Eric Rhodes broke the Tucson record for goals, 117, while playing soccer at Desert Christian High School in the mid-1990s.
He topped that last week.
Rhodes coached the UA men’s club soccer team to the national championship in a remarkable six-game sweep, beating teams from Xavier, Miami (Fla.) and Texas, among others.
In Rhodes’ three seasons as the UA’s soccer coach, he is 37-13; he inherited a club that went 3-9 the year before. And he hasn’t done it with imported players.
Three former Tucson high school players made the all-tournament team: Jeremy Siwik and Peter Rudnick of Catalina Foothills and Brian Molina of Flowing Wells. Eleven Tucson players were part of the national championship club.
Rhodes, who was probably best known as a Channel 4 sports anchor about 10 years ago — he is now media director of the Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl — got his club ready for the national championship by playing exhibition matches against, among others, the New York Red Bulls of the MLS, FC Tucson and Phoenix Rising.
It paid off, as the UA outscored its six opponents 19-4 at the national championships.
And, perhaps best, Rhodes’ UA team, which finished second to ASU in conference play, won the national championship in Phoenix.
