 2004 national championship with a 70-8 record, with a lineup stocked with of Southern Arizona players.

The ‘06 Aztecs weren’t a Cinderella story. Amanda Duran, the star catcher, would go on to become an All-Big 12 catcher at Nebraska, hitting .364 as a Cornhusker. Alcocer accepted a scholarship to Purdue and won 15 games as a junior. Outfielder Cyndi Duran of Salpointe Catholic played a key role for Arizona’s 2007 Women’s College World Series champions.

“We took advantage of our local talent,” said Iveson, who would accept the head coaching position at rival Yavapai College in 2008 and win NJCAA championships in 2009 and 2011. “I was just fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”

Iveson returned to Tucson and rejoined Candrea’s UA staff in the summer of 2011.

The reason Tucson has long been considered a baseball town is because Tucson High School won a remarkable 26 state baseball championships from 1912-1959.

But Tucson High’s place as a baseball juggernaut then paused as newer schools such as Sahuaro, Rincon, Catalina, Santa Rita and Canyon del Oro became state baseball champions.

The Badgers’ good old baseball days seemed to be gone forever as Tucson’s population center shifted and competition intensified.

But in 1987, Tucson coach Tom Lundy created not just a flashback to the Badgers’ glory days but triggered one of the most successful four-year periods of high school baseball in Tucson history.

Lundy surrounded himself with one of the leading coaching staffs in the state, often referring to himself as the “coordinator of the program.” His staff included Tony Gabusi, who would go on to coach Catalina High School to a state championship; Oscar Romero, who would succeed Lundy and win 488 games for the Badgers until he retired in 2018; and one of the Badgers’ top players of the 1960s, Willie Morales Sr.

And then the talent rolled in.

The Badgers won back-to-back state championships in 1987 and 1988 with rosters that included pitcher Craig Bjornson, now the bullpen coach for the New York Mets; Edgar Soto, who became the head baseball coach and athletic director at Pima College; Eric Tatham, who would go on to coach Cienega High School to four state softball championships; and future major-leaguers Wiliie Morales Jr. and Tavo Alvarez.

It has been more than three decades since the ‘88 Badgers went 28-2, completing the season with a 22-game winning streak to win a second consecutive state championship, but it’s difficult to imagine any team in Tucson history having two more dominant players than Morales and Alvarez.

Morales, a four-year starter at catcher, still owns the career hits record for Tucson prep baseball, with 153, believed to be the second-highest total in Arizona history. He became an All-Pac-10 catcher for Arizona in 1993 before becoming a catcher for the Baltimore Orioles in 2000.

Alvarez went 30-5 as a Tucson High pitcher over three seasons after moving to Tucson from Cuidad Obregon, Mexico. Alvarez, at 6 feet 4 inches, was the Shohei Ohtani of Tucson prep baseball. When not pitching, he hit .502 and .486 with 14 homers in his last two seasons at Tucson High. Alvarez was the 40th overall draft pick of 1990, and reached the Montreal Expos’ pitching rotation in 1995.

It all came together in 1988 as Mike Leon became a shutdown pitcher, posting an 11-1 record with a 2.07 ERA. Leon had incomparable bloodlines. He is the son of the top baseball player in Tucson High history, 1960s shortstop Eddie Leon, a two-time Arizona All-American who played eight years in the major leagues.

Infielder Robert Hernandez hit .401, first baseman Vance Costelow hit .421 and Morales, a sophomore, hit .475. Alvarez was 8-1 as a pitcher, beating Phoenix South Mountain in the state semifinals to set up a championship showdown against Tempe McClintock.

Trailing 4-2 in its final at-bat, Tucson rallied to win 6-4 when Hernandez hit a three-run double and relief pitcher Phillip Bejarano came on in the bottom of the seventh for his 10th save of the season.

“It’s a never-say-die outfit,” said Lundy, who would retire from coaching to become the Badgers’ athletic director a year later. “When I get back to Tucson, I think I’ll have to dye my gray hair black.”

The 1980s might’ve been the most competitive years of high school baseball in Tucson history. Amphi, Sahuaro, CDO, Santa Rita and Tucson all won state championships at the big-school’s level. The coaches, such as Sahuaro’s Hal Eustice, CDO’s Roger Werbylo and Santa Rita’s Dan Moore were among the top in the state.

But the ‘88 Badgers were the best of the decade.

With Alvarez and Morales returning for ‘89 and ‘90, Tucson appeared to be in position to win four consecutive state titles, but it didn’t happen because the Badgers were unable to deploy a reliable No. 2 pitcher to back up Alvarez.

The ‘89 Badgers went 22-5 with Alvarez was the city’s player of the year, and the ‘90 Badgers went 21-5 as Alvarez went 13-1 with 100 strikeouts, while Morales hit .507 with 10 home runs.

The Tavo and Willie Show concluded its three-year run, 1988-90, with a 71-12 record and a state championship, which remains the last of Tucson High’s 29 state baseball titles.

To win the 2021 NJCAA national championship, Pima College men’s soccer coach Dave Cosgrove was pushed not just to overtime against the No. 1 team in the nation, but to a tense penalty kicks, winner-takes-all showdown.

As Cosgrove consulted with his assistant coaches the pressure grew. He had little time to pick five Aztecs, knowing that anything less than five successful kicks would likely mean defeat.

Here’s the lineup he chose, in order:

Manny Quiroz, sophomore from Sunnyside High School.

Sam Lossou, sophomore from Rincon/University HIgh School.

Jesus Virgen, freshman from Sunnyside High School.

Christian Gutierrez, freshman from Cholla High School.

Francisco Manzo, sophomore from Salpointe Catholic High School.

Cosgrove’s choices endorsed the quality of soccer in Southern Arizona.

All five PCC players sunk their penalty kicks as the Aztecs beat No. 1 Essex Community College of Baltimore County in the NJCAA championship game in Wichita, Kansas.

Beyond that, Pima’s goalkeeper, Juan Suarez of Desert View High School, was the man who blocked two Essex kicks. Talk about a homegrown victory.

Essex entered the match 19-0-1. PIma was 17-1-2. It might’ve been the most compelling soccer game of the 543 Cosgrove has coached since taking charge of PCC’s men’s soccer program in the late 1990s.

“We’ve been very fortunate in both of our national championship games,” said Cosgrove, an Amphitheater High School and UA grad who also coached Pima to the 2018 national championship.

“Essex was so good and sent so many things that created real problems for us. With the penalty kicks, anyone can win, anyone can lose. My heart breaks for those kids because they were really good tonight.”

Cosgrove had been on the other side, coaching the Aztecs to the NJCAA championship game in 1999 and finishing No. 3 in 2015 and 2017.

His 2021 team might’ve been his best yet. They outscored opponents 74-29. Their only loss was to then-undefeated 17-0 Arizona Western College in the final game of the ACCAC regular season; AWC went on to finish No. 3 in the NJCAA Division I championships.

“Our kids have worked really hard for this,” said Cosgrove. “I think they deserve it. There’s an old adage that says coaches lose games and players win games, and certainly this week, this entire year and the last two years, we’ve had the right players to win a lot of games.”

Six months earlier, in June 2021, the delayed 2020 season, delayed and often interrupted by COVID-19 issues, PCC reached the NJCAA semifinals with a 12-1 record. It lost to Southeastern Iowa Community College. But this time the Aztecs beat Southeastern CC 2-0 in the quarterfinals.

Cosgrove’s team then beat No. 4 Georgia Military College 2-0 in the semifinals as Manzo scored the deciding goal and Suarez blocked all GMC shots on goal.

“I feel relieved. It’s a big dream all of us have and a dream come true,” said Suarez.

“Essex was a very tough opponent; very disciplined, very organized and good players especially their Japanese players. We stayed disciplined in the back, kept our shape and defended with our lives.”

Suarez finished the title game with 14 saves. Suarez along with sophomore Ulysses Torres of Sunnyside High School were named to the All-Tournament Team. Lossou and Brian Vu, a sophomore from Rincon/University High School, were named first-team NJCAA All-Americans.

After a welcome-home celebration at the Pima College gymnasium, Cosgrove couldn’t hide his tears while trying to describe what it meant to win a second national championship.

“We’ve come so far,” he told me. “This isn’t an overnight success.”

To get a perspective on Cosgrove’s career, he now ranks No. 4 of all active NJCAA men’s soccer coaches with 392 victories. He trails just Steve Clements of Tyler (Texas) JC, with 507 wins; Jim Kelly of Dupage (Illinois) JC, with 493 victories; and Pepe Aargon of New York’s Herkimer JC, who has 407 wins.

All those men have coached at least five more years than Cosgrove, who is 392-119-32 and had to overcome the ACCAC’s men’s soccer dynasty at Yavapai College — national champs in 1990, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2008 — to become the most successful men’s junior college soccer program in the West.

It took the 1991 Tucson Toros 147 days to play 148 games, and almost every night the Toros would be introduced to a new player in the clubhouse: one who had been sent down from the parent Houston Astros or called up from Double-A Jackson Generals, or those acquired from other organizations as sort of a “last chance” opportunity.

The club made 128 player transactions in ‘91, and the only constants in the starting lineup from Game 1 to Game 148 were center fielder Kenny Lofton and right fielder Eric Anthony.

About the only others to see every game of the epic 1991 season were manager Bob Skinner, pitching coach Brent Strom, general manager Mike Feder and radio announcer Vince Controneo.

The ‘91 Toros were a real-life version of the movie “Bull Durham,” capped by two of the most unforgettable baseball games in Tucson history.

To put the ‘91 Toros in perspective, they spent most of the 1980s in or near the Pacific Coast League cellar. It was a there’s-no-joy-in-Mudville franchise. But in 1988, Chicago real estate developer Rick Holtzman bought the Toros for $3.4 million, changed the team’s colors, logos, hired a new GM and insisted on hiring a manager with a recognizable baseball name.

Indeed, Skinner, a former Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star outfielder — a key part of the Pirates’ magical 1960 World Series championship over the New York Yankees — had previously managed the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies.

Among the 45 players deployed by the ‘91 Toros were former Arizona Wildcats infielders Casey Candaele and Dave Rohde, ex-Wildcat pitcher Ed Vosberg and Lofton, who had been the UA’s starting point guard on Lute Olson’s No. 1-ranked 1989 basketball team.

After two building seasons, Skinner managed the Toros to the 1991 PCL playoffs with a 79-61 record, its best in 11 seasons. Attendance soared, climbing from 186,270 to a still-standing franchise-record 317,347.

Qualifying for the PCL playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, the Toros were first assigned a best-of-five series against Colorado Springs. In Game 4, at Hi Corbett Field, Holtzman listened over the phone from his real estate office in Chicago.

It wasn’t cheap; 30 years ago a long-distance call from Chicago to Tucson to hear the KTKT-AM radio play-by-play, cost close to $100 for a three-hour game. But Holtzman was rewarded: Anthony hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to advance the Toros to the finals against the Calgary Cannons.

It final series didn’t look good. Calgary won the first two in the best-of-five series, which returned to Tucson for Game 3.

Tucson won Game 4, forcing a winner-take-all showdown on a Friday night at Hi Corbett Field. Among the crowd were ex-Wildcat basketball legend Steve Kerr and Tucson mayor Tom Volgy. This time, Holtzman, the owner, flew to Tucson for the game.

A sellout crowd of 8,919 squeezed into the ballpark. Feder famously said he thought he “might’ve been able to sell 30,000 tickets” had capacity allowed.

Predictably, as if on a movie script, the game was tied with one out in the bottom of the ninth as Lofton, the hometown hero, stepped to the plate with pinch-runner Trinidad Hubbard on first. The crowd stood and cheered.

Lofton, who hit .308 with 40 stolen bases and 18 triples, hit a line shot down the first base line that ricocheted off the first baseman’s leg. He was safe. The drama intensified.

The next batter was career-minor leaguer Joe Mikulik, who had only been summoned to the Tucson roster as playoff insurance two weeks earlier. He lined a single to right field as Hubbard scored with a head-first slide.

The celebration began instantly. The Toros’ champagne shower moved from the field to the clubhouse. Commemorative “PCL champs, 1991” T-shirts immediately went on sale to fans who stood 20-deep in lines almost until midnight.

“With us being a dormant franchise for so long, this is beautiful,” said Strom, the pitching coach who had played for the Toros in the 1970s and lived in Tucson for more than a decade.

Said Feder: “This is a major turning point in the franchise, a gigantic step.”

He was correct. Tucson drew more than 300,000 fans for each of the next five seasons and won the 1993 PCL championship, leading to an affiliation with the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks in 1998 and the move to a new facility, Tucson Electric Park.

Arizona opened the 2020-21 women’s basketball season ranked No. 7 nationally and quickly ran off a seven-game winning streak. Then the Wildcats lost to Stanford.

Undeterred, Arizona soon won seven consecutive games again, returning to the No. 7 ranking — and then lost to Stanford.

As a season interrupted by COVID-19 continued, so did the Arizona-Stanford pattern. On April 4, the Wildcats and Cardinal met for the national championship at the Alamodome. Arizona had won five straight. Stanford? It had won 19 straight and was 30-2 overall.

“If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat Stanford,’’ said Arizona coach Adia Barnes, who seemed to relish the opportunity. “Nobody’s going to be scared.’’

Indeed, the ’21 Wildcats created a storybook ride through the NCAA Tournament, a strange and unpredictable journey in which all games were played in San Antonio, most without fans allowed in the arena.

After opening with a blowout victory over Stony Brook, the Wildcats rallied to overcome BYU’s 43-39 lead in the final four minutes to win 52-46 and reach the Sweet 16.

Senior point guard Aari McDonald soon became the lead story of the NCAA Tournament. She had 31 points in a blowout over third-seeded Texas A&M in the Sweet 16, then followed with 33 points and 11 rebounds in a decisive victory over fourth-seeded Indiana in the Elite Eight.

“We’re in the Final Four,’’ said McDonald, a spitfire, 5-foot, 6-inch point guard who was the Pac-12’s player of the year. “It’s a dream come true.’’

Few, if any, expected much more out of Arizona than a competitive performance against No. 1 UConn, which was 28-1 and had outscored its opponents by an average of 82-52 per game. Coach Geno Auriemma, who had coached the Huskies to 11 national championships, was anything but awed by McDonald and the Wildcats.

UConn was playing in its 15th consecutive Final Four.

Arizona? It hadn’t even been to a Sweet 16 since 1998.

But on the greatest day in UA women’s basketball history, Arizona stunned UConn in the Final Four, taking a 48-34 lead and winning 69-59 as McDonald scored 26 points.

“I literally would not have believed it if you had said we’d make it to the Final Four, let alone beat UConn and reach the championship game,’’ said UA junior Sam Thomas. “I’m speechless. It’s incredible.’’

Barnes and the Wildcats had been in San Antonio for 18 days, isolated in a hotel across the freeway from the Alamodome except for practice sessions and games. For Barnes, it was work times two. She and her husband, assistant coach Salvo Coppa, were in a large hotel suite with their two children, 6-month old Capri and 5-year-old Matteo.

“The games were almost like a break for us,’’ said Barnes. “But we never lost sight of what was at stake.’’

The Stanford-Arizona championship game was played on Arizona’s terms, which meant defense-first. The crowd of 4,604 — about 13,000 under capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions — watched as every possession seemed to be a battle.

Finally, with six seconds remaining, Arizona forced a turnover, trailing 54-53. Barnes called timeout. Everyone in the arena and an estimated ESPN audience of 4 million strongly suspected that McDonald would get the ball for the deciding shot.

They were right.

Stanford double-teamed McDonald but she somehow got off a 3-pointer at the buzzer. It missed. Stanford won.

“My heart is broken,’’ said Barnes. “But that last play was going to be Aari or nothing. That’s my decision as a coach.’’

Arizona probably couldn’t have played much better. Stanford had outscored its opponents by an average of 78-53.

That didn’t stop an emotional McDonald from crying during a post-game interview. “We were so close, we fought to the end,’’ she said. “It’s a game I’ll never forget.’’

Outside the Alamodome, workers hired by the NCAA hurried to put large “NCAA CHAMPIONS’’ signs on three Stanford buses parked next to three Arizona buses. Initially, one of those signs was mistakenly placed on an Arizona bus, before the workers realized their mistake and placed it on the Stanford bus.

That’s how close the ’21 Wildcats came to being national champions. One missed shot. One misplaced sign.

Bottom of ninth. Arizona 0, ASU 0. First place at stake on the final weekend of the 2012 Pac-12 regular season.

“It felt like the World Series,’’ said Arizona pitcher Kurt Heyer, who had kept the Sun Devils scoreless for nine innings. “Oh, dude, all hell broke loose.’’

As UA third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean walked to home plate at Hi Corbett Field, the crowd of 5,451 stood as one, joining Wildcat outfielder Robert Refsnyder, who was hugging first base.

Even those of us in the press box stood, fully aware of the meaning. How often do you come upon a game of such drama? I tapped my Star colleague Ryan Finley on the shoulder. “This is as good as it gets,’’ I said.

He nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the field.

Arizona was a game out of first place in the Pac-12. The Wildcats had not won a league championship since 1992.

Mejias-Brean, who grew up a Wildcat fan and was a standout football and baseball star at Cienega High School, lined a shot down the third base line. Refsnyder sprinted around second and saw third-base coach Matt Siegel giving him the stop sign.

“I had no intention of stopping,’’ said Refsnyder. The noise at Hi Corbett was deafening.

As Refsnyder neared home, he pitched himself head first toward the plate, beating the throw and the tag by an eyelash. Arizona won 1-0. He then delivered the quote of the 2012 college baseball season.

“I could smell the win,’’ he said. “I could smell the conference title. I could smell the World Series.’’

A month later, Arizona won the College World Series, capping a matchless postseason in which it went 10-0, outscoring opponents 88-28. Refsnyder was named MVP of the World Series that hot summer night in Omaha, Nebraska.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’’ said Refsnyder, now an outfielder for the Boston Red Sox. “It made me understand how good you have to be to get this trophy.’’

The 2012 Wildcats were no Cinderella story. They had a franchise pitcher, Kurt Heyer, who won 13 games, the most at Arizona since Scott Erickson’s 18 in 1989. They had a core fivesome who would reach the major leagues: Refsnyder, shortstop Alex Mejia, the Pac-12 player of the year, Mejias-Brean and outfielders Joey Rickard and Johnny Field.

Arizona had swept No. 2-ranked Stanford a month before the epic finish against ASU, drew a school-record attendance of almost 80,000 in its first year as full-time tenant at Hi Corbett Field, and played for a coach, Andy Lopez, who knew how to win the big games.

Lopez had coached Pepperdine to the 1992 national championship and coached the Waves, Florida and Arizona to six berths in the College World Series.

As much as anything else, the Wildcats had the “clutch’’ gene. Two days after the stirring 1-0 victory over ASU, the Wildcats again beat the Sun Devils in a bottom-of-the-ninth drama, winning 8-7 on Field’s walk-off single.

Said freshman catcher Riley Moore, who scored the winning run: “This team is destined.’’

The Team of Destiny swept Missouri and Louisville in the regionals at Hi Corbett Field, then swept St. John’s in the Super Regionals on the same field. But it wasn’t until Arizona got to Omaha that its baseball destiny was viewed by a national audience.

The Wildcats beat UCLA and Florida State (twice) before meeting defending national champion South Carolina in a best-of-three series. Arizona won 5-1 and 4-1 without using Heyer, who was being saved for a possible game 3. Young pitchers Konner Wade and James Farris rose to the occasion on the biggest stage, both yielding just one run against the Gamecocks.

“I feel like I can walk on air right now,’’ said Heyer after watching Brandon Dixon’s ninth-inning double and Bobby Brown’s steady contributions help Arizona win its fourth baseball national championship, joining those in 1976, 1980 and 1986.

A day later, more than 5,000 fans greeted Lopez and his players in a celebration at McKale Center, at which Lopez said “it’s been a long time since I’ve been part of something like this. I forgot how good it feels.’’

There has been no conclusive agreement about the best all-around athlete in Tucson history.

From world-class sprinter and all-state running back Joe Batiste of Tucson High in the 1930s to Cholla HIgh’s Vance Johnson, an NCAA long jump champion and three-time Super Bowl receiver of the 1990s, it’s a close call.

Olympic sprint medalist and NFL all-pro Michael Bates, maybe? NFL quarterback and all-state baseball and basketball standout Fred Enke? Or how about four-time rodeo world champ Sherri Cervi of Marana, who was also a basketball whiz?

But there is little debate about which Tucson athlete had an unmatched season of high school sports excellence — Sahuaro’s Rodney Peete.

Even though he was only a sophomore in 1981-82, Peete was a first-team all-state receiver — yes, receiver, which seems strange because Peete went on to finish No. 2 in the Heisman Trophy balloting as USC’s quarterback in 1988 and played 16 seasons as an NFL QB — and led Sahuaro to state championships in basketball and baseball.

Peete was a sophomore shooting guard for Hall of Fame coach Dick McConnell’s 1982 state championship basketball team, 28-1, the last Tucson team to win the state title at Arizona’s highest classification.

It wasn’t that Peete was a go-to guy. That was 6-foot-5-inch senior David Haskin, who led the Cougars and the state with a 27-points-per-game average and became part of Lute Olson’s first four Arizona basketball teams. And it wasn’t that Peete was Sahuaro’s leader. That was point guard John Gwozdz, a gamer, perhaps the top defensive player and floor leader of McConnell’s 39 seasons at Sahuaro.

The ‘82 Cougars had it all. Center Andre Lewis averaged 10 points and 10 rebounds a game. Power forward Nick Mueller averaged 14 points and seven rebounds. It might’ve been the best boys high school basketball team in Tucson history.

But in the 69-50 state championship victory over long-dominant Phoenix Union, it was Peete who scored 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting to key the blowout before 7,186 at ASU’s Activity Center.

“We were in control all the way,” said McConnell, then 53, who could go on to coach at Sahuaro until 2007, adding back-to-back state championships in 2000 and 2001 and bow out with 774 victories, then No. 1 in Arizona prep history.

“We dictated tempo, shot better and did a much better job rebounding. I kept expecting (Phoenix Union) to make a surge but they didn’t because we kept our poise.”

If that’s not a description of a state champion, what is?

Sahuaro’s only loss in 1981-82 was a classic 65-64 thriller against rival Santa Rita, then a state power, in the region championship game. The loss didn’t slow the Cougars down. They blew through the state playoffs with double-figure victories over Phoenix Greenway, Phoenix St. Mary’s and Phoenix Union, which had won 16 state basketball championships.

McConnell was not one to publicly compare his 1982 championship team to his first of four state champs, the 1970 Cougars, only the second team in the history of Tucson’s then-new eastside school.

But he did say that it was a luxury to have someone of Peete’s skills combined with veteran starters Haskin, Gwozdz, Muller and Lewis. After the ‘82 state championship game, McConnell said: “Rodney played like a veteran. He kept learning during the year but tonight he could’ve given lessons on how to play an all-around game. He was super.”

Two months later in the state championship baseball game, Peete was the starting pitcher and leadoff hitter in a 6-3 victory over Phoenix Brophy Prep. Peete had not started a game as a pitcher all seasons but pitched 6 ⅔ innings and was the winning pitcher. He also had two hits, keying a loaded lineup that included future first-round draft pick Sam Khalifa and first-team all-state players Wes Kent and Joel Estes.

Peete played only one more season at Sahuaro, 1982-83, before moving to Kansas with his family for his senior year. Peete’s father, Willie, had been an Arizona assistant football coach for 13 seasons before accepting a job on the Kansas City Chiefs staff.

A year later, Peete chose to attend USC over Arizona.

But his sophomore season at Sahuaro remains one for the record books.

The championship game of the 1986 College World Series was a bit daunting for Arizona fans. The Wildcats were to play No. 1 Florida State, which had won a national-record 61 games. The Seminoles starting pitcher on that night in Omaha, Nebraska, was All-American Mike Loynd. His record: 20-2.

Yet the Wildcats, winners of 48 games, spoke not in terms of awe, but in terms of possibilities.

“Beating Florida State would put us on the map as far as Arizona baseball history is concerned,” said leadoff batter and second baseman Tommy Hinzo. “We would be remembered.”

Now, 36 years later, the ‘86 Wildcats are definitely remembered.

Arizona beat the No. 1 Seminoles that night, 10-2, taking a 10-0 lead on two-run homers by Gar Millay and Mike Senne, and adding an exclamation point when Hinzo stole home.

“The hitting this season has at times been awesome,” said UA coach Jerry Kindall, who earlier coached Arizona to College World Series championships in 1976 and 1980. “But these young men also learned from and overcame adversity.”

The ‘86 World Series is remembered more for Arizona’s Game 1 victory over Maine than two victories over the Seminoles. That was the night the Maine Black Bears took a 7-0 lead over Arizona’s record-setting pitcher Gilbert Heredia, who entered the game 15-3, tied for the most victories in school history.

It was the “Remember the Maine” game, and it triggered a memorable run to the national championship.

Arizona cut Maine’s lead to 7-5, and Hinzo walked to lead off the bottom of the ninth. He went to second base on a wild pitch and scored on Senne’s single. Kindall then summoned pinch-hitter Dave Shermet, a sophomore who had lost his starting job two months earlier, getting just seven at-bats down the stretch.

Shermet hit a walk-off, two-run homer, capping the comeback, 8-7.

“It is one of the greatest comebacks I have ever been part of,” said Kindall, who had helped Minnesota win the 1956 College World Series and then played nine years in the major leagues.

Said Shermet: “I couldn’t have walked that ball to the plate any better. It was right down the middle.”

The 1986 Wildcats were one of the most formidable hitting teams in school history. They had a team batting average of .327, then the second-highest figure in school history. It covered up for a team ERA of 5.12. The Wildcats scored 652 runs, second only to the 1974 UA team that scored exactly 700.

The batting order was stocked with future major leaguers: Heredia, Hinzo, shortstop Dave Rohde and third baseman Chip Hale, now the UA’s head coach, Beyond that, the Wildcats had a lineup of terrific college ballplayers such as catcher Steve Strong of Sabino High School, who hit .396 despite breaking his finger in the NCAA Regionals; Senne, an outfielder who was the World Series MVP and drove in 80 runs in the season, a total previously reached only by Arizona All-Americans Terry Francona and Ron Hassey; and first baseman Todd “Sluggo” Trafton, who hit 15 home runs and went on to play for the Triple-A Tucson Toros and 15 years in the minors.

“We put this team together for the short-term,” said Kindall. “We had to fill some holes and we went more heavily on the junior-college system more than we normally do.”

The ‘86 Wildcats started two players from the Bay Area’s Laney Community College: Center fielder Chuck Johnson and pitcher/DH Gary Alexander, who was the winning pitcher in the CWS championship game. They landed Rohde from SoCal’s Saddleback College, Senne from Orange Coast JC and Hinzo from Southwestern College near San Diego.

Arizona finished second in the Pac-10, 18-12 overall, but had to beat ASU in the final series of the regular season to feel secure about getting one of just 40 berths in the postseason. The Wildcats swept the Sun Devils in three games — 9-4, 18-2 and 22-11 — triggering an 8-1 run in what would become an emotional postseason.

Kindall’s wife, Georgia, had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 1985 and would die in 1987. She attended the ‘86 College World Series in Omaha, even though she had a difficult time with her mobility.

“It was pretty emotional,” said Hale, then a junior. “We all knew Coach Kindall was going through a really bad time. We won it for him.”

Rather than type a couple of paragraphs explaining the excellence of the 2013 Salpointe Catholic High School football team, the following 10 regular-season scores are more descriptive:

Salpointe 48, Peoria Liberty 7.

Salpointe 49, Sabino 7.

Salpointe 47, Encino Crespi 7.

Salpointe 46, Sunnyside 0.

Salpointe 40, Tempe Marcos de Niza 7.

Salpointe 56, Mountain View 9.

Salpointe 63, Rincon/University 0.

Salpointe 51, Casa Grande Vista Grande 0.

Salpointe 48, Ironwood Ridge 9.

Salpointe 49, Tucson High 7.

After beating the Badgers, going 10-0 and outscoring its opponents 497-53, Tucson High coach Justin Argraves put the Lancers’ success in perspective.

“They are, quite frankly, the best team in the state of Arizona right now,” he said.

Argraves said what many were thinking. For the first time since Vern Friedli’s 1979 Amphitheater Panthers went undefeated to win the big-school’s state championship — 34 years earlier — a Tucson team appeared to be as good as any of the Phoenix mega-powers, maybe better.

Coach Dennis Bene’s Lancers added an exclamation point to Argraves’ statement in the playoffs. Salpointe crushed Yuma Cibola 54-7, Peoria Liberty 45-14 and Glendale Deer Valley 55-7.

It set the stage for an anticipated state championship showdown against Scottsdale Chaparral, which had won the Division II state titles in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Salpointe rolled, 46-20, before a crowd of about 20,000 at Arizona Stadium.

“For some people, this was a 20-year journey,” said Salpointe assistant coach Rocco Bene, Dennis’ brother. “We just wouldn’t let up.”

Maxpreps.com ranked Salpointe No. 30 of all prep football teams nationally, and No. 2 in Arizona behind 14-0 Division I champion Phoenix Mountain Pointe.

It’s unfortunate the Arizona Interscholastic Committee couldn’t arrange a Salpointe-Mountain Pointe game to determine the state’s true football champion of 2013.

“It has been historical in a sense that this (championship) has meaning to anyone who has ever coached or played at Salpointe,” said Dennis Bene. “Now we can all call ourselves champions.”

Salpointe began playing high school football in 1952. It reached the state finals (but lost) in 1981 and 1991, but it had never deployed a team like the 2013 Lancers, which outscored its opponents 697-101.

Bene paid his dues. Starting in 2009, the Lancers had gone, in order, 9-1, 10-2, 9-2 and 12-2 before winning the big one. It wasn’t a surprise.

Salpointe might’ve had the state’s most valuable player and certainly the most productive, senior Cameron Denson. He caught 19 touchdown passes for 1,453 yards, rushed for 394 yards — including two games as an emergency starting QB — and returned four interceptions for touchdowns.

Denson was surrounded by seven first team all-city players: quarterback Andrew Cota, receiver Kaelin Deboskie, offensive linemen Austin Weaver and Breeon Auzenne, defensive lineman Brandt Davidson and linebackers Taylor Powell and Jake Casteel.

Casteel made a state-leading 167 tackles and Powell made 161, forming one of the most imposing linebacking crews in state history. The second team all-city club featured offensive lineman Gabe Sandoval, defensive lineman Justin Holt, linebacker Kevin Hamlett and defensive back Santiago Nieto.

“The most amazing thing about Cam is that everybody we played knew he was going to get the ball and they still couldn’t stop him,” Bene said. “In my opinion, he’s the best player in the state.”

Bene was an all-city quarterback for Salpointe in the early 1980s before entering veterinary school in Missouri and moving to Nevada to work as a veterinarian. But he soon left that profession to move back to Tucson, work in the family paving/asphalt business and become an assistant coach at his alma mater.

Bene was named head coach in 2001, and soon turned the Lancers into Tucson’s leading high school football program. Salpointe went 184-43 over 19 seasons, which included state runner-up finishes in 2017 and 2018.

“I’ve accomplished about all I can,” Bene said when he announced his retirement in 2019. “I have memories that will last a lifetime.”

Across the last 50 Arizona high school baseball seasons, two teams have gone undefeated: the 1972 Tucson High Badgers, 25-0, and the 2000 Willcox Cowboys, 33-0.

That’s two teams out of about 7,000.

Tucson coach Ray Adkins, hired in 1959, won a state championship in his first season as the Badgers’ coach. If it seemed easy, it wasn’t.

In the 1960s, Adkins coached two of the biggest names in Tucson baseball history, future major-league shortstop Eddie Leon and catcher Rich Alday, who became a Hall of Fame baseball coach at Pima College. Adkins also coached future state championship softball coaches Armando Quiroz of Flowing Wells High School and Bert Otero of Desert View High School. But it took Adkins a dozen years to win a second state championship at THS.

“It was sometimes frustrating,” Adkins told me in 1998. “We were second in 1960 and 1970 and just getting out of Tucson during the playoffs was like winning a state championship.’’

Tucson prep baseball in the Adkins years — 1959-76 — was loaded with elite state championship coaches like Catalina’s Cliff Myrick, Sahuaro’s Hal Eustice, and Rincon’s Gary Grabosch and Lee Carey.

Finally, in 1972, the Badgers not only won another state title but became a team for the ages.

Led by senior pitcher Frank Castro, who went 13-0 with an 0.68 ERA, the Badgers overpowered most opponents. Senior shortstop Ron Hassey, who became a first-team All-American at Arizona and a 14-year MLB catcher, hit .486. Senior first baseman Al Lopez, who was a starter on Arizona’s 1976 College World Series champions, hit .340, and outfielder Mike Odum, who hit .484, was a first team all-state player.

Castro became something of a legend at the ’72 state playoffs, beating Phoenix Carl Hayden, Scottsdale Coronado and Chandler High School by pitching 18⅔ innings in three days, allowing one run and striking out 18.

“I’m not a bit tired, although my arm is a little sore,” said Castro, who had to pitch in relief in the state semifinal and final games as the Badgers fell behind. “Ron Hassey saved me last night and Al Lopez did it tonight.”

In the semifinal victory over Coronado, Hassey’s extra inning single gave the Badgers a 7-6 win. And in an extra-inning state championship game against Chandler, Lopez hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to save a perfect season, 4-3.

Said Adkins: “You get a pitcher like Frank Castro once in a lifetime.”

The genesis of the ’72 Badgers didn’t take place in Tucson but in Asbury, New Jersey, of all places. That’s where Adkins was born and became a 12-time state championship coach before relocating to Tucson in the mid-1950s.

Adkins was a baseball man to the core.

After graduating from Trenton State University, he signed with the New York Giants and hoped to be a major-league ballplayer. After playing with the Class D Milford Giants of the Eastern Shore League, Adkins enlisted the Navy and became an underwater demolition expert during World War II.

When the Navy discovered Adkins’ baseball history, it removed him from harm’s way and sent him on a tour of the East, promoting the purchase of War Bonds to civilians. In my 1998 interview with Adkins, he told me that he was paired with baseball Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Joe DiMaggio on those War Bonds tours.

“I had to pinch myself a few times when I found myself having lunch with Joe DiMaggio,” he said.

Ultimately, Adkins relocated to Tucson, preferring a warmer climate more suitable for coaching high school baseball. After resigning his position as THS’ baseball coach in 1976, he became an assistant principal and Tucson High’s athletic director until 1983.

This is the 50 anniversary of the Badgers’ undefeated season and it’s sad to note Adkins died in 2000, Castro died in 2013 and Lopez passed away in March. The ’72 Badgers were inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

Arizona opened the 2000-01 college basketball season ranked No. 1. Few raised an eyebrow. Every rotation player returned from the 2000 Wildcats, who had been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re loaded,” sophomore shooting guard Gilbert Arenas said on media day at McKale Center. “We should win it all.”

And why not?

Arizona returned power forward Michael Wright, a double-double threat every night. Seven-foot center Loren Woods, the nation’s most feared shot-blocker, was back for his senior season. Junior forward Richard Jefferson was on the cusp of being a first-round draft choice, and the backcourt, with Arenas and sophomore Jason Gardner, might’ve been the best in the country.

The bench included an enforcer, Eugene Edgerson, and versatile Luke Walton, who would play 11 seasons in the NBA.

To this day, the 2000-01 Wildcats probably fielded the best rotation, Nos. 1-7, of any team in school history.

And then on Dec. 30, coach Lute Olson told his team he would be taking a leave of absence to be with his wife, Bobbi, who was desperately ill with ovarian cancer at the university’s medical center.

Bobbi died on New Year’s Day. Everything changed.

Arizona opened the Pac-10 season at home against No. 2 Stanford and lost 85-76. Interim head coach Jim Rosborough didn’t spend much time talking about the loss; a day later Rosborough and the Wildcats sat soberly at McKale Center with about 7,000 fans for Bobbi’s memorial service.

Arizona dropped to No. 21 in the AP poll.

“We’ve found out there’s a lot more to life than basketball,” said Rosborough, who had also stepped in for Olson in an early December loss at UConn. “This is new to all of us.”

A week later, Olson quietly returned to McKale Center and told his staff and players he would be coaching that week’s home games against USC and UCLA.

“It’s hard to enjoy anything the way I once did,” said Olson. “Everything I did, Bobbi did with me.”

Arizona swept UCLA and USC and the Wildcats began a comeback that would lead them to the Final Four in Minneapolis.

That comeback included a memorable 76-75 victory at No. 1 Stanford in early March and was followed by a Sweet 16 victory over Ole Miss and a tense Elite Eight victory over Big Ten champ, Illinois, a game at which UA basketball legends Sean Ellliott and Steve Kerr sat courtside in San Antonio, doing their best to comfort their college coach.

“Coach Olson has probably done the best coaching job of his career,” said Kerr. “I can’t imagine what inner strength it takes for him to concentrate on the basketball coaching at this level.”

A week later, the Wildcats crushed No. 1-seeded Michigan State in the Final Four opener, but it came at a cost. Arenas injured his shoulder and although the Wildcats did not discuss Arenas’ condition publicly, it was later learned that Arenas could barely use his right arm — his shooting arm — without significant pain.

Unfortunately, Arizona had 48 hours to prepare for 34-4 Duke, which was loaded with future NBA players Shane Battier, Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer and Jay Williams.

Dunleavy and Williams, the Blue Devils’ starting backcourt, combined for 37 points, including seven 3-pointers, and Duke beat Arizona, 82-72.

“We’ll be back,” said Gardner. “I think we were the better team tonight, but a few things went against us in the second half that was out of our control.”

Gardner and most Wildcats and their fans were incensed that two or three critical officiating calls in the second half went Duke’s way. Olson didn’t bite when asked about the officiating.

“You’ve all seen the replays,” he said, and walked out of the interview room with two of his daughters.

No one would have guessed that after playing in four Final Fours in 14 years, it would be Arizona’s last such appearance, covering over two decades.

Jefferson, Wright and Arenas all jumped to the NBA draft, forfeiting their eligibility for 2001-02. Woods had exhausted his eligibility. Even Gardner tested the NBA draft process before deciding to come back. He became the lone returning starter in 2001-02.

“I hope our fans understand how difficult it is to win a national championship,” Olson said later that spring. “We had all you could ask for and still came up short.”

The statistician for the 1978 Pueblo High School boys basketball team must’ve been in sports heaven.

According to 1978 newspaper archives from the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson Citizen, the Warriors had two players who averaged triple-doubles during Pueblo’s historic 28-0 state championship season.

Guard Lafayette “Fat” Lever, the state’s player of the year, averaged 20 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists per year. His backcourt mate, Tony Mosley, averaged 11 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.

If you ever come across a basketball team with a pair of triple-double players, contact the statistical people at ESPN or NCAA or NBA to see if any other team, at any level, has done so. Unlikely.

No wonder the Warriors went 28-0 and were named the Star’s basketball team of the century.

Lever and Mosley weren’t the only Warriors selected to the 1978 all-city team. Forward Jeff Moore was also a first-team choice; Moore averaged 17 points and shot 54% from the field. What is remarkable is that Pueblo’s ’78 team did not have a center. Moore, at 6-foot-3, was its tallest starter.

That’s how good coach Roland LaVetter’s state champs were. A fourth Warrior, Pat Adams, was named to the Star’s all-city third team, and Ken Martin was honorable mention. How’s that for a superlative starting five?

Pueblo won back-to-back state championships in 1977 and 1978, and although they cut down the nets, their journeys were not all that similar.

“Last year, we were the Cinderella team,” LaVetter said in preseason 1978. “This year, everybody’s after us. I’m trying to make our kids understand that. Even mediocre teams are going to play well against us.”

It didn’t matter much. Pueblo went undefeated by an average of 17 points per game. It’s closest brush with defeat came in the state semifinals against Phoenix East High School in one of the most nerve-wracking games in LaVetter’s long (26 years) coaching career.

Lever was hobbled with a sprained ankle. Mosley got an elbow in the mouth, knocking a tooth out. Moore had a back injury. To make it worse, Pueblo was unable to get to the ASU basketball arena to get proper treatment for those injuries before the game. A massive rainstorm left many of the Tempe streets flooded, and some blocked to traffic.

Pueblo arrived just 10 minutes before scheduled tipoff and officials did not delay the start of the game.

LaVetter, an old-school coach, chose to play a four-corners offense. A stall. There was no shot clock in 1978 in college or high school basketball, and LaVetter decided that his injured players would not effectively be able to play an up-and-down game against East for 32 minutes.

The stall worked. Pueblo won 29-28 when Lever made two foul shots with 41 seconds remaining and East missed two final shots.

A day later, Pueblo won the state title, defeating Rincon High School, 70-54.

“I think we’re the best team in the state,” said LaVetter, who played basketball at Tucson High School and on the UA freshman team before entering the coaching profession at Mansfield Junior High in 1966. “It was a shame so many of our players were injured. But the kids took the pressure better than their old coach (LaVetter was 38). They were loose.”

And yet Pueblo still went 28-0, one of just four Arizona “big schools” to go undefeated in the last 50 years, joining East’s 1981 team, Phoenix South Mountain’s 1991 team and Mesa Mountain View’s 1995 champs.

If one thing bothered LaVetter in 1978 it was a lack of available funds. He struggled to raise money to pay $180 to buy a color film of the championship game, and then he had difficulty raising enough money to buy his club state championship rings and fund a banquet celebrating their undefeated season.

LaVetter was Pueblo’s boys basketball coach from 1969-80. He went 158-98 before resigning, later becoming the athletic director at Rincon and also the Rangers’ girls basketball coach.

In 2019, Pueblo named one of its two basketball facilities Roland LaVetter Gym, adjacent to Lafayette Lever Gym, named after the state’s 1978 player of the year.

Lever went on to be a two-time All-Pac-10 guard at Arizona State and two-time NBA All-Star with the Denver Nuggets.

Two days before Arizona opened the 1994 softball season, ninth-year coach Mike Candrea didn’t dodge the expectations.

“I can’t remember a year when I was so impressed with us, one through nine in the lineup,’’ he said.

The Wildcats then opened the season with 27 consecutive victories.

By early May, after a 19-game winning streak, Arizona set a Pac-12 record with a 23-1 conference record. Its only losses in the regular season were to No. 7 Fresno State, No. 10 Washington and No. 13 UNLV.

There would be no losses in a perfect postseason. The Wildcats went 7-0, outscoring opponents 38-2 to win a third NCAA championship and finish the year 64-3.

As if on cue, Candrea produced T-shirts that said “Back to Back’’ as his team celebrated its title victory over third-ranked Cal State Northridge in Oklahoma City.

“Man, I thought the Yankees had a tough lineup,’’ said Northridge coach Gary Torgeson. “These are the Tucson Bombers.’’

The ’94 Wildcats were so dominant that six players were selected first-team All-Americans: catcher Leah Braatz, first baseman Amy Chellevold, second baseman Jenny Dalton, shortstop Laura Espinoza, outfielder-pitcher Leah O’Brien and pitcher Susie Parra, who was an incredible 33-1.

“Susie is our God,’’ said third baseman Susie Duarte, one of the nation’s leading defensive players.

Parra had gone 28-3 a year earlier but exceeded that as a senior, winning the Honda Award as the best player in college softball.

Said Candrea: “It was such a fun year to the point I don’t want it to end. I’ve never had a team I enjoyed so darn much because of their work ethic, because of their attitude and because of their ability. When you put all of those things together, you have a dream.’’

In was indeed a dream season, as the Wildcats won their third NCAA championship in four years. The softball community began to compare Arizona’s program with that of once-untouchable UCLA, which had ruled the sport until Candrea was hired at Arizona in 1986.

“I should probably retire,’’ said Candrea. “It’s not going to get any better than this — until we start next year.’’ (A year later Arizona went 66-6 and finished second to UCLA).

Arizona led the nation in six offensive categories in 1994. It had a team batting average of .380. Chellevold, the leadoff hitter, batted .504. Dalton, a sophomore, hit 16 home runs with a .434 batting average. Espinoza, the game’s leading power hitter of the 1990s, hit 30 homers with 95 RBIs in just 66 games. Braatz, a freshman catcher, hit 18 homers, and Evans, a freshman, hit .416 and also went 17-0 as the backup pitcher to Parra.

Candrea became the face of college softball in 1994. He later said the only three free weekends he had from October to the start of the 1995 season were Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.

“I was traveling around the country speaking at clinics literally every weekend,’’ he said. “What I’m most proud of is that we build a foundation of fans at Hillenbrand Stadium.’’

Hillenbrand, in its second season, was the top softball facility in the NCAA. Arizona averaged 1,132 fans. Attendance would soon more than double, as Arizona went on to win national titles in 1996 and 1997.

High school wrestling in Tucson was truly a “minor” sport until the 1970s, unable to gain much traction because the Arizona Interscholastic Association didn’t officially acknowledge wrestling until 1977, at which time the AIA took charge of operating the state tournament.

At the time, no one could’ve guessed that Sunnyside High School’s wrestling program was about to become the most dominant high school sports program in Tucson history.

Some background: Just as Tucson High was emerging as the city’s top wrestling school, Badgers head coach Jack Blabaugh died of a heart attack in midseason of 1964. The Badgers produced the city’s leading prep wrestler of the ’60s, All-American football lineman Bill Dawson, but once Dawson left to play football for Michigan State, new Pueblo High School coach John Mulay and the Warriors took charge.

Mulay became the city’s most accomplished wrestling coach. establishing a Hall of Fame legacy over 26 seasons, winning 1975 and 1992 state championships. But by the time Mulay retired in 1995, Sunnyside had won 14 of the last 17 state titles and to this day has never taken its foot off the accelerator.

In February, the Blue Devils won their 35th boys state wrestling championship since 1979, and for the first time there was some tangible evidence that one Sunnyside wrestling team could be identified as the “best ever.”

Perhaps it’s foolish to try to pick one of Sunnyside’s 35 state championship teams as No. 1, but the 2022 Blue Devils produced eight Division I individual boys state champions, the most in state history:

Sergio Vegas, 113 pounds (40-0 record)

James Armstrong, 120 pounds (37-2)

Carlos Stanton, 126 pounds (43-3)

Christian Rivera, 132 pounds (48-3)

Jaime Rivera Jr., 150 pounds (45-3)

Job Lee, 157 pounds (42-4)

Michael Avelar, 165 pounds (45-4)

Rene Fragoso, 190 pounds (49-1)

A ninth Blue Devil, Audrey Jimenez, won a state title in the 107-pound girls weight class.

The Blue Devils had produced seven individual state champions in 2000 and 2007, and six in six different seasons from 1984-2020. But winning eight of the AIA’s 14 boys weight classes in one season is historic.

And so were the 2022 Blue Devils.

Said coach Anthony Leon: “We were successful because we focused on our effort and not on pressure or expectations.”

Leon knows all about pressure and expectations.

When the Blue Devils were searching for a replacement for coach Bobby DeBerry after the 2011 season — DeBerry had won 14 consecutive state titles — they interviewed Leon, a former Catalina High School offensive lineman and 2002-03 standout wrestler. At the time, Leon was a graduate assistant coach at NAIA wrestling powerhouse Lindenwood College of Missouri.

Sunnyside probably could’ve hand-picked one of Arizona’s prominent wrestling coaches, but believed that Leon had the drive and wrestling intuition to sustain the Blue Devils’ dynasty.

“If you know anything about the sport of wrestling,” Leon told the Star in 2011, “you know how much of an honor it is to be involved with Sunnyside’s program. Anybody could be successful at Sunnyside. I want to take it to a new level, though. I’m confident that when it comes to wrestling in Tucson, that I’m as qualified as anyone.”

This is qualified: Sunnyside has won the last five state championships by a cumulative margin of 366 points.

It’s not like the ‘22 Blue Devils were just a good high school team, either. Rivera signed to wrestle for Army. Fragoso signed to wrestle for ASU. Avelar, who has a season of eligibility remaining, has committed to wrestle for Air Force.

No other Arizona school has won more than 11 state wrestling championships. That’s 24 behind Sunnyside. When Leon boldly said “I want to take it to a new level,” it can now be said that he has been successful in doing so.

In the 20 years before Stacey Iveson coached Pima College to the 2004 NJCAA softball world series, the nation’s most dominant team — think of the New York Yankees of the 1950s — was nearby Central Arizona College.

The Vaqueras won 11 national championships from 1985-2003, the first two by coach Mike Candrea. And when CAC didn’t win the NJCAA title, it often won the region and advanced to the NJCAA World Series, blocking ACCAC teams like Pima College from advancing outside the state.

But in the spring of 2004, Iveson’s Aztecs beat CAC in the region playoffs and moved on to the NJCAA finals in Clermont, Florida, a suburb of Orlando.

Over four days, Iveson’s lineup, dominated by former Southern Arizona high school players, won the NJCAA championship in epic fashion.

Fighting through the consolation bracket, Pima had to win four games on a Saturday to become national champs. Here’s how it went:

9 a.m.: Defeated No. 7 Indian Hills College of Iowa, 8-0.

11:30 a.m.: Defeated No. 1 Indian River State College of Florida, 7-0.

2:30 p.m.: Defeated No. 3 Gulf Coast College of Florida, 12-0.

4:30 p.m.: Defeated No. 3 Gulf Coast College of Florida, 1-0.

When you outscore four elite opponents by a collective 28-0 in one day, there’s no quibbling. You are No. 1.

The 2004 Aztecs were no one’s idea of a Cinderella. They won 35 consecutive games during the season, finished 71-8, and stormed through the ACCAC — probably the nation’s top junior college softball conference — with a 37-3 conference record.

Seven of the nine starters were from Tucson high schools. Kendra Palmer, who stole 42 bases, outfielder Jackie Martinez and .413-hitting shortstop Rebecca Lebsack were from Salpointe Catholic; pitcher Veronica Ralston, who went 28-1 and didn’t allow a run in the final two games, was from Catalina Foothills; first baseman Ashley Monceaux, a first-team All-American who had a team-high 79 RBIs, was from Flowing Wells; and third baseman Lisa Parks, who hit 22 home runs, was from Sahuaro.

Pitcher Nicki Johnson, also from Sahuaro, shut out No. 1 Indian River College in the second of Pima’s four victories that day; Johnson was 57-7 in her two seasons with the Aztecs.

Pima beat Gulf Coast College in extra innings to win the title. A single by Santa Rita High School grad Angela Guerra scored Monceaux for the game’s only run.

“It was a Kirk Gibson-type of moment,” Iveson told me in 2020. “Angela had hurt her leg and couldn’t do much more than limp to first base. I was praying that the right fielder wouldn’t throw her out at first. We had so many heroes.”

Temperatures at the softball complex in Clermont, Florida, that day reached the mid-90s. The humidity wouldn’t quit.

Lebsack, the All-ACCAC shortstop, had to be treated for heat-related issues before the showdown with No. 1 Indian River. The only shade at the softball complex provided by the roof over the dugouts. Lebsack played anyway.

“It was just the longest day,” said Iveson. “But nobody gave in to the heat or to the opponents. I still remember Lisa Parks’ home run over the water tower in left-center field. You couldn’t hit the ball farther than she did, and it won a game for us.”

Iveson wasn’t a one-shot wonder. She coached Pima College to a second national championship in 2006 and then, after moving to Prescott, coached Yavapai College to the 2009 and 2011 NJCAA titles.

She remains one of the leading names in Tucson softball history, coaching Salpointe Catholic to the 1993 state championship and then becoming pitching coach for Arizona’s 1996, 1997 and 2001 NCAA championship. She is now the director of softball operations at Arizona, where she played on Candrea’s first UA teams in the late 1980s.

Four days before undefeated and No, 1-ranked Tucson High was to play in the 1970 state championship football game, coach Ollie Mayfield’s father died in Nebraska.

Mayfield flew to the state where he grew up, spent three days with his family and then returned to Arizona hours before the Badgers were to play Phoenix Sunnyslope for the state title.

“When we saw Coach Mayfield walk into the locker room, it was like nothing could stop us,” remembers Will Kreamer, an all-state lineman. “It was very emotional.”

The Badgers, who outscored opponents 475-138 that season, won 54-16. The 38-point differential was the most lopsided in the history of state championship games for the Arizona’’s highest classification teams until 2018.

“We couldn’t let our coach down,” said Mark Simon, an all-state fullback who would go on to play for the Wisconsin Badgers. “Everything we did was for Coach Mayfield.”

Even the modest Mayfield, a soft-spoken leader, was impressed.

“This is one of the finest teams to ever play high school football in Arizona,” he said.

In the semifinals, Mayfield’s club beat 11-0 Mesa Westwood, 39-34, a deceiving margin in as much as the Badgers outgained Westwood 479 to 262 in total offense.

“They are the best team we’ve played,” said Westwood coach Dave Gates. “They are superior to everything that I’ve seen.”

The ’70 Badgers had no difficulty winning 10 games against Tucson and Southern Arizona teams, routing the No. 2 finisher Salpointe Catholic 41-20 in the division title game before 11,000 fans at Arizona Stadium.

“They don’t have a weakness,” said Salpointe coach Jerry Davitch, who went on to be the head coach at the University of Idaho. “They have more size and speed than I’ve ever seen for a high school team.”

The ’70 Badgers had seven players who signed Division I scholarships, including three 1,000-yard rushing halfbacks: Allistaire Heartfield (1,396 yards), fullback Simon (1,148 yards) and two-way back Derral Davis.

The other Division I recruits were tackle Mike Dawson, who went on to be a second-team All-American at Arizona and a first-round draft pick of the NFL St. Louis Cardinals, Jinx Johnson, Kelly Langford and Marvin Lewis. Kreamer and back Frank Castro, who also played quarterback, were first-team All-State players.

In the decisive victory over Westwood, Heartfield rushed for 170 yards, Davis 119 and Simon 107.

Other standouts on the team included linebacker John Trujillo, end Lonnie Williams, quarterback Anastacio Martinez and linebacker Dick Corral.

“Playing Tucson High in those years was like playing the Big Red Machine,” said Salpointe’s Davitch. “They’d come running onto the field in those red jerseys and you’d just stop and watch. It was a group you get once in a lifetime.”

At year’s end, one national publication dedicated to high school football, Letterman’s Magazine, ranked Tucson High’s 1970 football team No. 7 in the nation.

“That’s nice,” said former THS head coach Rollin Gridley, who had coached the Badgers to a 32-game winning streak in the 1940s, winning four state championships, “but the people at that magazine have never seen Tucson High play. To them, that’s just a team way out West they threw into the rankings because of the record. If they had actually seen (the Badgers) play, they might’ve been No. 1 or close to it.”

A year later, Mayfield coached the Badgers to another state championship, finishing 11-1.

Frank Busch was the NCAA Coach of the Year in 1993, 2005 and 2006, and coached Arizona’s men’s swimming team to consecutive finishes of fourth, fourth, third, second and third place from 2003-07.

That’s the equivalent of five straight Final Fours.

But to become a national champion, Busch had to overcome the Auburn juggernaut, which won five consecutive NCAA men’s titles in those seasons.

Finally, in March 2008, Busch’s Wildcats not only beat Auburn, they outscored the Tigers by 184 points in the NCAA championships at Federal Way, Washington.

“We’ve dreamed of this,” said Busch, who had been Arizona’s coach since 1989. “We’ve talked of this. We’ve wondered how to do it. You realize it’s not magic. It takes persistence and getting enough people on the same page at the same time. That’s the trick, and it all came together.”

The 2008 Wildcats men’s swimming team was loaded. It had the equivalent of an All-American point guard in Albert Subirats, a versatile junior from Venezuela, and an All-American power forward, in freestyler Jean Basson of South Africa.

At the NCAA finals, Arizona incredibly won five events and finished second in six. The Wildcats scored 500½ points to overwhelm runner-up Texas’ 406 and third-place Stanford’s 344.

Subirats won the 100 butterfly, was second in the 100 backstroke and was the key member of two national championship relay teams with South Africa’s Darian Townsend, Brazil’s Nicolas Nilo and Canada’s Joel Greenshields.

Basson teamed with Townsend, Greenshields and Nilo to win a third national title as a relay team.

It reflected Busch’s resourceful recruiting efforts. With just 9.9 scholarships to spread over more than 20 swimmers, Busch didn’t waste much time going head-to-head with established powers Stanford, Cal, Auburn and Texas for the top American recruits.

Instead, he recruited globally and it paid off with a national championship.

“This is all because of Frank,” said Subirats. “He has made us care more about the team than ourselves.”

Busch didn’t rely totally on foreign swimmers. He helped to develop Tucson’s Marcus Titus, a Flowing Wells High School grad, who finished second in the 100 breaststroke. He also acquired All-American Cory Chitwood, a prep star in Kentucky, who finished second in the 200 backstroke.

The 2008 swimming season was rewarding for Busch in many ways. He was named to the USA Olympic team coaching staff, and three years later became the Director of National Teams for USA Swimming. Busch also was inducted into the American Swimming Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2008.

A graduate of Loyola-Chicago, Class of 1973, Busch began his coaching career with his hometown Northern Kentucky Piranhas in the mid-1970s. He then coached the Cincinnati Marlins to national prominence as a club swimming program, which led to his appointment as head coach of the University of Cincinnati swim teams in 1980.

In 1989, Arizona hired Busch from a pool of about 50 applicants. Three years later, he was the NCAA Coach of the Year.

“Frank does it the right way,” said Roric Fink, head coach of the nationally-prominent Tucson Ford Aquatics program and an Arizona assistant coach under Busch’s son, Augie. “He doesn’t cut corners and he doesn’t use loopholes. He treats people the right way.”

After Arizona won the 2008 NCAA championship, Busch and his team was invited to visit President George W. Bush at the White House.

Afterward, Busch sent handwritten notes to more than 100 people who had emailed him, congratulating him for being a national champion.

“It’s the least I can do, I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks,” said Busch. “This isn’t a one-man job.”

Rather than schedule a few softies in a 2011 mid-March softball tournament, Canyon del Oro High School softball coach Kelly Fowler agreed to play seven games in three days against the following:

Mesa Red Mountain, which would win a second consecutive Class 5A-I state championship that spring.

Chandler Basha, which would finish No. 2 in the 5A-I state playoffs.

Traditional 5A-I state softball powers Mesa Mountain View, Scottsdale Desert Mountain and Gilbert Mesquite.

Over those three days, CDO went 7-0 and outscored those opponents 64-27, including a two-game sweep over Red Mountain, then the acknowledged No. 1 softball program in Phoenix.

Two months later, Fowler’s Dorados completed a 35-1 season, winning the 4A-I state championship by beating defending state champion Cienega 11-1 in the title game.

It was a historic season for Canyon del Oro, with both the most victories in a season for a Tucson prep softball team and what I consider the most formidable offense in Tucson prep softball history.

ESPN ranked the Dorados No. 2 in the country. If that’s not the best high school softball team in Tucson history, what is?

Tucson teams have won 54 state softball championships dating to 1980, but matching CDO’s 2011 numbers — and quality of schedule — likely isn’t possible. The Dorados outscored their opponents 407-67, winning the school’s fourth state championship in five years.

Senior shortstop-pitcher Mattie Fowler hit .569 with 17 home runs and a state-record 91 RBIs. She was also 17-0 as the club’s No. 1 pitcher. The coach’s daughter and younger sister of CDO’s three-time state championship pitcher Kenzie Fowler accepted a scholarship to Nebraska.

Junior Kayla Bonstrom hit .554 with 65 RBIs. She was also 10-0 as the No. 2 pitcher. Bonstrom became the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year at Stanford.

Freshman catcher Sammy Nettling hit .444 with six homers and 44 RBIs and went on to become a four-year starter at Northwestern of the Big Ten.

Junior third baseman Sammi Noland hit .422 and accepted a scholarship to Oregon State.

Senior outfielder Kayla Henry hit .566 and became an all-conference player at Grand Canyon University.

The only loss in CDO’s 2011 season was a 2-1 squeaker to Sahuaro in mid-March, breaking a 24-game winning streak. The rivals would have a May rematch in the state semifinals at Cherry Field. This time, CDO won 13-1 to advance to the state finals.

Fowler went 4 for 4 and hit two of the club’s five home runs in the semifinals.

“Obviously, the bigger picture here was that it was the state semifinals,” said Nettling. “But that loss (in March) was in the back of our minds. We had a little vengeance in mind.

“I knew coming in the dynasty this program was, but to actually accomplish what we have this season has been truly unbelievable.”

Two days later, CDO won the state championship by routing Cienega.

“We had the team to do it,” said Kelly Fowler, as CDO hit six home runs in the championship game, a school record.

“Everyone stepped up in their own way this season,” said Mattie Fowler. “But I don’t think anyone saw us being this dominant.”

CDO has won more state softball championships (nine) than any team in Tucson history. Sahuaro has won eight, Salpointe Catholic six and Sabino five. In CDO’s series of state titles, from 1992-2019, it has been coached by five women — Fowler, Kathy McQuown, Dee Dinota, Amy Cislak and Stephanie Nicholson — and produced dozens of Division I college softball players.

But the 2011 Dorados left a legacy of dominance that will stand for years.

As I squeezed to the back of the press box elevator at Arizona Stadium on Oct. 10, 1998, a giddy UCLA assistant football coach announced that “Wildcat fever is over.”

The Bruins had just crushed No. 10 Arizona 52-28 by outscoring the No. 10 Wildcats 21-0 in the fourth quarter.

Going down, right?

Long-suffering Wildcat fans were so dispirited that at the next home game, a mere 39,219 showed up even though Arizona was 6-1 and ranked No. 14 nationally. It was a telling drop from the sellout crowd of 58,738 that showed up for the UA-UCLA game when Rose Bowl chatter engulfed Tucson.

And then everything changed.

Dick Tomey’s Wildcats soon routed No. 12 Oregon 38-3 and reached the final game of the regular season at 10-1, ranked No. 7. In a wild Territorial Cup game, Arizona beat ASU 50-42 and the elevator was suddenly going up, not down.

UA athletic director Jim Livengood sat in the press box that night with Bud Griest of the Tournament of Roses Committee. All that remained for Arizona to play in the Rose Bowl was to beat ASU and then wait for undefeated and No. 2-ranked UCLA to beat the Miami Hurricanes a week later — a game delayed two months by a September hurricane — and Arizona’s long-awaited dream to play in the Rose Bowl would come true.

Alas, the unranked Hurricanes stunned UCLA 49-45 in a wild comeback in Florida. Instead of playing for the national title against No. 1 Tennessee, UCLA would instead go to the Rose Bowl.

“We’ve still got a chance to have the best season in the history of Arizona football,” Tomey said a day later. “We can go 12-1. There’s so much left to play for.”

Indeed, Arizona was invited to play No. 9 Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl and staged a dramatic comeback to beat the Cornhuskers 23-20. The sting of the early-season loss to UCLA — and of UCLA’s loss to Miami — was eased.

Arizona finished No. 4 in the final AP Top 25.

“On our winning drive, we were talking in the huddle, saying, ‘This day won’t ever come again,’” said Arizona’s all-conference receiver, Dennis Northcutt. “We didn’t want to have to live to regret it.”

Said an elated Tomey: “We’ve done everything we can do. I think this team is as good as anyone else.”

The 1998 Wildcats were no fluke. They had perhaps the top offensive line in school history: Edwin Mulitalo, Steven Grace, Bruce Wiggins, Yusuf Scott and Manu Savea didn’t miss a start. They created a space for Pac-12 rushing leader Trung Canidate, who set a modern school record with 1,220 rushing yards.

In the comeback to beat Nebraska, a 68-yard drive to overcome a 20-16 deficit, that line created space for Arizona to successfully run the ball on eight consecutive plays.

The UA defense, one of the best in school history, did the rest. Linebacker Marcus Bell, who had made 21 tackles to beat ASU in the Territorial Cup, made 14 against the Cornhuskers. All-American cornerback Chris McAlister intercepted a pass to stop Nebraska’s final possession. McAlister also blocked a punt.

Bell, McAlister and defensive tackle Daniel Greer were voted to the All-Pac-10 first team. Tomey called Bell, a no-star recruit from tiny St. Johns in northeast Arizona, “the best we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

UA receiver Brad Brennan, a walk-on, caught a touchdown pass against Nebraska. He put the season in perspective, saying: “We begged for respect all year. Now we won’t have to beg anymore.”

Tomey put together one of the leading coaching staffs in UA history for the 12-1 season. His defensive coordinator, Rich Ellerson, is among the best in league history. Defensive backs coach Duane Akina was similarly respected. Linebackers coach Bob Wagner had been the head coach at Hawaii, and first-year offensive coordinator Dino Babers, now the head coach at Syracuse, showed that he was a rising star in the coaching profession.

The ’98 Wildcats played two of the most memorable games in school history, and that’s not counting the Territorial Cup or the Holiday Bowl.

In late September, Arizona rallied to beat No. 20 Washington in Seattle on quarterback Ortege Jenkins’ unforgettable “Leap By the Lake,” when he somersaulted into the end zone for a 31-28 victory in the final ticks of the game.

And on Halloween, the Wildcats clobbered No. 12 Oregon 38-3, a victory so thorough that Bell said: “I know what we’ve got here. It has all come together.”

The ’98 Wildcats didn’t get to the Rose Bowl — one bad quarter in 13 games cost them that dreamy scenario — but they were clearly the best team in school history.

Arizona State was without question the nation’s most dominant college baseball team in 1976. The most feared team, too.

The Sun Devils went 6-0 against Arizona in the regular season. They led the NCAA in home runs. They went 17-1 to win the WAC. They were ranked No. 1 the final two months of the regular season.

More impressively, the ’76 Sun Devils had 13 players who reached the major leagues, including impact players like Bob Horner, Ken Landreaux, Floyd Bannister and Ken Phelps.

Yet it was Arizona that won the national championship.

"It’s like a death in the family," said ASU coach Jim Brock after losing to the Wildcats at the College World Series in Omaha.

The Sun Devils actually extended their 1976 winning streak against Arizona to 7-0 when they beat the Wildcats in the opening game of the College World Series, 7-6, thanks to a dramatic comeback in the ninth inning.

But when the bitter rivals met in a loser-goes-home elimination game a week later, Arizona broke through and won 5-1, after which UA All-American catcher Ron Hassey said: "We got the last laugh. That’s what counts. They are the guys going home. We’re staying."

ASU won 65 games in 1976, then an NCAA record. Arizona won 56, but it wasn’t a matter of "how many" as much as it was "when and where."

It was the first national championship in UA history, the first of what has become four College World Series baseball championships at Arizona. And it was not just the most dramatic but the most appreciated.

Arizona had been so overshadowed by ASU in 1976 that not enough attention was paid to the UA’s strengths.

All-American outfielder Dave Stegman hit .425 with a still-standing school record 91 runs scored and 111 hits. Hassey, of Tucson High, set a school record with 84 RBIs. The Wildcats scored 588 runs, which remains No. 4 in school history.

Pitching? The Wildcats were loaded. Craig Gioia went 15-5. Steve Powers went 12-4. Bob Chaulk was 11-2. Powers was such a talented combo player — pitching and hitting — that he was named the College World Series MVP, hitting .364 in Omaha and beating ASU with a complete game to send the heartbroken Sun Devils home before the championship game.

"There’s a great deal of satisfaction in beating ASU," said Kindall, who had been 8-17 against the Sun Devils in his early UA coaching career. "You can’t deny it and I don’t want to hide it."

The championship game was Arizona vs. Eastern Michigan, of all teams. EMU had future MLB Cy Young Award winning pitcher Bob Welch and pitcher Bob Owchinko, a second-round draft pick who played 10 years in the big leagues. Welch started the title game and was relieved by Owchinko.

It didn’t matter. Arizona rolled, 7-1, which was accurately predicted by ASU’s Brock, who had said "there’s no doubt Arizona will win that game."

As it turned out, Arizona and ASU, teams from the mid-level WAC, were college baseball’s two best teams of 1976.

Arizona was talented top to bottom.

Leadoff hitter Don Zimmerman hit .364. First basemen Al Lopez of Tucson High and Ken Bolek, who shared the position, combined for 21 home runs. Shortstop Glenn Wendt and second baseman Les Pearsey both hit better than .300. Throw in the All-Americans, Hassey and Stegman, and Arizona didn’t have a light touch in its lineup.

When Kindall retired, I sat in his office and asked him to reflect on his national championship teams.

"None of them were flukes," he said. "The ’76 team kept getting better and better as the season went on and overcame one of the best ASU teams I ever saw. I’m not saying it was the best team I ever coached, but they overcame the biggest obstacle. I’ll always treasure that week in Omaha."

The talent and depth needed to win an NCAA swimming championship is, as Arizona coach Frank Busch said in 2008, “off the hook.”

There are 13 individual events, three diving events and five relays. To become a national champion, a team must hope to score at least 450 points.

Nobody just gets lucky.

When Arizona won the 2008 women’s national title, the Wildcats became the first team in history to win all five relay events. That’s 40 points per event, or 200 points.

“When I think of winning all five of those relays, it’s just mind-boggling,” Busch says now. “Nothing can go wrong. Nobody can have an off night. Beyond that, the competition is so difficult that winning all five just doesn’t seem possible.”

But in March 2008 in Columbus, Ohio, Arizona’s five relay teams won ’em all. The Wildcats scored 484 points to defeat defending national champion Auburn by 136 points. The one word that fit the occasion: Historic.

“Deep down,” Busch said that night. “I always felt we’d win one. History moves on to other competitions, but our names will always be down as champions.”

Here’s how it went:

400 freestyle relay: Lacey Nymeyer, Anna Turner, Lara Jackson and Taylor Baughman finished first.

400 medley relay: Annie Chandler, Hailey DeGoila, Ana Agy and Nymeyer finished first.

200 freestyle relay: Nymeyer, Turner, Jackson and Baughman finished first.

200 medley relay: DeGoila, Chandler, Jackson and Turner finished first.

800 freestyle relay: Justine Schluntz, Leone Vorster, Nymeyer and Baughman finished first.

That was 200 of the 484 points Arizona scored. The remaining 284 came in bunches: Nymeyer won the 50 free and finished second in the 200 free. Jackson won the 50 free. DeGoila finished second in the 200 back and third in the 100 fly.

The Wildcats were so deep that swimmers named Ana, Annie, Anna and Andrea combined to score 87 points. Nymeyer alone scored 52.

Nymeyer, a senior from Mountain View High School, the top female swimmer in Tucson history, was overjoyed. A year earlier, the Wildcats finished No. 2 at the NCAAs — they led by 32 points entering the final of three days of competition — and the hurt lingered.

“Being a senior, seeing the years leading up to this, seeing the steps we’ve made, it’s so special,” she told me. “I couldn’t stop crying. We couldn’t stop hugging people. It was by far the best feeling I’ve ever had.”

Busch, whose team was ranked No. 4 entering the NCAA finals, had coached the UA women’s teams to 17 consecutive top-10 finishes. The Wildcats finished No. 2 in 2007, 2000 and 1998. They finished No. 3 in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

“Over the years when I watch championship teams go to the podium, I think, ‘What would it be like?’” he said.

Now he knows. (A week later, Busch coached the UA men’s swimming team the NCAA championship).

At the start of the 2009 season, the UA swimming media guide published memoirs of the those returning from the women’s ‘08 team.

Wrote Ana Agy, of Park City, Utah: “I will never forget winning Arizona’s first swimming and diving championship, at Ohio State. Thinking about how we sang ‘Bear Down’ before we received our trophy still gives me chills today.”

Wrote Annie Chandler of San Antonio, Texas: “Watching our girls dominate in the 800 free relay from Lane 8 is frozen in my mind. It was utter chaos in the bleachers after Coach Busch told us we had something special going on. Jessica Embick started crying, she was so ecstatic as Baughman touched the wall to establish a new NCAA record in an event we were seeded 8th in. The shock and joy seen on my teammates and coaches’ faces is a memory that will never fade.”

Wrote Hailey DeGoila of South Africa: “I knew I was going to Arizona when we went to Coach Busch’s house on my recruiting trip. That’s when I saw how tight the team was, and how they all acted like a big family. Team unity was really what drew me here.”

Wrote Justine Schluntz of Albuquerque: “Coming into my freshman year, I had no idea what I was getting into. I had chosen Arizona because I knew it had a great history of making swimmers faster. My goals were purely individual goals and I had no concept of ‘team.’ As my freshman year began, I realized that the team culture was so overwhelming that there was no way to ignore it.”

A year later, Arizona finished No, 3 at the NCAA finals, followed in 2010 by a No. 4 finish. After finishing fifth at the 2011 finals, Busch resigned to become director of USA Swimming’s national and Olympic teams.

Arizona has not finished in the NCAA’s “Final Four” since.

A few forgotten items about Arizona’s 1997 NCAA men’s basketball champions:

• Neither Mike Bibby nor Miles Simon made the All-Pac-10 first team, but ASU’s Jeremy Veal did (the Sun Devils went 2-16 in the Pac-10).

• Arizona’s fifth-place finish in the Pac-10 was its lowest since Lute Olson’s first season, 1983-84.

• The Wildcats were swept in road series at Cal-Stanford, Oregon-OSU and USC-UCLA.

• Arizona lost four of its last six games before the NCAA Tournament began.

And yet the Wildcats completed the season in a historic way, sweeping No. 1 seeds Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina — a feat not performed before or since.

It was the most unpredictable, unexpected and most unforgettable finish to a season in UA basketball history.

Now that it’s been a quarter-century since CBS’ Jim Nantz uttered the famous words "Simon says championship," my thoughts go back not to that cherished weekend at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis but to the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

In its final regular-season game of the season, Arizona played Cal on a Saturday afternoon in the antiquated Cow Palace because the Bears’ Harmon Gymnasium was in the process of being rebuilt into what is now Haas Pavilion.

I’ve always considered it "Chaos at the Cow Palace," which, in retrospect, was a glimpse of how talented the under-the-radar '97 Wildcats were.

On that day at the Cow Palace, Arizona was coming off an 81-80 loss at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion, which I considered the most difficult road venue in the Pac-10 from 1988-2005. Stanford won on a short jumper by Peter Sauer with 6 seconds remaining.

Olson saw through the loss, recognizing that any team good enough to play the soon-to-be Sweet 16 Cardinal to the wire had many positive variables.

"This was not a negative," Olson said that night at Maples. "We never gave an inch. This is the best we've played all year."

In the road finale at Cal two days later, a capacity crowd of 11,485 squeezed into an arena that had been abandoned by the NBA’s Golden State Warriors 26 years earlier. The shot clocks were placed on a wall behind the basket, not on top of the backboard. The crowd wanted blood. The old California State Livestock Pavilion was a good place to find out how the Wildcats would respond to adversity.

The answer: Very well.

Cal won 79-77 when Michael Dickerson missed a 3-point shot with 4 seconds remaining, but, just as at Stanford two days earlier, it took a talented club to stay close to a Cal team that finished tied for second in the Pac-10 and would reach the Sweet 16 before losing to top-seeded North Carolina.

As the game ended, the adversity multiplied.

Two fans confronted Olson as he walked to the locker room. Security? There was none. One fan got in Olson’s face and flipped him the bird. Another gave Olson a shoulder bump. To his credit, the coach did not punch either of the Cal fans in the nose.

Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood tracked down Cal AD John Kashner and complained about the breach in crowd control. The two ADs argued, face to face, surrounded by fans celebrating a rare victory over an Olson team.

And when the UA locker room was opened to the media, assistant coach Phil Johnson and reserve guard Quynn Tebbs were seen (and heard) in a loud shouting match.

After Tebbs and Johnson were separated, assistant coach Jim Rosborough put the day in perspective.

"This is as tough as it gets in college basketball," he said. "For us to hang in for the last shot in both of these games tells me we’re going to be a difficult matchup for anybody in the tournament. We’ve seen so much adversity this year. Frankly, I like our chances."

Rosborough saw elements that the casual fan did not. He knew that forward Bennett Davison was perhaps the best defensive player of the Olson years. He knew that sophomore center A.J. Bramlett, who averaged 8.1 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, could match up favorably with any center in the NCAA Tournament.

And he knew that Simon’s early-season suspension for academic reasons had allowed sophomore guard Jason Terry, who averaged 10.6 points per game, to develop into a bound-for-the-NBA player, the top sixth man in college basketball.

All of those elements became apparent in the harrowing ride to the Final Four as Arizona overcame down-to-the-wire finishes to beat South Alabama, College of Charleston, 35-1 Kansas and Providence.

The weekend at Maples Pavilion and the Cow Palace were just as difficult, or more, than anything Arizona met in March Madness.

The '97 Wildcats weren't the highest-ranked, most talented or most respected of Olson’s many elite teams, but they remain the only UA basketball team to overcome all the obstacles, persevere and win The Big One.

As champions of baseball’s inaugural Bricktown Challenge in 2006, members of the Tucson Sidewinders got to split $30,000, get measured for a championship ring and drink all of the champagne in the winner’s clubhouse in Oklahoma City.

That came out to about $1,000 per player and coach. The memories were far more valuable.

“It’s something I’m never going to forget,” said Sidewinders star outfielder Scott Hairston, a Canyon del Oro High School grad. “I’m very proud to be part of this year.”

A few moments after the Pacific Coast League champion Sidewinders beat International League champion Toledo Mud Hens, 5-2, Hairston was informed he had been recalled to finish the season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Quite a day, huh?

The Sidewinders won 98 games in 2006, shattering the record 87 for Tucson’s Pacific Coast League franchise set in 1980 and 1995. For one season, the Sidewinders were the best minor-league team on the planet, beating the Salt Lake Bees, Nashville Sounds and Round Rock Express in the expanded PCL playoffs, which put the Sidewinders in a winner-take-all Triple-A championship game against the Mud Hens.

“When you win 90-some games in the minor leagues, it’s incredible,” said Tucson manager Chip Hale, a former UA All-American infielder and now his alma mater’s baseball coach. “It was a storybook-type season.”

And then some.

The Sidewinders began the year minus Hale, who was summoned to the parent Arizona Diamondbacks to coach third base, filling in for the injured Carlos Tosca. When Hale returned to Tucson on May 2, the Sidewinders were 13-12.

Under Hale, the Sidewinders soon went on a 17-3 streak, gained control of the division and clinched the PCL Western Division championship on Aug. 27.

It’s doubtful a Tucson minor-league team was ever gifted with more talent.

Pitchers Mike Bacsik and Micah Owings were both undefeated; Bacsik went 11-0 before joining Team USA at the 2006 Olympic qualifying tournament. Owings also went 11-0 and was the winning pitcher in the Bricktown Challenge game against Toledo.

“When you have two of your leading pitchers go undefeated, you’ve got something special,” said Hale. “But our hitting was just as good, if not better.”

Hairston hit .323 with 26 home runs. All-Star second baseman Alberto Callaspo hit .337 with 42 extra-base hits. First baseman Chris Carter hit 19 homers with 97 RBIs. Outfielder Chris Young hit 21 homers with 96 RBIs.

Utilityman Robby Hammock hit 20 homers with 65 RBIs and third baseman Brian Barden hit .298 with 16 homers and 98 RBIs.

All six of those hitters would be in the big leagues a year later. They filled the gaps left when the Diamondbacks recalled their two leading prospects, shortstop Stephen Drew and outfielder Carlos Quentin, in late July. Both became D-backs regulars.

Typical of most Triple-A seasons, the Sidewinders had 101 player transactions during the 2006 season. Three who started the Triple-A championship game against Toledo — outfielder Jon Weber, catcher Juan Brito and center fielder Donnie Sadler — did not join the Sidewinders until midseason.

Hale made it work, mixing and matching his lineup across six months to produce the most successful professional sports season in Tucson history. Hale was named PCL Manager of the Year and was summoned to the Diamondbacks coaching staff a year later.

The 2006 Sidewinders drew 271,698 fans to Tucson Electric Park, including a season-high 12,935 on July 4. There was abundant excitement. The Sidewinders won 13 home games with walk-off hits.

“This is the most successful and happiest clubhouse I’ve ever been in,” infielder Matt Erickson said after the Sidewinders swept their playoff series against Round Rock in Texas.

From there, the Sidewinders took a 400-mile bus trip to Oklahoma City for the title game against Toledo, aired live on ESPN2.

After each Sidewinders victory in 2006, the Diamondbacks played Gnarls Barkley’s hit song “Crazy.” The lyrics include this line:

“And I hope that you are having the time of your life.”

The 2006 Sidewinders indeed had the time of their baseball lives.

Against all teams except Arizona, UCLA went 62-3 in the 2001 college softball season. The Bruins opened the season ranked No. 1 and had the most imposing lineup in the game:

Three future Olympic gold medalists became All-Americans: Stacey Nuveman hit .445 with 19 home runs, Tucsonan Tairia Mims hit .379 with 17 homers and Natasha Watley hit .442 with an NCAA-leading 56 stolen bases.

And yet the Bruins went 0-3 against Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch.

In the championship game of the Women’s College World Series, Arizona led the Bruins in a tense 1-0 game with Mims and Nuveman leading off the sixth inning. Finch didn’t yield a hit. In fact, Mims and Nuveman went 0 for 13 against Finch at the WCWS.

No one beat Finch that season. She went 32-0, the singular pitching performance in women’s college softball history.

“This was the perfect end to a perfect season,” Finch said after the Wildcats beat the Bruins 1-0 in Oklahoma City to produce coach Mike Candrea’s sixth NCAA championship at Arizona.

The ’01 Wildcats set an NCAA record with 67 victories. They went 37-0 at Hillenbrand Stadium and 31-2 against Top-25 opponents. Finch was Shohei Ohtani before anyone knew who Shohei Ohtani was. In addition to her 32-0 pitching record, she hit .313 with 11 home runs and 57 RBIs, which included three grand slams.

“Every season, we’re supposed to win,” said UA All-American third baseman Toni Mascarenas. “It’s a lot of pressure, but there’s nothing sweeter when it all comes true.”

What made Arizona’s 2001 season so unique was that it won the World Series even though All-Americans Lauren Bauer, the leadoff hitter, Leneah Manuma, the cleanup hitter, went a combined 0 for 21.

“That’s what was so special about this team,” said Candrea. “This team won in so many different ways, whether it was great pitching or great hitting and good defense. We always found a way. The key thing was they never beat themselves.”

It’s difficult, perhaps impossible, to say which of Candrea’s eight national championship teams was best, but when your No. 1 pitcher, Finch, goes 32-0 with an 0.54 ERA — running her winning streak to 40 games — it’s crazy not to pick the ’01 Wildcats.

Or consider this: Arizona’s No. 2 pitcher, Becky Lemke, went 19-2 in 2001. She would’ve been the No. 1 starter for probably every other team in college softball. Lemke was so good that Candrea started her in the WCWS semifinals against the best team in Stanford history, a 54-win squad that included All-American outfielder Jessica Mendoza.

Lemke beat the Cardinal 1-0 with a one-hitter as Mascarenas hit her second game-winning home run of the 2001 World Series.

Lemke struck out 204 batters in 144 innings in 2001, allowing just 72 hits. Yet she paled next to Finch, who struck out 279 batters and allowed just 19 runs the entire season.

Arizona’s No. 3 pitcher, Jenny Gladding, went 14-2. That’s a pitching staff for the ages.

The Wildcats opened the season ranked No. 2 nationally but climbed to No. 1 after winning 31 consecutive games. Its pitching and middle-of-the-lineup production was so good that it enabled Candrea to deploy a shortstop, Allison Andrade, who batted ninth in the lineup and hit just .207. He valued Andrade’s defense and also knew the top-of-the-order punch from Bauer, Manuma, Mascarenas and third-team All-American Nicole Giordano was more than enough to hep Finch and Lemke win a Pac-10 championship with a 19-2 record.

A day after winning the national championship, the ’01 Wildcats celebrated with 2,000 fans at Hillenbrand Stadium.

“It was a dream season,” said Finch, who would run her matchless winning streak to 60-0 a year later. “I’ll remember this forever.”

By early June 1988, Tucson's Network West sports production firm pre-sold about 2,000 copies of "Memories ’88" for $29.99 each — roughly $75 in today’s dollars.

The demand would grow and grow over the next few months.

"Memories ’88" is a 95-minute movie about Arizona’s 1987-88 basketball season produced, directed and written by Tucson sports TV host and emcee Dana Cooper and narrated by CBS Hall of Fame sportscaster Ray Scott.

"This is the year it all came together," says Scott.

The VHS movie ends with the epic Bill Medley/Jennifer Warnes song, "I've Had The Time of My Life," from the 1987 movie "Dirty Dancing."

"I’ve never felt this way before."

By late summer, 1988, it seemed like every person from every walk of life in Tucson had watched and re-watched "Memories ’88."

Tucson had never felt that way about a basketball team, about any team.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime season," Steve Kerr, a point guard on the 1987-88 team, said in the summer of 1995. "I still think about it lying in bed at night."

Cooper, now a senior manager and business consultant in the UA athletic department, spent 230 hours creating "Memories ’88" and putting it to music.

"I don’t know how big the multiplier effect was; how many total people watched it," Cooper says now. "Many people told me they wore out their copy."

Arizona rose to national prominence in November and December of 1987, beating No. 9 Michigan, No. 1 Syracuse, No. 3 Iowa and No. 9 Duke in a four-week period. As Arizona rose to No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time in history, basketball analyst Billy Packer said the Wildcats had "the greatest non-conference season in the history of college basketball."

It became the most memorable season in Tucson sports history, a year in which a basketball team coached by Lute Olson and led by Sean Elliott and Kerr captured Tucson’s hearts and imagination. Olson, Kerr and Elliott became the three most recognizable sports figures in UA history, which remains true today.

Tucson’s image changed almost overnight, from that of a dusty old cowtown to that of a city of winners. The Wildcats went 35-3, reached the Final Four and won the Pac-10 with a 17-1 record.

Don Dickinson, a high school teacher and one of Tucson’s leading tennis instructors and a successful high school basketball coach in the ’80s and ’90s, has closely followed UA sports for almost 40 years.

"That team put the University of Arizona on the map nationally," he says now. "Being from Michigan before moving to Arizona, I couldn't tell you the difference between Arizona and Arizona State, including which was in Tucson or Phoenix.

"The intangibles for the ’88 team revolve around the impact on the Tucson community, nationally establishing Arizona as an equal to Eastern and Midwest basketball and creating a national identity of Tucson as a legitimate resort and winter destination.

"All of this has been the foundational piece of Arizona basketball, of which top basketball coaches like Sean Miller and Tommy Lloyd have been drawn to."

The 1987-88 Wildcats outscored opponents by an astonishing 85-64 per game, a record of the Pac-10/12 years dating to 1978. Elliott averaged 19.6 points per game, Kerr shot an incandescent 57.3% from 3-point range, center Tom Tolbert averaged 14.1 points per game and power forward Anthony Cook 13.9.

Olson took on all comers. In early December 1987, he didn’t back away from an invitation to play No. 3 Iowa — the team he coached to the 1980 Final Four — at the "House that Lute Built," the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

On that emotional night, the fourth-ranked Wildcats won 66-59. In "Memories ’88," Cooper programmed Billy Joel’s hit record "Pressure" to describe the intensity. It was a perfect fit.

Once Arizona beat Iowa in Iowa City, it became obvious that the ’88 Wildcats were something special.

By year’s end, sophomore guard Harvey Mason wrote and produced a popular song, "Wild About the Cats," watched by more than 87,000 on YouTube since 2011 alone. Sings Kerr: "I’ll drill it in from 3-point land."

It was the season of the "Gumbies" and the Ooh Aah Man, two of the staples of the foundation Olson built.

"Thirty-four years later, we can more fully appreciate the 1987-88 Wildcats not so much for what they accomplished on the court, but for who they were as people and who and what they would become in life," Cooper says now.

"The roster produced a combined 17 NBA Championships as players and coaches. They were led by an eventual Hall of Fame Coach deeply in love with his wife. The highly-adored and favored local son Sean Elliott became the National Player of the Year. A tragic hero adopted by an entire community, Steve Kerr, was named the nation’s Most Courageous Player.

"There was the flamboyant loudmouth, Tom Tolbert, and the shy heartthrob, Craig McMillan. The 'Gumbies' bench included an eventual six-time MLB All-Star, Kenny Lofton, a future corporate attorney, Matt Muehlebach, and a budding songwriter, Harvey Mason, who became one of the nation’s leading music producers.

"The most beloved Wildcat team of all-time helped give our community an identity we still embrace to this day."

Arizona ultimately lost to Oklahoma in the ’88 Final Four, prompting a trail of tears from Kansas City back to Tucson. But over the years, those tears were replaced by the memories of a lifetime.