After All-American linebacker Sean Harris was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated as part of Arizonaβs famed 1994 βDesert Swarmβ issue, he agreed to sit with me during lunch at Camp Cochise and talk about his upbringing.
I asked about his role models at Tucson High School.
βI played for Charlie Cook and Todd Mayfield,β he said. βAnd I loved Patsy Lee.β
Was that your girlfriend, I asked?
βShe was my basketball coach,β he said. βSheβs the best.β
When I returned from Arizonaβs football camp that year, I went to the Starβs library and found an envelope stuffed with archival news about Patsy Lee. How had I missed her?
She was the first female to coach a boys high school team in Tucson history β Cook hired her to coach the Badgersβ freshman basketball team when Harris was 15 years old β and it wasnβt just a stunt or an emergency fill-in. When David Gin coached Palo Verde to the 2000 state championship game, the assistant coach sitting next to him was β yep β Patsy Lee.
The great-granddaughter of a Chinese immigrant to Tucson, Patsy Lee quietly retired from 40 years of coaching a few years ago.
There shouldβve been a celebration, or an induction ceremony into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame, but Lee has never been one to elbow her way into the spotlight.
And she didnβt really retire at all. Today she is part of the LPGA Girls Golf of Tucson program, helping girls ages 7-17 learn the game.
She also volunteers for the First Tee of Tucson, and thereβs no way the young women she helps to hit a golf ball understand what she means to Tucsonβs sports community.
βSheβs the most giving person Iβve known,β says Mayfield, the head football and track coach at Tucson and Palo Verde high schools for almost three decades. βSheβs always taken care of everybody elseβs kids. She even did our stats and our film stuff. If you wanted to get things done, you called Patsy.β
Thereβs no way anyone could have seen this coming.
Patsyβs older sister and brother got straight Aβs. Her aunts were school teachers. Patsy didnβt want any of that, anything that didnβt include a ball or a bat.
βI was a jock,β she says, the 1960s term for ballplayers. βI grew up in the streets by the El Rio Golf Course playing softball and baseball. First base was a mailbox. Second base was a hubcap. I think my mom looked at me as a troublemaker because I was always at the YWCA, playing this, playing that.β
Before she enrolled at Tucson High in the mid-β60s, Patsy and her mom, Jean, talked about the future.
βWhere can you get a job that pays you to play?β Jean Lee asked.
Hereβs the answer: Over four decades, Patsy Lee was the head coach of Pima Collegeβs softball team, the girls track coach at Tucson High, the boys volleyball coach at Palo Verde High School and an assistant coach of so many sports at so many places that even she has difficulty putting them in order.
She worked for some of the top names in Tucson sports history, from Gerry Lybeck, Will Kreamer, Tim DeMarchi and CeCe Hall to Mayfield, Cook and Gin. She counts as her mentor Mary Hines, the legendary state championship volleyball coach at Catalina. She has worked coaching clinics for Hall of Fame softball coaches such as Mike Candrea.
βI got my first coaching job, girls volleyball, at Tucson High because no one wanted the job,β Lee says with a chuckle. βAt the time, the Tucson gym was being remodeled so we had to drive to Catalina every afternoon and wait for Mary Hinesβ team to finish
βWell, Mary walks out and says, βCan I help you, Patsy?β Remember, sheβs my rival. But she took me under her wing and I canβt tell you how much that meant. I was all into coaching after that.β
After Leeβs first 10 years of coaching, Cook, a former all-state basketball player at THS, asked her to coach the boys freshman team during a period that the Badgers turned out such notable players as Harris and future college players Eric Langford and Val Hill.
βAs long as you know basketball, they wonβt care,β Cook said. βTheyβll follow you.β
And so they did.
If you ask Lee about her playing days β the period that prepared her for a 40-year coaching career β she is all modesty.
βWhen I began high school, the only girls sports offered were tennis and gymnastics,β she says. βSo I went out for the tennis team and got cut. I moped around the gym until I found out there was a girls volleyball program on Saturdays. Believe me, I never left the gym after that.β
After enrolling at the UA, Lee became a mainstay on the Wildcat volleyball, softball and basketball teams. Upon graduation, she indeed found out that someone would pay you to play.
Now, without a full-time coaching job, Lee plays golf. Lots of golf. Sheβs a regular at her neighborhood course, El Rio, and at the Randolph Golf Complex.
βItβs a lot like coaching,β she says. βSign me up. Iβm hooked.β