PROVIDENCE, R.I.
Small world: All Rhodes lead to Providence.
- My mother lives in Providence. That’s Providence, Utah. I will someday call Providence home because my wife and I paid for plots at the Providence City Cemetery, where her mother and father are buried.
“Buy it now and you’ll save a lot of money,” I was told.
“No rush,” I said.
- My first day on the job at the Star, I was introduced to sports columnist Glen Crevier.
“I’m a Yankee fan,” I said.
“I’m a Red Sox fan,” he replied, his thick Boston accent giving it away.
“Where are you from?”
“Providence, Rhode Island.”
- One of the first coaching legends I met in Tucson was Lou Farber. He had taken Pueblo High School to the 1961 state football championship and led the Warriors to the ’66 state title game.
I apologized for not knowing much of his background.
“In 1926 I played on the great ‘Iron Man’ team at Brown,” he said. “We beat Yale and Dartmouth back-to-back and we only used 11 players in each game. I graduated in ’29, did some coaching in my hometown and moved to Tucson in 1950.”
Where’s Brown? Where’s your hometown?
“Providence, Rhode Island.”
- For 18 years, the longest running tenure of any assistant coach in the UA athletic department, John Court has been on the gymnastics staff at McKale Center.
He was born in Providence, Rhode Island. His mother, Jackie Court, was Brown’s gymnastics coach for 32 years, from 1970-2001, and is believed to be the first African-American women’s head coach in NCAA history.
Before arriving in Tucson in 1998, Court was an assistant coach at Brown.
- Last summer, at a press conference introducing the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2015, I had the privilege of sitting next to ex-Santa Rita High School state championship wrestler Shawn Charles, who was the head coach at Arizona State from 2009-14.
He was telling me about his fascinating coaching odyssey, one that took him to Iowa State, Phoenix College, Central Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Fresno State.
“Fresno State eliminated its wrestling program after the 2006 season,” he said. “I was really struggling to find a job.”
So where did you go?
“Brown University,” he said. “It’s in Providence, Rhode Island.”
- Until Jimmer Fredette walked into McKale Center and scored 49 points for BYU in a 2009 victory over Sean Miller’s first Arizona team, the greatest game by an opposing player wasn’t LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal or Duke’s Christian Laettner.
It was Providence guard Eric Murdock.
On Dec. 23, 1990, Murdock scored 45 points for the Friars in a 99-87 loss to the Wildcats. He was so impressive that UA assistant coach Jim Rosborough said the Wildcats studied the Friars’ game film and “stole” a play in which Murdock would use a screen to get open for a jumper.
“We used that ‘Murdock play’ all during Damon Stoudamire’s career,” said Rosborough. “I lost count of how many times it worked.”
- In August 2010, former Palo Verde High School boys basketball coach Chris Klassen told me his best player, Bryce Cotton, had flown to California for a tryout with Chico State.
“They watched him play,” said Klassen, “and decided he was not good enough.”
A few weeks later, Klassen suggested I call Cotton; he had some good news.
“Providence saw me at a workout last week and offered me a scholarship,” he said. “I’m flying to Rhode Island tomorrow.”
By the time Cotton graduated from Providence in the summer of 2014, he had been a two-time All-Big East guard, MVP of the Big East Tournament and scored 1,975 points, more than Friars Final Four legends Ernie DiGregorio and Marvin Barnes.
Cotton has since played for the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns, been an NBA D League All-Star and last week returned to Tucson from the playoffs in the Chinese professional league, where he averaged 19.2 points for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers.
- Arizona’s epic run to the 1997 national championship included a dramatic 96-92 Elite Eight overtime victory over Providence. The Friars’ leading scorer that day in Birmingham, Alabama, was God Shammgod, who scored 23 points.
When Cotton developed into an All-Big East player at Providence, he worked daily with Shammgod, who had returned to Providence to be a graduate assistant coach on the Friars’ staff.
- A few weeks ago, at the Randolph Golf Complex, I was introduced to Joe Leslie, a former Salpointe Catholic lineman who had just retired from a 43-year college coaching career, much of it in the Ivy League at Dartmouth and Penn.
He told me he had recruited and coached a handful of Tucsonans over the years, and that two of those he most recently recruited, Salpointe running back Johnny Peña and Lancers defensive back Jay Williams, were on the last team he coached.
I asked where he had been coaching most recently.
“Brown,” he said. “It’s in Providence, Rhode Island.”
