Hansen: Arizona Wildcats' nightmare season draws comparisons to ’57

For 59 football seasons, those who played on Arizona’s 1-8-1 team of 1957 have lived with the idea they were part of the worst team in school history.

No one presented them a trophy that said WORST TEAM EVER, and it was before the Los Angeles Times circulated the weekly “Bottom Ten” poll, which was a must-read every Tuesday morning in the ’70s and ’80s.

No UA game was televised in 1957, so the team whose only victory was against an 0-10 Marquette club that discontinued football a year later was granted near-anonymity outside of the Border Conference.

Rich Rodriguez’s 2016 UA football team has not been blessed by such geographical isolation. ESPN and Fox or Fox Sports 1 broadcast six UA games, all losses by a combined 230-111.

ESPN will televise Friday’s Territorial Cup against ASU. Everybody in college football knows of Arizona’s descent to the game’s dark side; a 2-9 team whose “top” victory is against Grambling State; a team that has yielded 38.6 points per game, worst in school history.

Only one question remains: Will the ’16 Wildcats supplant the ’57 Wildcats as the school’s WORST TEAM EVER?

Is it possible to be worse than the ’57 Wildcats, who found themselves an 18-point underdog to a 0-5 Texas Tech team. (Tech won 28-6 in Tucson).

Two weeks later, Arizona lost 51-14 to UTEP. Miners coach Ben Collins apologized for the score.

“I kept waiting for the holes to close,” he told the Star. “But they didn’t. They were open all night.”

A week later, Arizona’s booster delegation in Phoenix, the Phoenix Towncats, sent a petition to UA President Richard Harvill asking to put more emphasis on football.

“All we want is a representative showing,” said former UA and Tucson High star halfback John Black. Harvill appointed 15 deans to vote whether to give the UA football program 10 more scholarships.

It failed and was tabled for a year.

When Arizona lost 34-14 at Colorado, it was disclosed that the Buffaloes had 83 football scholarships to Arizona’s 60. To combat the lack of personnel, UA coach Ed Doherty summoned nine players from the freshman team for home games.

“Our personnel appears to be on par with Colorado’s second or third team,” Doherty told the Tucson Towncats.

The losses mounted, including 28-20 to Hardin-Simmons, 21-20 to West Texas State and 27-0 to New Mexico.

“Those Arizona kids have no business playing against teams like Colorado and Missouri,” said New Mexico coach Dick Clausen, who a year later made it his business, becoming Arizona’s athletic director. “The only weapons (Arizona) has is spirit and a good slot-T offense.”

It got worse: Thirteen UA players were stricken with the flu the day before losing 35-13 at Missouri.

But nothing could prepare the ’57 Wildcats for wait awaited them in the Territorial Cup. The best team in ASU school history, 10-0, the NCAA leader in scoring and total offense, sold all 19,000 tickets for a showdown at Goodwin Stadium.

UA assistant coach Van Howe, who had scouted the Sun Devils four times, told the Star: “Heavens, it isn’t even fair to play them. It’s like flipping a coin with heads on both sides of the nickel and letting them call it.”

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Heads up. ASU won 47-7.

The headline writers at the Tucson Citizen went to work:

Grid Nightmare Ends;

UA Faces More Problems.

More problems? “It will take two large freshmen crops to give Arizona sustained aid,” the newspaper said. “The problems of recruiting for a team that won only one game in 10 are almost insurmountable.”

Sound familiar?

Doherty, in his first season at Arizona, spent the hours leading up to the ’57 Territorial Cup in bed at the team hotel. He had the flu.

“I’m glad it’s over,” he said before returning to Tucson. “The game went about as expected.”

What awaits the WORST TEAM EVER?

If RichRod is fortunate, those who have contributed to the club’s dive to last place will go on to productive lives outside of football. The 1957 Wildcats might’ve become the BEST TEAM EVER for making good outside the lines.

Quarterback Ralph Hunsaker became a lead attorney in the fight to get the Central Arizona Project connected from the Colorado River to Tucson. His backup, Jim Mason, operated Mason Financial Services in Phoenix and was an important part of the Phoenix Boys Club.

Fullback Carl “Bull” Hazlett, was one of the founders of Tucson’s youth football organization, president of the Tucson Conquistadores and a prominent Tucson attorney for almost 50 years.

Lineman Ed Brown became the first African-American head coach, any sport, in Tucson history, at Cholla High School.

End Willie Peete coached for 12 years at Arizona and 16 years in the NFL. End Gary Cropper became one of the most successful automobile dealers in Casa Grande and Nogales history.

Running back Jack Redhair became one of Tucson’s most well-known attorneys over four decades; his daughter, Banni, is one of the leading girls tennis players in Tucson history, and his son, Mike, became a starting point guard at ASU.

End Bob Whitlow joined the Marines, later played for the Atlanta Falcons and Chicago Bears, raced on the USAC and NASCAR circuit and later became a high school coach.

And then there’s 1957 kicker/center Nick Balich. He went on to become president of the Fiesta Bowl and an executive at the Phelps Dodge Corp. His nephew, Charlie Ragle, is now Arizona’s special teams coach.

That’s the happy link between the ’57 Wildcats and ’16 Wildcats.

If nothing else, it proves that there is life after football, even when the Sun Devils win the Territorial Cup 47-7.