Greg Hansen: 'Mr. Football' on Salpointe's blue-chip prospects and the Lancers' family business

Dear Mr. Football: How does a high school championship at Arizona Stadium differ from a college game?

A: Salpointe Catholic linebackers coach Rocco Bene, a graduate of Gonzaga Law School, steered his construction-size pickup into the Salpointe parking lot at 6 p.m. Tuesday, a few minutes before practice began.

Bene didn’t have time to change into coaching gear after his day job as vice president of Southern Arizona Paving and Construction, so he wore his yellow hazard-warning jacket and yellow keep-your-ears-warm hazard-alert stocking cap over his head.

Bene coached his first game at Salpointe Catholic on August 31, 2001. No high school coach in Tucson gets rich, but Bene gets to practice on time and has been a vital part of a remarkable 18-year run of success.

Dear Mr. Football: Is this a keep-it-in-the-family business?

A: Rocco’s brother, Dennis Bene, a former veterinarian, has been Salpointe’s head coach for 18 years. As a former record-breaking Lancer quarterback in the early 1980s, Bene applied for the vacant coaching job but had to endure a process in which Salpointe offered the job to another alumnus, Tom Joseph.

Joseph was a terrific choice; he had been the school’s wrestling coach and football defensive coordinator, and also the head football coach at Superior High School. But Joseph declined and a year later became the head coach at Mesa Mountain View, where he coached the Toros to the 2002 state football championship.

After subsequent head coaching gigs at Tempe Corona del Sol and Tempe Marcos de Niza, Joseph retired, moved back to Tucson and became an assistant coach at Sunnyside High School this year. Now the Blue Devils are searching for a head coach.

Dear Mr. Football: Did the Bene brothers foresee such success – 174 victories in 18 seasons?

A: When Dennis Bene was hired, he modestly told the Star "our goal is to attract the best student-athletes from around Tucson, but the reality is that kids aren’t coming here to play football. They are here for other sports."

He wasn’t wrong.

In this century, Salpointe has won 26 state championships and reached state title games 61 times. Remarkably, the Lancers have done so in 16 sports: golf, tennis, soccer, girls and boys basketball, volleyball, baseball, you name it.

By comparison, Friday’s state championship opponent, Scottsdale Saguaro, has played in 18 state championship games this century in a mere six sports.

This is the golden age of Salpointe sports, an unprecedented run of broad-based success in boys and girls sports by a single school in Tucson history.

Dear Mr. Football: Has a Tucson team ever had two blue-chip prospects simultaneously?

A: You’ll never get a fully accurate answer to that question, but the Bijan Robinson-Lathan Ransom tandem belongs in select company.

As far back as 1952, Tucson High’s undefeated state champs sent quarterback Pat Flood to Notre Dame, running back Joel Favara to Oklahoma State and lineman Guy Barrickman to Missouri.

Two decades later, the 1970 and 1971 THS champs sent All-World lineman Mike Dawson and multi-position athletes Allistaire Heartfield and Derral Davis to Arizona, defensive end Marvin Lewis to USC, linebacker Jinx Johnson to Pitt and fullback Mark Simon to Wisconsin.

In 1989, Sahuaro produced the nation’s No. 1 offensive line prospect, Mike Ciasca and the future Lou Groza Award winner as the nation’s No. 1 kicker, Steve McLaughlin.

And that’s just the beginning of an impressive and lengthy list.

Dear Mr. Football: Does Ransom have athletic genes to match Robinson's epic sports family?

A: Before Bijan there were Cleo, Jerry and Paul Robinson, athletes for multiple football state championship teams in the 1960s at Marana High School. Ransom's maternal grandfather, Javier Blanco, was surely one of Southern Arizona’s leading athletes of the 1970s. He was a first-team all-division quarterback at Sahuarita High School in 1974, making the state All-Star game, passing for a school-record 1,113 yards and making a school-record 199 tackles, with five interceptions and two blocked punts. He was also the all-city baseball catcher in 1974.

Dear Mr. Football: What turns your head during a Salpointe football practice?

A: One of the first things you notice is that a familiar face is coaching the Lancers offensive line. Familiar? It’s John Fina, a 1991 first-round pick of the Buffalo Bills, a two-time Super Bowl starting offensive tackle, a Salpointe and UA grad whose son, junior Bruno Fina, is making his own mark in prep football.

Earlier this week, a coach from Yale — yes, that Yale — arrived at Salpointe to evaluate Fina and another junior, linebacker Trent Strong, who has made 98 tackles and emerged as a college prospect.

Would you rather your son be recruited by Yale or Alabama? I’ll take Yale.

Fina and Strong, whose father, Steve Strong, was a .396-hitting catcher on Arizona’s 1986 NCAA championship baseball team, are part of a once-in-a-generation junior class that has eight starters on Salpointe’s defense.

As good as 13-0 Salpointe is now, it projects to be better next year.

Dear Mr. Football: Is the midtown neighborhood around Salpointe a crop of top football players?

A: As Bene said in 2001, his goal has been to attract top athletes from Tucson. Robinson would likely be playing at Cholla had he stayed near home; Ransom would be playing at Cienega; Fina and Strong at Sabino. Talented two-way player Mario Padilla would probably have played at Sahuaro had he chose to attend school near home.

That’s high school football in 2018; Saguaro, which has won five consecutive state championships, has 21 players on its roster who have been offered college scholarships. Those players are from every conceivable part of the Maricopa County map.

Dear Mr. Football: Has Salpointe always been good at football?

A: The Lancers played their first-ever varsity football game on Sept. 19, 1952. They were coached by Larry Baroldy, a former NAU basketball standout and World War II veteran who grew up in a mining family near Globe.

Baroldy, who died in February at age 91, was one of 10 Salpointe head football coaches — including future Idaho head coach Jerry Davitch — who couldn’t reach a state championship game. Finally, in 1981, ex-Arizona and ASU head coach Ed Doherty coached the Lancers to the state title game.

His backup quarterback that night? Dennis Bene.

Salpointe has the pedigree and the expertise to stun the mighty Saguaro Sabercats, so don’t be shocked it if happens.

The last time a Tucson football team played in such a high-profile David v. Goliath state final, Vern Friedli’s 13-0, out-numbered, out-sized, 1997 Amphitheater Panthers played 13-0 five-time state champion Mesa Mountain View to the wire. Amphi lost a 28-24 heartbreaker when a referee messed up a fumble call in the final two minutes.

This time, the karma goes Salpointe’s way.

Lancers 35, Sabercats 31.