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Greg Hansen: Softball legend Mike Candrea's legacy about much more than wins

Longtime Wildcats coach changed the sport forever

Arizona head coach Mike Candrea watches his Wildcats warm up in the final moments before first pitch against New Mexico State at Hillenbrand Stadium, Tucson, Ariz., April 9 2021.

 Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star

On a sunny May afternoon, 1992, No. 1 UCLA played a doubleheader against No. 2 Arizona at Gittings Field. A victory would clinch the UA’s first Pac-10 softball championship.

At the conclusion of a newspaper article previewing the showdown, these three words followed: Admission is free.

Gittings Field? No attendance records were kept. Temporary bleachers down each baseline seated perhaps 400. The few who were considered regulars at Gittings avoided standing near the left-field foul line because it was the area used for backwashing the nearby Gittings swimming pool.

On that warm afternoon, about 3,000 people swarmed the old P.E. field. Arizona catcher Jody Miller-Pruitt said, “We were shocked; I didn’t know there were that many people who knew where the field was.”

Arizona beat the Bruins 7-0 in the second game to clinch the Pac-10 title.

Legendary UA softball coach Mike Candrea announced in June 2021 that he is retiring after 36 seasons and a record 24 Women's College World Series appearances and eight national championships.

“It was unbelievable,” said Wildcats coach Mike Candrea, then 36. “I got chill bumps.”

There would come to be a lot of chill bumps.

Candrea, 65, announced Monday that he is retiring after 36 seasons as Arizona’s softball coach. Associate head coach and former UA four-time All-American Caitlin Lowe will take over as the seventh head coach in program history.

Do the numbers matter for Candrea? Sure they do. One Olympic gold medal, eight NCAA championships, 109 All-Americans and more victories than any coach in Division I softball history.

UA first baseman Baillie Kirker is congratulated by Mike Candrea after a two-run homer in an NCAA Regional game against Texas Tech in 2011.

But it’s the journey, not the numbers, that best define what the son of a New Orleans jazz musician has accomplished in Tucson.

Before Arizona athletic director Cedric Dempsey approved the hiring of Central Arizona College’s softball coach in the summer of 1985, Candrea asked if it would be permissible for him to commute 77 miles each day from Casa Grande, where his wife, Sue, was an accountant.

Sure, said Dempsey, believing it to be just a temporary thing, much like coaching softball at Arizona. None of Candrea’s four predecessors stayed more than five seasons.

Few had any idea that a college softball program, here or anywhere, would someday play in a $10 million stadium, regularly drawing capacity crowds near 3,000, featured on ESPN, or that Candrea’s Wildcats would become the standard scores of newly established college softball programs hoped to match.

One thing didn’t change: Putting his wife’s career first, Candrea continued to commute from Casa Grande for 18 years. The money for mileage, the wear and tear on his cars, didn’t really matter. By then Candrea was the most visible face in softball, paid handsomely to speak at clinics, stage winter and summer camps for hundreds of aspiring softball players, and endorse softball gear and equipment that, all of which combined, exceeded his UA salary.

The growth of college softball followed Candrea’s lead.

He took Arizona to its first Women’s College World Series in 1988. It wasn’t a bells-and-whistles event. The ‘88 WCWS was held at the Twin Creeks Sports Complex in Sunnyvale, California. It was a rec softball facility. The field of eight teams included Cal Poly Pomona, Adelphi and Northern Illinois.

That was Step 1.

By 1991, when Arizona won its first national championship, softball had become so popular in Tucson that Bill and Doby Hillenbrand jumped aboard the bandwagon and donated $1 million toward building Rita Hillenbrand Stadium, the Taj Mahal of college softball.

Arizona coach Mike Candrea is showered with water Monday, May 28, 2001, after his team defeated UCLA, 1-0, in the NCAA Division I Softball championship game in Oklahoma City.

“I can walk into any recruit’s home in the country and feel that the people are aware of our program,” said Candrea.

It was about that time that his alma mater, ASU, tried to get Candrea to return to his Sun Devil roots and replace long-time coach Mary Littlewood, who had coached the Sun Devils to pre-NCAA national championships in 1972 and 1973 and won 648 games.

Candrea declined. Incredibly, his Wildcats almost won as many games in the decade of the ‘90s, going 576-91 (.864), as Littlewood did over two decades.

Nor did it ever seem to matter that Candrea is an ex-Sun Devil, as were his predecessors. Paula Noel and Judy Spray. Winning matters. Blood? Not as much.

It’s not that Candrea’s tenure in Tucson was without significant difficulty. He parted ways with assistant coaches Larry Ray, Nancy Evans and Teresa Wilson. His two-time NCAA championship outfielder, Sahuaro High School’s Julie Reitan, died from complications of diabetes a month after the ‘97 national championship.

Coach Mike Candrea with Jennie Finch, Caitlin Lowe, Chelsie Mesa and Taryne Mowatt following a game between the National Pro Fastpitch All-Stars team and the Wildcat softball team at Hillenbrand Stadium in 2010.

In 2004, 10 days before Candrea was to leave to coach Team USA at the Athens Olympics, Sue Candrea died of a brain aneurysm. She had just retired from her accountant’s job and planned to attend the Olympics and move to Tucson permanently, ending her husband’s 154-mile daily commute.

A memorial service was held for Sue Candrea on a hot July morning at the St. Augustine Cathedral in downtown Tucson. Hundreds of the coach’s current and former players watched as Candrea, wearing dark glasses, entered the church sobbing, assisted by family members holding onto his arms.

A few minutes later, Candrea’s No. 1 coaching rival, UCLA’s Sue Enquist, walked down the same aisle, holding a handkerchief to her mouth, weeping, and later embracing her long-time competitor.

It was a class act for a man who defined what class is in his 36 years in Tucson.

Now, as Candrea retires from coaching, it may again prompt a wave of tears. But this time they will be tears of joy and appreciation.

Arizona's players gather around head coach Mike Candrea just before taking the field against Mississippi in Game 2 of the NCAA Super Regional at Hillenbrand Stadium, May 25, 2019.

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711