Thursday afternoon, in a blur of a week at McKale Center, two UA basketball season ticket holders were making arrangements to re-up for 2009-10.
By chance, new basketball coach Sean Miller happened by as the couple chatted with associate athletic director Scott Shake in a corridor near the Zona Zoo section.
Miller stopped to introduce himself, talked for several minutes and then excused himself.
A few minutes later Miller returned. "Do you know where my office is?" he asked. "I think I'm lost."
So much has changed; much will continue to change. When Miller coaches his first game at McKale, he'll know the lay of the land, but you won't recognize the court.
The unique cactus-and-sunset logos, which for 22 years immediately identified UA basketball to television viewers, will be eliminated. The center circle, which read "Lute and Bobbi Olson Court" will also be redone. The school's block A will be inserted at center court.
Lute and Bobbi's names will be resituated in front of the Arizona team bench.
"We'll have some new logos to go with our new era of basketball," said Steve Kozachik, associate AD for facilities and capital projects. "It will have a different look.''
I'll miss the cactus logo, and I'm guessing thousands of fans will be similarly unhappy at its exit. Because it didn't conform to university branding, the cactus logo was given a special waiver by the university more than 20 years ago. Essentially, Olson wanted it to stay, so it stayed.
No one has that kind of power any more.
HERE AND THERE
Thanks to bats, UA softball not going down drain despite missing stopper
After beating Arizona State 10-8 Friday night, Arizona's softball team had 93 home runs for the season. No other college team had more than 61. What's unfortunate is that the Wildcats don't have a pitching stopper to go with the nation's highest-scoring team (8.7 runs per game). Mike Candrea had planned for Amanda Williams to be this year's star pitcher, but she left school two years ago and is no longer pitching collegiately. But I wouldn't write off Arizona's chances to win the NCAA title. The only truly dominant pitchers in college softball are Washington's Danielle Lawrie, with 276 strikeouts in 180 innings, Stanford's Missy Penna, with an 0.90 ERA and and Florida's Stacey Nelson who is 25-3. … After the UA's football spring game last week, sophomore quarterback Nick Foles was asked what to make of his battle with sophomore QB Matt Scott. "My arm and his legs are what make our team better," he said. I asked Scott a similar question and he had a different answer. "I've got a pretty good arm, too," he said. "We both have strong arms, and Nick moves around in the pocket well. I don't think either one of us is limited." I think both players are potential winners. Offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes said: "Both of them can make all the throws. Having them fight for a job is what you want."
short stuff
Pastner wavered somewhat before taking Memphis job
Josh Pastner actually had some uncertainty before he became Memphis' head coach. The security of following John Calipari to Kentucky was appealing. Pastner had always recruited for Olson or Calipari; letting go was not an easy thought. "He didn't know what he wanted to do," Calipari told the Star's Pat Finley. "I said, 'Why did you come with me?' He said, 'I wanted to be a head coach.' I said, 'You're a head coach. So stop. On top of that, I'm not taking you to Kentucky. You have no job at Kentucky.' I would have taken him. I said, 'You can do it, you're the best guy for the job.'" Now Pastner has to do the right thing: remember from where he came and hire his mentor, Jim Rosborough, to be his bench coach and voice of experience at Memphis. … It was good to see Salim Stoudamire return to the NBA and sign a two-year contract with the Milwaukee Bucks last week. Arizona's former All-Pac-10 shooting guard won't play with the Bucks in the final few games of the season; he continues to rehab a torn groin muscle that forced him to miss the season after he went to training camp with the San Antonio Spurs. … Arizona's 1997 NCAA championship center A.J. Bramlett, who retired from basketball with a back injury this year, helped coach his high school, Albuquerque La Cueva, to the New Mexico state championship last month. "I am doing some business things here, but I want to stay in coaching in some capacity," Bramlett said. … In another year, Russ Pennell might've had a chance to jump from Arizona to a Division I head coaching job, but the number of vacancies this year are unusually small. So he'll take the D-II job at Grand Canyon University and be happy with it. That's his way. GCU plays in a league that requires travel to Hawaii to play Chaminade, BYU-Hawaii and Hawaii-Pacific, as well as Western small colleges such as Adams State and Fort Lewis in Colorado, Azusa Pacific in California, Dixie State in Utah and Western New Mexico. No first-class seats available on those journeys. Pennell is scheduled to be the guest speaker Saturday at the 10th annual Dick McConnell Basketball Awards Banquet at the Viscount Suites hotel at 6 p.m.
MORE SHORT STUFF
Ex-Cat Clements managing in minors for the first time
As Arizona's starting first baseman on its 1980 NCAA championship team, Wes Clements left school with 28 homers, most ever for a two-year Wildcat hitter. He also hit 20 homers for the 1983 Tucson Toros. Clements is now the manager of the Class A Lancaster Jethawks in the California League, and he seems back at home. When the Jethawks opened the season last week, two of his starting outfielders were former Wildcats: CDO grad T.J. Steele and '08 standout Jon Gaston. This is Clements' first season as a minor-league manager. He was a hitting coach for the White Sox the last two years. … After hitting 20 home runs for Arizona's super-regional baseball powerhouse last year, CDO grad C.J. Ziegler opened the season with the Class A Augusta GreenJackets. Ziegler is playing in Savannah this weekend and is not in Augusta for the Masters. … Sabino grad Jamie Vermilyea, a former relief pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, is back in baseball in an entirely new venue this year. Vermilyea is pitching for BBC Grosseto in the Italian baseball league. Grosseto plays 42 games from April to August, mostly on weekends. … Unlike his 2008 UA pitching buddy Ryan Perry, who has already appeared in two games for the Detroit Tigers, ex-Wildcat left-hander Daniel Schlereth opened the season as the closer for the Mobile Bay Bears, the Diamondbacks' Class AA affiliate in the Southern League.
Wildcats on silver screen
Film on UA's historic year earns international honor
Tucsonans Molly and Patty Busch, whose independent film "Between the Water and Wood" documents Arizona's 2007-08 swimming season, have been honored by the Arizona International Film Festival. The Busches' film was among 75 films from 22 countries selected by the festival. It will be shown Saturday at 1:30 p.m., at Crossroads Cinema. UA All-American swimmers Adam Ritter, Nicolas Nilo, Whitney Myers and Albert Subirats are scheduled to be on stage at the screening. The public is invited. … Salpointe Catholic senior Sean Bannon has accepted an invitation to play football at Virginia Military Institute next fall. The fullback will be part of a schedule that plays against Army, now coached by Salpointe grad Rich Ellerson. … Former Arizona guard Will Bynum scored 32 points for the Detroit Pistons in a game against Charlotte last week. Bynum, who is earning $711,517 this season, has done his best to get a new contract. The Pistons have the option of renewing Bynum's deal for 2009-10, at $825,000. … Former UA forward Marcus Williams was recalled from the NBA D-League to the San Antonio Spurs for the final six games of the regular season. He'll be paid $102,774 for the brief period on the Spurs bench. Good work if you can get it.
MY TWO CENTS
Other sports, ticket buyers to foot bill for coaches' pay
Sean Miller received a $1 million bonus for agreeing to become Arizona's basketball coach, an enormous, almost unprecedented sum in college sports that was raised via a cadre of UA boosters.
In the same week, Virginia gave Tony Bennett a $500,000 signing bonus to leave Washington State, and Oregon blew the coaching market to smithereens by paying ex-UA assistant Mike Dunlap an outrageous signing bonus of $300,000 just to call plays for the troubled Ernie Kent.
If this is the new way of college coaching economics, and it's probably too late to turn back, it won't be long until someone like Arizona calls a press conference to announce it is eliminating men's track and field, or men's swimming, or perhaps both.
There is one sure thing: Ticket prices won't go down.
