Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Gronkowski brothers find football, business to be lucrative

The Star columnist weighs in on the Gronkowski family success on the football field and in the business world, Kenny Lofton's path to Cooperstown, the MLK Classic, UA baseball ticket sales and Jim Furyk's return to Tucson. 

Rob Gronkowski is probably the most well-known Arizona Wildcat athlete ever, right? Is anyone else even close? Maybe Annika Sorenstam or Steve Kerr? In the public mind, that’s probably the Big Three.

But Gronk isn’t close to being the most highly compensated ex-Wildcat based on salary from his sport. That would be Golden State Warriors forward Andre Iguodala, who is working on a one-year deal this season that will push his career earnings to $187 million, according to basketball-reference.com.

And then comes Gilbert Arenas, $163 million, and Richard Jefferson, $116 million. If Aaron Gordon completes his Denver Nuggets contract through the 2026 season, his total will soar to $165 million.

According to Sportrac.com, Gronk’s NFL career earnings are $71 million. It’s not that he’s underpaid; Gronk has been quoted as saying he makes almost as much in endorsement and off-field money as he gets in his NFL paycheck.

One of the Gronkowski family's ventures, in partnership with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban of ABC’s "Shark Tank," is the design and production of the Ice Shaker bottle. Former UA fullback Chris Gronkowski, Rob's brother and the inventor of Ice Shaker, said last week that Ice Shakers will be distributed by more than 1,400 Walmart stores this year. Rob Gronkowski is Chris' business partner, having bought out Alex Rodriguez during his short-lived football retirement. Cuban is the third partner.

Among the first college athletes Chris Gronkowski paid to endorse the Ice Shaker are Arizona football players Ma’jon Wright and Christian Young, and UA softball standout Janelle Meoño. Talk about giving back to your school. The Name, Image and Likeness legislation works.

It’s not like the Gronkowskis don't value their money.

In last week’s victory over the Carolina Panthers, Rob Gronkowski remained on the field deep into the fourth quarter in a 41-17 victory rather than sit out the second half to avoid injury for the playoffs.

Why? He and quarterback Tom Brady knew that Gronk would receive a $500,000 bonus if he caught 55 passes this season and another $500,000 bonus if he amassed 750 regular season receiving yards. Gronk and Brady stayed on the field until they combined on a 7-yard pass with 6:24 left in the game, assuring the bonus money.

Gronk finished the regular season with 55 catches for 802 yards. His career highs are 90 catches for 1,327 yards in 2011.

Ex-Cat Kenny Lofton has path to Hall of Fame

Baseball’s 2022 Hall of Fame class will be announced Jan. 25, and part of it will include those nominated and approved last month by baseball’s Golden Days Committee, including outfielders Minnie Minoso and Tony Oliva.

It is the most promising indication yet that 1985-89 Arizona basketball point guard Kenny Lofton may soon be voted to the Hall of Fame by the Golden Days committee. Lofton’s career is very similar to those of Oliva and Minoso.

Lofton, 54, who played just two baseball games at Arizona before Tucson scout Clark Crist suggested the Houston Astros select him in the 1989 draft, has career numbers that either match or surpass those of Oliva and Minoso, All-Stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

Lofton played in six All-Star games, won four Gold Gloves, had 2,428 career hits and 622 stolen bases, which is No. 15 in history. He led baseball in stolen bases five times. Lofton’s career batting average was .299.

Minoso also had a career batting average of .299; Oliva was at .304. I think what helped Minoso, who was an All-Star in nine seasons, was that he established a greater identity than Lofton by playing nine years with the Chicago White Sox. Lofton, whose career was played when free agency flourished, played for 11 teams. He was never truly identified with just one city.

Lofton, a lefty who played a big role in the Tucson Toros’ epic 1991 Pacific Coast League championship season, also had seasons in which he led the league in hits, triples and stolen bases. I think Lofton’s speed-and-short game career has become under-appreciated in what has become the long ball era.

Lofton is now CEO of Proxime, a digital asset management firm.

MLK Classic returns to McKale

Fourteen Tucson-area high school basketball teams will participate in the 18th Martin Luther King Classic on Monday at McKale Center. Talk about a long day in an event operated by the TUSD interscholastics department.

The first of seven games begins at 10 a.m., when the Desert Christian High School boys team plays Sells Baboquivari. The final game, which is scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m., matches the Cholla boys against Salpointe Catholic.

Three things to look for in Tucson prep basketball a month away from the playoffs:

• The marquee game Monday is probably a 2:30 p.m.showdown between coach Izzy Galindo’s Pueblo girls team (12-6) and coach Michael Perkins' 18-1 Flowing Wells team. The Caballeros have won 13 straight games under Perkins, a 2008 state championship coach who is closing in on 300 career victories. Galindo has become one of the most successful coaches in Tucson prep basketball history, going 149-34 the last seven years.

• Although Amphi's girls basketball team is not involved in the MLK event, it might be having the most compelling season in Tucson prep basketball. The Panthers, coached by Tom Danehy, are 13-7 and could move into first place in the Class 4A Gila Region with a home victory Tuesday over Douglas. Get this: Amphi hasn’t had a winning season since 1999-2000 and is 37-88 the last six years. The Panthers are led by point guard Mat'tanaya Vital, who scored her 1,000th career point last week. She will be honored at Tuesday’s game.

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• Tucson High’s boys basketball team, coached by 1991 Badgers all-city scoring leader Eric Langford, is 15-2 and a solid contender in for the 6A playoffs. This is Langford’s first full season back at his alma mater; after he left THS he became an all-conference player at both Eastern Arizona College and Grand Canyon before playing 12 seasons of pro basketball, mostly in the Mexican Pro League. Tucson High last won a state championship in 1969, but hasn't reached the state finals since.

ASU right to retire Ike Diogu's jersey

Arizona State retired 2002-05 basketball standout Ike Diogu’s jersey at Saturday’s game against Colorado. It’s an overdue and well-deserved honor for Diogu, a 6-8 “tweener’’ who played big on some bad Sun Devil teams. Diogu, a center/power forward, completed his college career as one of the most under-rated Pac-12 players ever, with 1,946 points, He probably would’ve become the league’s career scoring leader had he returned for his senior season.

In Diogu’s tenure, ASU went 22-32 in Pac-10 games. Diogu was 0-6 against Arizona and I thought was the best player on the court in the 2005 UA-ASU games, scoring 25 and 23 points in two losses. Diogu played seven NBA seasons, averaging 13 minutes per game.

Ex-Cat Williams pulls a double-shift as broadcaster

Arizona’s 1990s shooting guard Corey Williams had quite a busy week. On Thursday, Williams was the analyst for the Stanford-WSU late afternoon basketball game on the Pac-12 NetworkS that was delayed and started 90 minutes late. He did that job remotely, from his Tucson office.

Then Williams hurried to McKale Center as the analyst for Fox Sports 1 in Arizona’s victory over Colorado. On Saturday, Williams worked the ASU-Colorado game on ESPN2. His full time job is as vice president of the Crest Insurance Group, operated by Tucsonan Cody Ritchie, a former Wyoming Cowboy football player.

Former UA football player follows high school coach to Idaho

DaVonte' Neal made the right choice in 2015 when he switched from receiver to defensive back under Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez. The Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year at Scottsdale Chaparral in 2010 and 2011, Neal initially played a season at Notre Dame before transferring to Arizona, where he would make 85 tackles at his new position. Last week, after three years coaching high school football at Dobson and Higley high schools in the Phoenix area, Neal was hired as the defensive backs coach at Idaho State, whose new head coach, Charlie Ragle, was the UA’s special teams coach during Neal’s period as a Wildcat.

UA baseball expecting large contingent of fans at Hi-C

Arizona baseball coach Chip Hale last week tweeted that the Wildcats set a record for season ticket sales. It’s a promising sign that Tucson’s baseball community is ready to support Hale, 1980s UA record holder, in unprecedented numbers. When Arizona won the 2012 College World Series, it averaged just 2,183 at Hi Corbett Field. But by 2016, a year after reaching the CWS championship game, Arizona averaged a record-3,043 at Hi Corbett, including 20,039 for a three-game series against ASU. Hale’s home debut as his alma mater’s head coach is Feb. 22 against Grand Canyon.

Furyk back in Tucson's Cologuard Classic

Jim Furyk, a key part of Arizona’s 1992 NCAA men’s golf championship team, is expected to be in the field for next month’s PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic at Tucson National, Feb. 25-27. It’s not like he has lost much. At the ongoing Sony Open in Hawaii — the regular PGA Tour — Furyk opened with a 62, which included a hole-in-one. In a post-round press conference, Furyk was inadvertently reminded that, even though he can still shoot 62, he is about to turn 52. “I played a practice round with a guy that called me 'sir,'" Furyk told reporters, referring to Korn Ferry Tour pro Brett Grant. Later, Furyk said “Brett asked me what I liked most about the Champions Tour, and I said, 'No one calls me 'sir.'"

Will Arizona's historic winning streak ever be matched?

Arizona’s 71-game McKale Center winning streak was snapped 30 years ago last week in a historic buzzer-beater 89-87 victory by UCLA. Pac-12 Networks analyst Don MacLean scored 38 points that day. No college basketball team has passed the UA’s 71-game streak since, so it remains the 10th longest home winning streak in NCAA Division 1 history.

Gonzaga, at 40, has the longest current streak. Murray State is at 28. The five longest home winning streaks in college basketball history: Kentucky, 129, 1943-55; St. Bonaventure, 99, 1948-61; UCLA, 98, 1970-76; Cincinnati, 84, 1957-64; Arizona, 81, 1945-51. Gonzaga has an ongoing 61-game winning streak at Spokane’s McCarthey Athletic Center.

Distance-running tandem from Tucson shine

Two of Tucson’s leading distance runners in history, Pima College All-American Craig Curley and St. Augustine High School’s Nico Montanez, an All-American at BYU, remain among the national leaders. Curley last week finished 17th in the USATF cross country championships in San Diego. Montanez, who trains with the Mammoth Running club in California, finished third overall in the USA half-marathon national championships in Hardee, South Carolina. He finished a few steps ahead of nine-time Arizona NCAA distance running champion Lawi Lalang.