Gridiron Guide: Sahuarita leans on tradition at home field
The view west from the home stand at Burton Tingle Field at Sahuarita High School, Tuesday, July 28, 2015, Sahuarita, Ariz.
School: Sahuarita
Name: Earl J. Kelly Stadium, Burton Tingle Field
Address: 350 W. Sahuarita Road
Opened: 1964
The lowdown: Sahuarita’s stadium remains the same as it was five decades ago, geographically speaking, but some of the elements there have changed: The school replaced its natural grass field with an artificial turf and upgraded the eastern bleachers five years ago as part of a stadium improvement project.
Around the same time Sahaurita switched its home sideline from the western to the eastern side, putting the team closer to its locker rooms.
First-year coach Rodney Day, a longtime assistant in the program, said it was strange at first to make the switch, mainly because the sun was now in their faces rather than at their backs.
Don’t miss: The Rock. Just as Notre Dame’s football team touches an iconic sign on its way out of the locker room, the Mustangs have a pregame tradition: Before the players take the field, they touch a large rock on the south end of the home bleachers.
The origins of the boulder are unknown — Day believes it came from a nearby mine because of the hole drilled through it — but it is dedicated to Burton Tingle, who has spent several decades coaching and teaching at Sahuarita. Tingle is still an assistant with the football team.
Biggest game: In 2012, two years removed from a winless season, Sahuarita held off rival Nogales at home in a back-and-forth showdown of two undefeated teams.
The Mustangs had a 14-point lead at the half, but Nogales managed to tie the game at 26 early in the forth quarter before senior Aric Howard returned a kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown to help spark Sahuarita to a 47-33 win in front of a sell-out crowd; the Mustangs went on to finish the regular season 10-0 for the first time in program history.
Performance for the ages: Senior quarterback Calvin Jenkins accounted for six touchdowns in a 42-21 win against visiting Safford in the Division IV state quarterfinals last fall. The victory, Sahuarita’s 12th in a row, sent the Mustangs to the semifinals for the third time ever.
Quotable: “Tradition is the biggest part of what we try to sell down here as a program. We’ve been building it up as we go along and we’ve been pretty successful over the past years and that success helps our tradition build.” — Day
Daniel Gaona
