A few days ago, I got heartbreaking text message from my friend Bob Herrington:
“I’m at Banner. I’m in a major battle. I deeply love and appreciate you.”
Bob died on Friday.
It wasn’t COVID-19. It was an unforgiving cancer that attacked his liver and wouldn’t let go. I have no doubt that when Bob reached the gates of heaven he was escorted immediately to wherever it is that an angel is given his wings.
He lived to be 83, had the energy of a man 53, and accomplished so much good that you’d think it would’ve taken him 183 years.
This is the kind of man Bob Herrington was: When Arizona’s softball team qualified for the 2007 Women’s College World Series, Bob and his wife, Barb, booked airline tickets and a hotel room in Oklahoma City.
“Why don’t we ask Sara if she wants to go with us?” Bob asked.
Bob and Barb Herrington’s season tickets at Hillenbrand Stadium have forever been next to that of an 80-something widow who always attended UA games alone. He often talked about Sara and how much enthusiasm she had, even on an afternoon when temperatures neared 100.
“But, Bob, we don’t know Sara that well,” Barb said.
“Sure we do,” said Bob. “She’d love it.”
And so for the next week, Bob, Barb and Sara watched every inning of Arizona’s national championship run in Oklahoma City.
“It was a great trip,” Barb remembers. “When I talked to her last week, Sara told me she’ll never forget it.”
Bob Herrington was the son of a farmer who worked the land in Tucson and on the Arkansas/Louisiana border near racially divided Bonita, Louisiana. He often spoke about plowing a field with two horses — no tractor — scavenging for arrowheads, growing up poor, living off the land.
“I saw everything a young man of the ’40s and ’50s could see, and not all of it was good,” he said. “Once, when I took a Greyhound bus from Tucson to Louisiana, the bus pulled off the road when we crossed into Texas, near El Paso. The bus driver ordered all of the black passengers to move to the back of the bus. It changed my life. I wanted to help people in any way I could.”
And so he did.
Herrington left Tucson High School to complete his high school days in Louisiana, and then returned to enroll at the University of Arizona in the mid 1950s. He ultimately graduated from Biola University in Southern California, and for many years worked as a minister in California.
Among those he counseled was a young Tom Hanks, who grew up near Herrington’s ministry in Modesto.
Bob later became a house painter and a realtor. About 22 years ago, he met Barb while at church in Ventura, California. They were married the week the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series. Ever a sports fan, Bob drove to Phoenix, found a way to get tickets to Game 7, and sat as close to the Diamondbacks dugout as possible.
“That was on our honeymoon,” Barb says. “I don’t think we left the ballpark until after midnight. It was so special.”
The Herringtons moved to Tucson in 2005 and immediately became regulars at UA football, basketball, softball and volleyball games. He was more interested in the players and coaches than the final score.
In the 2006 football season, Bob read about the challenges of Arizona offensive coordinator Mike Canales, whose offense struggled as the Wildcats tried to rebuild from consecutive 3-8 seasons.
“I came out to the field before the game, leaning against a wall at about the 10- or 20-yard line and Bob leaned over the railing and introduced himself,” Canales says now. “He told me to hang in there. I could tell he was sincere.”
Game after game, Herrington waited for Canales to emerge from the locker room. They soon exchanged phone numbers. “He became not just a friend, but a confidant,” says Canales. “He was just awesome.”
When Canales left Tucson, the relationship grew. Herrington drove to El Paso to watch Canales’ new team, South Florida, play in the 2007 Sun Bowl. When Canales became the interim head coach at North Texas, Herrington flew to Dallas and sat next to Canales on their 2010 bus trip to play Louisiana-Monroe.
When Canales was the offensive coordinator at Utah State, Herrington flew to Salt Lake City, rented a car and spent the week at USU, walking the sidelines with Canales at Romney Stadium.
“He was an amazing friend,” said Canales, now the offensive coordinator at UTEP, who drove to Tucson to see Herrington last month. “He was one of a kind.”
A few years ago, after UA assistant basketball coach Book Richardson was fired, Herrington reached out to Book. Their relationship clicked.
Herrington would often drive to Richardson’s home, pick him up, and take him with him while he painted a house. Or just sit in the car and talk, whatever Richardson needed to help get through the day.
They became such good friends that Richardson calls him “dad.”
“I wanted Book to know that he is a good man, and that I will stand behind him no matter what,” Herrington told me.
A month or so before Richardson moved to New York to serve a prison sentence, I joined Book and Bob for breakfast at a Tucson restaurant. It was an emotional time. Book wept. So did Bob. When they left the restaurant, they embraced one another.
“I love you, Book,” said Herrington.
“I love you, dad,” said Richardson.
I miss you, Bob.
