I consider the birth of Tucson sports to be Sept. 1, 1921. That’s the day University of Arizona athletic director J.F. McKale — at 34, he wasn’t yet known as “Pop” — announced plans to build a “gigantic” sports complex, including a gymnasium, a baseball field and a track.
Preliminary discussions to construct what is now Arizona Stadium were set in motion.
Over those 100 years — from such humble beginnings — 29 Arizona Wildcats have played in Super Bowls, 10 have played or coached in the World Series, 11 have played in the NBA Finals.
And that’s just dipping a toe in the water of Tucson’s vast sports success of the last century.
Until 1921, sports in Tucson weren’t what you’d term organized or consistent. There was no UA football season in 1918 because of World War I. The 1920 Wildcats played the Phoenix Indians and Camp Harry Jones and won by a cumulative 218-20.
The 1920-21 UA basketball team, recovering from World War I and a global flu pandemic, played just seven games, five against YMCA teams. The UA does not keep game-by-game records or statistics of any baseball season before 1921.
Tucson High School, the only high school in town, played a limited schedule before the 1920s. Why? Its closest opponent was the Gila Academy in Thatcher.
But in September 1921, McKale scheduled a football game against nationally prominent Texas A&M. The Star reacted optimistically by writing: “... the brawny warriors of the cardinal and navy blue will oppose a real team.’’
It got real very quickly. Arizona went 7-1 and was invited to its first bowl game, Dec. 26, 1921.
McKale followed by scheduling four games against USC, and dumped a basketball schedule full of YMCAs and junior colleges by arranging eight games against USC and four against UCLA over the next two seasons.
By 1926, Bear Down Gym opened, followed in 1929 by Arizona Stadium. In 1923, Tucson High won the first of its 15 state track championships over a 26-year period, the first authentic “dynasty’’ in Tucson prep sports.
It all began on Sept. 1, 1921.
From Rob Gronkowski to Hi Corbett to Annika Sorenstam, it has been a century of sports success few could have imagined.
Tucson High lefty Lum Davenport reached the major leagues in 1921, the first of 44 high school players from Tucson to play in the big leagues. The gates of opportunity beckoned.
Local athletes — those from Tucson high schools — have produced 34 NFL players, 11 pro rodeo world champions, two NBA All-Stars, gold, silver and bronze medalists in the Summer Olympics, PGA Tour and LPGA Tour champions, three Wimbledon players, and those who won on the pro bowlers tour, raced in the Indianapolis 500 and became owners of NBA and MLB franchises.
Over the next 100 days, we will count down the top 100 sports figures in Tucson history. My preliminary list included 137 people I considered “top 100-worthy.” Settling on 100 was no fun, but the numbers worked — 100 people, 100 years.
There is one qualifier: this top 100 is meant for Tucson sports figures, those who either attended local high schools, did their life’s work in here or spent more than a season or two at the UA. Call it the Gronk Rule: The future Pro Football Hall of Famer played two football seasons at Arizona and was not an All-American.
He made his name elsewhere.
The 100 who are on the list come from every walk of life. World War II veterans, refugees from foreign civil wars, farmer’s sons from Nebraska, golfers from UCLA and those who bravely broke color barriers.
If you’ve got any suggestions, please let me know.
