Hansen's Sunday Notebook: UA decision regarding Jayden de Laura opens school to scrutiny

The Star's longtime columnist on ... Arizona's divisive decision regarding Jayden de Laura ... Brad Tolson's legacy ... Ken Jacome's handiwork ... a Tucson high school basketball reunion ... Emilio Corona's elite company ... and more.

De Laura decision raises questions about UA's integrity

College administrators sometimes refer to their athletic department as the school’s “front porch," where the institution’s perception and public image are created.

As such, many schools understand there is a heightened degree of responsibility to ensure that their athletes meet character, academic and athletic standards.

It’s easy to preach integrity. It’s more complicated to make a determination allowing your football team’s starting quarterback to remain eligible after a court filing said he pleaded guilty in juvenile court to a 2018 sexual-assault charge in Hawaii.

Part of that court filing, revealed last week, says that Arizona junior quarterback Jayden de Laura and a high school teammate “physically overpowered” a female student and raped her.

It doesn’t necessarily mean Arizona’s decision is wrong. The veracity of the charges against de Laura, like many court cases, is often unknown to outsiders. The full extent of de Laura’s actions will never be known by the public.

But it does mean that it will become a divisive issue in the UA community, one that will have ramifications on and off the field.

The UA’s so-called “front porch" will be viewed by some as a win-at-all-costs, football-first, integrity-last organization.

No decision UA president Robert C. Robbins could make about de Laura’s eligibility was going to satisfy all of the school’s constituents. There is sure to be significant backlash, creating the following questions:

• What do de Laura’s teammates, especially those with sisters, think?
• Would a second-string linebacker have received similar support?
• Would you want your son to play football on a team that has a known sex offender?

This isn’t unbroken ground in Pac-12 sports. Oregon State went through a similar controversy six years ago.

In 2017, a Portland newspaper disclosed that Oregon State All-American pitcher Luke Heimlich pleaded guilty in 2012, when he was 15 years old, to sexually abusing his 6-year-old niece. The Pac-12’s Pitcher of the Year left the team before it would play (and lose) in the ’17 College World Series.

But before the 2018 season, OSU president Ed Ray ruled that Heimlich was welcome to return to the Beavers. Said Ray: “If Luke wishes to do so, I support him continuing his education at Oregon State and rejoining the team next season."

Heimlich returned, went 16-3 and was named the NCAA Pitcher of the Year as the Beavers won the College World Series.

But his professional career was crushed. Even though Heimlich was considered a likely first-round pick, no MLB team drafted him.

De Laura isn’t projected as a high-ranking NFL Draft pick next year or any year, but his value to the UA football team’s on-field success is unmatched.

He is the team’s most important player. Removing him from the 2023 Wildcats would’ve greatly diminished Arizona’s long-awaited expectation to finally have a winning record and play in a bowl game.

The Wildcats may win a few more football games in the fall, but the damage to the school’s reputation is likely to be considerable.

Tolson’s legacy forever secure

After being a lead pitcher for Tucson High School’s 1945 and 1946 state championship baseball teams, Brad Tolson moved to an even higher level at Arizona.

In four years with the Wildcats, Tolson established a school-record 17-game winning streak, finishing the 1950 season a perfect 10-0. And it wasn’t a soft 10-0. Tolson won the season opener against UCLA and won the NCAA Tournament opener against No. 1 seed Texas, Arizona’s first-ever game in the tournament.

The son of Tucson High’s seven-time state championship baseball coach Andy Tolson, Brad Tolson died here last week. He was 93.

After two brief years in minor-league baseball, Tolson returned to Tucson to operate an irrigation business. I asked him once what his favorite baseball memory was. He paused, smiled and said: “Did you know I was on the same team as Satchel Paige for the 1951 Minot Mallards? "

I listened intently as Tolson told baseball stories for 30 minutes.

Tolson and his father were inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and 1997, respectively. Brad continued to play baseball two or three times a week until he was almost 80, in the Tucson Old-Timers League at Udall Park.

Jacome has restored Pima’s baseball luster

When Rincon High School grad Ken Jacome was hired off the New Mexico Lobos baseball staff to be Pima College’s head coach in 2018, the school’s long-established baseball tradition had ebbed.

The Aztecs, who were a consistent NJCAA top-10 program under Rich Alday and Roger Werbylo from about 1975-95, had not won 40 games in a season since 1992. They have not played in the NJCAA World Series since 1993 nor won the league title in 30 years.

The ACCAC had been ruled for decades by Central Arizona College, Yavapai College and Cochise College.

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But that has changed. Jacome’s Aztecs are 43-15 this season and will play for the Region I championship next week against either CAC or Arizona Western. Jacome’s Aztecs are 171-73 in his five years, with no losing seasons. Impressively, he took over a PCC baseball program that had gone 39-81 in conference games the three previous years.

This season, the Aztecs went 26-12.

Jacome’s plan, like those of Alday and Werbylo, is to win with a core of Tucson players. That was never more apparent than last week when sophomore catcher Andrew Stucky of Canyon del Oro High School was named the ACCAC player of the year. Stucky is the first Tucsonan to be ACCAC player of the year since 2001, when CDO’s future major-leaguer, Scott Hairston, hit .501 — but for Central Arizona College.

Times have changed.

Short stuff: A basketball reunion, Matthews' post-sports career, Corona's company, more

In 2017 and 2018, Salpointe Catholic forward Majok Deng and Catalina Foothills guard Sam Beskind were probably Tucson’s best boys high school basketball players, combining to score more than 3,000 career points and stage epic state playoff battles in 2017 and 2018, both won by Salpointe, 77-72 and 57-55.

Now the long-time rivals are teammates at Colorado School of Mines. Deng last week transferred to the Colorado school after three years at Pepperdine, where he started just four games. Beskind played three years at Stanford, starting four games, before transferring to Colorado School of Mines a year ago, averaging 9.4 points for the school’s 26-6 Division II NCAA Tournament team. ...

• • • 

... Ironwood Ridge linebacker/shortstop Jake Matthews was one of Tucson’s leading prep athletes of the last decade or so, all-city in both sports, drafted to play baseball by the Kansas City Royals and eventually offered a scholarship to play football at Arizona.

He chose to enroll at Arizona, where Matthews started 27 games and made 107 tackles in a career that was capped with him making the Pac-12 All-Academic Team. That was just a beginning.

Matthews graduated from UA College of Medicine this weekend. In June, he will start a one-year preliminary surgery internship at the UA medical school in Phoenix. In June 2024, Matthews will begin his radiology residency at Creighton's medical school in Phoenix. In six years, he will be a board-certified intervention radiologist. That goes a bit beyond making a few tackles in a Pac-12 game. ...

• • • 

... Arizona junior outfielder Emilio Corona hit three home runs against Oregon State last Sunday in Corvallis, driving in eight runs. Yet the Wildcats blew a lead and lost 11-10 in the bottom of the ninth.

That collapse defied UA baseball history. Seven previous Wildcats hit three home runs in one game, and Arizona won all seven games by an aggregate score of 79-29. Nevertheless, Corona joined an impressive list of Wildcats with a three-homer game:

• Dennis Haines hit three against UTEP in 1972.
• Ron Hassey hit three against Weber State in 1974.
• Erik Torres hit three against Washington in 2000.
• Shelley Duncan hit three against Utah in 2001.
• Brad Glenn hit three against Utah Valley in 2007.
• C.J. Ziegler hit three against Utah Valley in 2008.
• Dillon Baird hit three against Sacramento State in 2008.

All but Torres was drafted by an MLB team following his UA career. Hassey, Duncan and Glenn reached the big leagues. ...

• • • 

... Tucson’s Ben Kern won the 2001 state golf championship during his senior year at Palo Verde High School. He then went on to become an All-Big 12 golfer at Kansas State, as well as winner of the Arizona Amateur in 2004.

His father, Jeff Kern, a seven-time Tucson City Amateur champion and now the pro at Forty-Niners Country Club, won the Arizona Amateur in 1977.

Last week in New Mexico, Ben Kern qualified for the upcoming PGA Championship (May 18-21 at Oak Hill Country Club in New York) by shooting 70-68-72-73 among a field of 144 PGA club pros. Kern was 15th overall, one of 18 to advance to the PGA. He earned $10,875.

Sound familiar? In 2018, Kern also qualified for the PGA Championship and was the only club pro to make the cut. He finished 42nd, tied with Tony Finau. That PGA title was won by Brooks Koepka over runner-up Tiger Woods. Kern is now the head pro at Hickory Hills Country Club in Ohio.

My two cents: UA softball's NCAA streak in jeopardy (maybe)

If you are fretting that Arizona’s national record of 35 consecutive years qualifying for the NCAA softball tournament will reach an end this year — especially after the Wildcats lost to Cal on Friday to drop to 5-17 in the Pac-12 — here’s some comfort:

Oregon State was given an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament with a 4-17 Pac-10 record in 2004 and a 5-16 conference record in 2003. In fact, since 2013, the Beavers were given an at-large spot with Pac-12 records of, in order, 8-16, 9-14, 9-14, 9-15, 9-14 and 9-15.

A year ago, some eyebrows raised when both OSU and the 8-16 Wildcats were given at-large berths. But the NCAA’s choices turned out to be valid: Both the Beavers and Wildcats won a regional and Super Regional and advanced to the Women’s College World Series.

The RPI — essentially strength of schedule — has mostly worked in the Pac-12’s favor.

But this year, Arizona is cutting it so close that, if it does get into the Big Dance, it might be the infamous “last team in."