Hansen's Sunday Notebook: New coach Kevin Sumlin focused on Wildcats' possibilities, not limitations

Kevin Sumlin was a 39-year-old co-offensive coordinator for No. 1 Oklahoma on the night the 12-0 Sooners played Kansas State for the 2003 Big 12 championship.

“I was going to get on a plane in Kansas City with Mike Stoops the next day” and become the offensive coordinator at Arizona, he says now.

But all of that fell through when the Sooners were stunned, losing 35-7. Sumlin chose to stay with OU and coach at the Sugar Bowl.

Not moving to Tucson 15 years ago was a career-turning decision for Arizona’s new head coach, who last week was paid a lump sum of about $10.5 million, basically severance pay, by Texas A&M.

Stoops hired New York Jets receivers coach Mike Canales to be Arizona’s offensive coordinator and although no one knew it then, Canales was doomed.

Arizona’s offense was missing a quarterback (and many other things) of Pac-12 skills on a roster that had eroded so thoroughly that Arizona scored its fewest points since 1967. After back-to-back 3-8 seasons, Canales became the scapegoat of a near-impossible situation.

He was replaced after a third year, 6-6, even though he had recruited a program-changing quarterback, Willie Tuitama. But it was Sonny Dykes, not Canales, who was on the scene as Arizona restored its program and regularly filled Arizona Stadium.

On Friday morning, sitting in Rich Rodriguez’s old office — one that had been scrubbed of any trace of the old coaching staff — Sumlin spoke not of limitations, as RichRod often did, but of possibilities.

“We’ve got an attractive situation here,” he said.

In short order, Sumlin has reconnected with dozens of former players who may have felt estranged from the Rodriguez group. On Friday night, Sumlin attended a celebration for Warner Smith, the late Desert Swarm lineman of the 1990s who died of ALS three weeks ago. Tedy Bruschi was there. So were Dan White, Rafell Jones, Rashee Johnson, Brant Boyer, Paul Stamer and lot of Wildcats rarely seen at Arizona Stadium any more.

Sumlin is no stranger to Tucson. Two summers ago, he brought his Texas A&M staff to Tucson to exchange offensive coaching ideas with Rodriguez and his staff, as is common in the business. He spent several days in Tucson on vacation. He ate breakfast at the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.

More recently, Sumlin established a relationship with former UA coach Dick Tomey. While Tomey coached in the Polynesian All-Star game last week in Honolulu, Sumlin kept in contact, especially about re-establishing a Polynesian recruiting connection at Arizona.

Sumlin laughed, saying he hoped Tomey “was keeping notes” of those prospects he coached in Hawaii last week.

To that end, Sumlin is expected to announce the hiring of defensive line coach Iona Uiagalelei this week. After 18 years on the staff at Southern California’s Mt. San Antonio Junior College, Uiagalelei is known as something of a Godfather of Polynesian football in the Inland Empire and other SoCal precincts. He is connected to former UA quarterback George Malauulu, who operates the AIGA Foundation, which specializes in the development of Los Angeles-area Polynesian athletes. Sumlin and Malauulu also met last week.

Sumlin is putting in a foundation instead of getting ahead of himself. By that, I mean he has resisted the temptation to sit down and watch tapes of quarterback Khalil Tate.

“I don’t want any preconceived ideas about my guys,” he said. Sumlin prefers to wait until he transitions from the recruiting season to spring training camp before he evaluates returning personnel.

What he’ll see in spring of 2018 is far different from what Canales saw in the spring of 2004.

On March 5, 1962, the Star published a photo of Tucson High basketball coach Tony Morales sitting on his living room couch with his wife and five kids. They were posing with the state championship basketball trophy. The net that had been cut down that night was still attached to the trophy.

The 21-0 Badgers beat 23-1 Flagstaff for the title, 54-52, in one of the epic games in Arizona prep basketball history.

A week ago, that cherished trophy — with the net still attached — was gently placed on display at the Tucson High Hall of Champions. For years, it was deemed missing.

A few years ago, Don Bacon, a senior on the ’62 Badgers team and for years a coach at Sahuaro High School, spotted the trophy gathering dust in the basement at Tucson High. He quietly rescued it and took it home for safe-keeping.

“From time to time, Don would bring it out for special occasions, like the funerals of (1962 Badgers) Jessie Peoples and Chester Willis,” said Delano Price, a key part of the Badger T Club Hall of Fame and star player for the ’69 THS state championship basketball team. “Recently, I visited with Don and talked to him about placing the trophy in the Hall of Champions. I promised him that I would have the trophy displayed because I know the people responsible for the organization of the trophy case. I also stated that as one of the treasured symbols of Tucson High’s storied sports history, it belongs on display for future Badgers to see.”

Either way, it is a happy ending for one of Tucson’s historic teams.

The sectional finals for the state wrestling tournament begin Saturday at Phoenix’s Desert Vista High School, and Sunnyside senior Roman Bravo-Young takes a remarkable 175-0 career record into the postseason.

Bravo-Young, a three-time state champion, will be looking to surpass the 179-0 career record of Deer Valley’s four-time state champion Jacob Swift. According to the AIA, Swift’s record is the best of those ever to wrestle at the big-school level in Arizona.

Bravo-Young, who has signed to wrestle for No. 1-ranked Penn State, will compete for a fourth state title beginning Feb. 8 in Prescott. There’s even more at stake: Coach Anthony Leon’sBlue Devils could win the school’s first state title since 2013. Sunnyside has won 30 state championships.

Entering the sectionals, the Blue Devils have six wrestlers ranked No. 1: James Brown at 106 pounds; Jesse Ybarra at 113; Manny Garcia at 120; Vincente Loaiza at 126; Bravo-Young at 132; and Matt Rees at 195.

In a week celebrating former UA athletes Nick Foles, Rob Gronkowski and Trevor Hoffman, it might be that the most touching story is that of ex-UA golfer Nate Lashley. At 35, after 13 years on the mini-tour circuit, Lashley finally has PGA Tour privileges. He finished No. 11 on the Web.com Tour in 2017. Last week, Lashley earned $36,706 by finishing tied for 29th in the CareerBuilder Challenge in La Quinta, California. Keep in mind Lashley had played in just one PGA Tour event — the 2005 Chrysler Classic of Tucson — before this season. After the 2004 NCAA regional in Oregon, Lashley’s parents, Rod and Charlene, and his girlfriend, UA student Leslie Hofmeister, were killed in a private plane; it crashed in Wyoming on their return from Oregon to the Lashleys’ home in Nebraska. Lashley has won $75,568 already this year.

Three things to remember about Foles as he prepares for the Super Bowl next week:

1. He initially committed to play for Arizona State and coach Dennis Erickson but later had a change of heart and enrolled at Michigan State in 2007.

2. He was ranked No. 30 of all pro-style QBs by Rivals.com in the Class of 2007. He was ranked behind his future Arizona teammate Bryson Beirne of Honolulu, who ultimately became Foles’ backup at Arizona.

3. Foles married UA volleyball player Tori Moore, whose brother, Evan Moore, an analyst for the Pac-12 Network, was a wide receiver at Stanford and played for the Cleveland Browns.

Arizona grad Kadeem Allen followed his astonishing 46-point outburst for the Maine Red Claws last week with 30 points on Thursday. He now averages 18 points for the G League affiliate of the Boston Celtics. By comparison, ex-Wildcat Nick Johnson, the 2014 Pac-12 Player of the Year, is averaging 10.9 points for the G League’s Austin Spurs. You never know, right? Allen is on the same team with ex-Cal distance shooter Jabari Bird, who leads the Red Claws with 20.2 points per game.

Now the athletic director at South Florida, UA grad Mark Harlan worked his way up in the business, from Northern Colorado and Arizona to UCLA. He is one of the rising stars in the AD business. Harlan last week became one of the few ADs in college football to say he will limit scheduling small-college opponents in the future. “We want to get away from playing (I-AA) schools,” Harlan said. “I don’t think it does us a great service to play too many of those.”

Translation: It’s difficult to sell tickets for low-level home opponents. Fans are more particular now than ever. Arizona’s next six football schedules include Southern Utah, NAU, Portland State and North Dakota State. 

Kevin Sumlin’s old school, Texas A&M, loads up on small colleges; the Aggies play Northwestern State, UAB and Louisiana-Monroe this season, and Texas State, Lamar and UTSA next season. Perhaps eliminating so many weak home opponents is a key to filling more seats at Arizona Stadium.

Washington State hired a new AD last week, Patrick Chun, who had been the AD at Florida Atlantic. The Cougars will pay Chun $650,000 per year. Arizona, by comparison, hired AD Dave Heeke for $500,000 a year ago. Heeke will get a raise to $575,000 next year and $650,000 in 2020.

His five-year contract has an unusual clause: Heeke’s pay in 2021 and 2022 will be determined by president Robert C. Robbins after review of Heeke’s first three seasons. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Heeke’s name is circulated among the possible replacements for retiring Michigan State AD Mark Hollis. That’s Heeke’s home turf; he was born in East Lansing and attended East Lansing High School.

Arizona State AD Ray Anderson last week announced the Sun Devils will finally address the deteriorating condition of Wells Fargo Arena, which opened a year after McKale Center, in 1974. The Sun Devils will spend $160 million to renovate their basketball facility. In the Pac-12, the only basketball facilities that rank below Wells Fargo Arena are Cal’s Haas Pavilion, Oregon State’s Gill Coliseum and Stanford’s Maples Pavilion. One key issue: will Bobby Hurley still be ASU’s basketball coach by the time the $160 million is spent?

Long before Trevor Hoffman was a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, he was a junior third baseman on Arizona’s 1988 team.

In his UA debut, January 1988, Hoffman batted eighth. He was just another guy trying to stay in a lineup that included future MLB players Alan Zinter, J.T. Snow and future Yankees and Mets hitting coach Kevin Long.

The prized recruit on Arizona’s 1988 team was shortstop Rick Lantrip, a 6-foot-2-inch prospect from Visalia, California, who had been drafted in the fourth round by Seattle out of high school.

After the ’88 season, Hoffman was moved to shortstop and Lantrip transferred to Fresno State. He played three seasons in the low minor leagues.

Hoffman, who switched from hitting to pitching after batting .224 for Class A Charleston in 1990, went on to pitch 18 big-league seasons and earn more than $80 million.

The road to Cooperstown, and the Hall of Fame, has more than one route.