Who’s No. 1 in Tucson sports history? There is no consensus.
There is no recognized Pima County titan like Babe Ruth’s 1927 New York Yankees, no singular local powerhouse to match the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, no Tucson team that is considered our historical equivalent to an undefeated John Wooden UCLA basketball team.
Tucson doesn’t have a recognized “Dream Team,” its version of America’s 1992 men’s Olympic basketball team.
There are many worthy nominees, but no clear winner.
Across the last 110 years, Tucson high school teams have won 618 state championships. Who’s No. 1? Who knows?
Since 1976, teams from the UA and Pima College have combined to win 25 national championships and have come oh-so-close to a dozen more. Who’s No. 1? Any or all of Mike Candrea’s eight NCAA softball champions deserve strong consideration. The vote is widely split.
Our professional baseball franchises — the Sidewinders, Cowboys and Toros — have won five championships. Each can make a case as best-ever.
Over the last 100 years, Tucson has fielded roughly 22,000 sports teams from a growing field of UA, Pima College, professional and high school teams, girls and boys, men and women.
Our goal this summer is to examine the Top 100 Teams in Tucson sports history, day by day, one by one, starting Saturday with No. 100 and ending the first week of September with No. 1.
If you’ve got a strong opinion, bring it. Contact me. I’m listening.
The first of almost 650 Tucson state and national championship teams — teams with wildly varying names from Sky to Icecats, Blue Devils to Caballeros — was crowned on April 6, 1912. That’s the day Tucson won its first-ever high school state championship. The Tucson Badgers baseball team defeated Tempe High School 11-4 after two days of competition on the UA campus.
It was the last time there was a definitive answer to “Who’s No. 1?” in Tucson sports history. A year later, Tucson repeated as state baseball champs, creating a debate that has intensified across the last 109 years.
If there is a living authority on the history of Tucson sports, I can’t imagine anyone who fits that role better than Bob Vielledent.
Talk about good sports genes. Bob is the son of Roger Vielledent, quarterback of Tucson High’s 1942 state championship team and star pitcher of the Badgers’ 1943 state title baseball team, Bob grew up a sports fan to the core. He was a ballboy for Arizona’s 1956 baseball team, the school’s first-ever College World Series finalist. He was on the sidelines for every home game for Arizona’s historic 8-1-1 football powerhouse of 1961 — “I sat in the Knothole Gang,” he says — and has an encyclopedic recall of the last 70 years of Tucson sports, especially high school sports.
He was Mr. Insider, coaching for more than 30 years next to iconic Dick McConnell on the Sahuaro High School boys basketball staff. He was close to Hal Eustice, Sahuaro’s Hall of Fame baseball coach who won three state championships at the highest level of state competition in the 1970s and 1980s. Later, Vielledent coached Santa Rita High School’s football team to 55 wins over nine seasons.
Now retired, Vielledent isn’t really retired at all. He was a staff analyst for Jay Dobyns’ Tanque Verde High School football team last season. He regularly attended Jedd Fisch’s football practices at Arizona. Vielledent is connected.
A few years ago, I drove to Sahuaro High School to watch Cougars’ star Alex Verdugo, now a starting outfielder for the Boston Red Sox. Vielledent was sitting in the front row behind home plate.
“This kid could get the big leagues,” he said. He told me the same thing the first time I watched Rodney Peete play QB for Sahuaro. Good instincts.
Some of the best teams in Tucson history fell just short of a title — like the 1988 Arizona Wildcats basketball squad coached by Lute Olson, center, and led by Sean Elliott, right.
I asked Vielledent: What are the very best Tucson teams you’ve seen? After significant thought, he listed, in no particular order:
Arizona coach Dick Tomey’s 12-1 football team of 1998.
Tucson High coach Ollie Mayfield’s 12-0 football team of 1970, which produced 11 Division I recruits.
Sunnyside High School’s wrestling state champions, of which there are 35. “Good luck in determining the best one or two,” he said.
Arizona coach Frank Sancet’s 1956 baseball team, which went 50-8 and reached the final game of the College World Series.
Tucson High’s undefeated 1962 state basketball champions, led by 6-foot-9-inch center Ray Kosanke.
McConnell’s 28-1 state basketball champions of 1982.
“That’s just a start,” said Vielledent. “Sometimes the best teams don’t win the last game, don’t win the championship. That happened with Lute (Olson) and his 1988 team of Steve Kerr and Sean Elliott. It happened when Bijan Robinson played for Dennis Bene at Salpointe. Same with Vern Friedli at Amphi.
“Picking a No. 1 or even No. 10 team over all those years is very difficult to determine. Which of all those championship baseball and softball teams at CDO was the best? I saw Billy Lopez coach Sahuaro to six state softball championships. Which was best? That’s a tough call.”
The Tucson Sidewinders won the 2006 Pacific Coast League championship, becoming the latest in a line of pro baseball teams to win titles.
With due research — covering more than 22,000 teams since 1912 — we begin the countdown Saturday. Stay tuned.
