Susan Slaughter during her UA days. Photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics
My two cents: New HOF inductees had varied careers, successes
Arizona’s 2015 Sports Hall of Fame class is one of the best ever. What’s intriguing, is how the lives of those being inducted varied after leaving Tucson.
Golfer Susan Slaughter, who won the 1990 NCAA championship, did not make it to the LPGA Tour after suffering a series of injuries in two automobile accidents. She has been a teaching pro near her home in Virginia and is married to a man, Scott Rardin, who owns 27 McDonald’s franchises. The couple has three children.
Erica Blasberg, a consensus golf All-American in 2003 and 2004, never finished in the top 100 of the LPGA money list and, according to Las Vegas police, committed suicide in 2010. She was 25.
Right-handed pitcher Dave Baldwin, who was 12-0 on Tucson High’s 1956 state championship team, and 23-5 in three banner seasons at Arizona, pitched in 176 MLB games. He later earned a UA masters degree in genetics, and a doctorate in engineering. He has become a published author — his autobiography “SnakeJazz’’ is highly recommended — a poet and, at 76, lives in Yachats, Oregon, where he is a part-time librarian.
Former Arizona baseball coach Andy Lopez. Photo by Ron Medvescek / Arizona Daily Star
The other two individual inductees are retired UA baseball coach Andy Lopez, whose career ended prematurely after heart surgery, and UA all-Pac-10 outfielder Trevor Crowe, a 2005 first-round draft pick of the Cleveland Indians whose baseball career was scuttled by injuries, forcing him to retire at 29.
One school. Five Hall of Famers, whose lives couldn’t be more different.
