Rodney Peete played at Sahuaro High School in the 1980s and pitched the Cougars to the state baseball championship, played a key role in their state title hoops team and set city passing records as Sahuaro's QB. Photo by Benjie Sanders / Arizona Daily Star
Most of Southern Arizona’s leading high school athletes of the last five years — including Sahuaro outfielder Alex Verdugo, Canyon del Oro golfer Chris Meyers, Salpointe Catholic basketball player Majok Deng, Rio Rico distance runner Allie Schadler and CDO softball player Kayla Bonstrom — had one thing in common.
All were one-sport athletes.
The days of someone like Rodney Peete pitching Sahuaro High to the state baseball championship, playing a key role on the Cougars’ state title basketball team, and setting city passing records as a quarterback are long gone.
When the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame holds its Class of 2017 induction ceremony and banquet October 29 at the Double Tree Hotel, it will honor not only Peete (who also started at third base on USC’s baseball team while leading the Trojans to the 1988 Rose Bowl) but three of the top multi-sport athletes in Tucson history.
Santa Rita shooting guard Jim Pyers scored 50 points for the Eagles in a 1979 game against Sunnyside, and went on to star at Grand Canyon and play 12 years of European basketball. But he also was Tucson’s No. 2 high jumper of the day — he cleared 6 feet 5 inches — and was a leading runner on Santa Rita’s cross country and track teams.
Flowing Wells outfielder Robbie Moen, a two-time All-Pac-10 hitter at Arizona, was also one of Tucson’s leading football players in the late 1980s. He started at quarterback, safety and as a running back. He is most known for hitting .402 for Arizona in 1992, but he also threw five touchdown passes in a game against Rincon in 1987. Moen has since coached at Kansas State, Loyola Marymount and been a scout for the Tampa Bay Rays.
UA second baseman Ken Kurtz was one of the last two-sport athletes at Arizona. In addition to being selected to the 1966 All-District 7 team with future major-leaguers Reggie Jackson and Eddie Leon, Kurtz was a backup guard on Arizona’s basketball teams of the mid-'60s. After six years in the minor-leagues, Kurtz became a basketball official for 31 years in the Pac-12, WAC and Big Sky conferences, in addition to coaching for seven years at Santa Rita High School.
Peete, Kurtz, Moen and Pyers will be in Tucson for the Hall of Fame ceremonies Oct. 29. They are part of a class that also includes ex-major league sluggers Shelley Duncan and Chris Duncan of CDO and UA football coach Dick Tomey.
Believe it or not, Tomey’s best sport was baseball at Depauw University. Even while coaching Arizona’s Desert Swarm teams of the 1990s, Tomey was a catcher in a Tucson city baseball league playing against those 30 years younger and more than holding his own.
Tickets for the Hall of Fame ceremony are available at 520-244-8907 or at pcshf.tickets@gmail.com.
