The decade of the 1940s in Tucson sports was about winning ’em all, a period of sustained success that was so profound it almost didn’t seem possible. Call it The Undefeated.
Tucson High’s baseball team won 52 consecutive games.
The Badgers’ basketball team won 51 in succession.
The THS football team won 32 straight.
Coach Doc Van Horne’s THS track team capped four consecutive undefeated state title seasons in 1941.
And Arizona built an 81-game winning streak at Bear Down Gym, ending in 1951.
Winning ’em all was not sustainable once Arizona’s population boomed in the 1950s, but it didn’t stop 14 Tucson prep football teams from winning undefeated state titles from 1952-2013. Nor has it quieted the dynamic growth of Tucson as a soccer city; seven Tucson teams have been undefeated state champions since 2006.
One thing, though, has never changed. No UA sports team has ever finished the season undefeated. Mike Candrea has coached the Wildcats to eight NCAA championships, but the best record of the group was 64-3 in 1994.
Today, in the sixth installment of 100 years of Tucson sports, decade by decade, 1920-2020, it has long been clear that the evolution of undefeated teams and record winning streaks are unlikely to reach 1940s levels again. How could it?
But the last 100 years of Tucson sports has generated perfection in every conceivable high school sport, in every decade. Here’s how it has gone:
- 1920s: It took the entire decade for a Tucson team to finish undefeated. Finally, in 1929, coach C.L. McFarland’s Tucson High football team reached the year’s final game spotless, 8-0, matched against Bisbee High for the state title on Nov. 23, 1929.
The interest was such that more than 1,000 people turned out for a parade in downtown Tucson the afternoon before the game. The rally was broadcast on KGAR radio. McFarland told the crowd “we hope to win by two touchdowns.” He was being modest; THS rolled 38-0, its first state football title in 17 years.
- 1930s: A sellout crowd of 7,500 at Arizona Stadium filled the bleachers as undefeated Tucson High met El Paso High School in November 1937. The Badgers had been so good that they had outscored opponents 141-0. Alas, as the Star reported, the “injury hoodoo” victimized THS, which was without its three leading players, all injured. A blocked punt led to an El Paso safety and a 2-0 victory.
Two years later, coach Van Horne’s Tucson High track team became the decade’s first undefeated club, winning every meet and the state title as national record holder Joe Batiste broke his own record in the 120 low hurdles. The drama was intense. Phoenix Union High School alleged that Batiste was 20, too old to compete in high school sports. But an investigation produced Batiste’s birth certificate; he was ruled eligible on the morning of the meet that drew 3,000 at Arizona Stadium.
- 1940s: En route to its 51-game winning streak, Tucson High went 28-0 in 1948, beating rival Phoenix Union 48-46 in one of the most compelling high school events in Tucson history.
The state title game drew a Bear Down Gym-record 4,000 fans. The Star reported: “Bear Down’s foundation is still sagging today after last night’s rousing high school championship battle. The crowd stormed the court at game’s end, surely the first court-storming in Tucson history.
Quarterback Pat Flood and the Tucson High football team won the state title and finished 10-0 in 1952.
- 1950s: A state prep record crowd estimated at 15,000 poured into Arizona Stadium on Thanksgiving afternoon, 1952, as Tucson High, perhaps the state’s leading football team to that period, routed Amphitheater 25-7. The Badgers won the state championship, finishing 10-0.
Tucson produced three elite college football recruits: quarterback Pat Flood to Notre Dame, running back Joel Favara to Oklahoma State and Guy Barrickman to Illinois. The ’52 Badgers finished with a 17-game winning streak over two seasons.
Coach Norm Patton stands with his Marana High School state championship team. The Tigers went 24-0 and beat defending state champion Parker 86-67 in the title game.
Patton’s run-and-gun Tigers scored 100 or more points six times, including a state-record 130. Guard Ray Alexander was named the state’s player of the year by the Star, averaging 20 points per game, getting double-figure help from Theodis Campbell and Ken Sherman.
- 1970s: It was the decade of historic football powers in Tucson: Ollie Mayfield’s Tucson Badgers went 12-0 in 1970, Van Howe’s Palo Verde Titans went 13-0 in 1973 and Vern Friedli’s Amphi Panthers swept the state title by finishing 13-0 in 1979, the last Tucson undefeated football team for 11 years.
But the only undefeated baseball team in Tucson prep history — the 1972 Tucson Badgers — went 24-0, packed with stars such as Ron Hassey, Al Lopez and the amazing Frank Castro, who went 14-0, the state’s leading pitcher. The 1941 Tucson High baseball team is often listed as undefeated, 20-0-1, but it lost four games to the UA freshmen team that season.
- 1980s: Only two girls basketball teams in history have gone undefeated. Both were in the ’80s.
In 1984, Santa Rita coach Dave Lynch switched from his role as the school’s boys coach and piloted the Eagles to a 28-0 record, winning the state championship by 26 points.
Santa Rita point guard Paula Pyers, who went on to play at USC, is in the conversation as greatest girls basketball player in Tucson history.
Paula Pyers, Santa Rita star.
Three years later, CDO coach Dan Huff matched Santa Rita’s 28-0 season, rolling through the regular season and postseason, winning the state title by 13 points.
- 1990s: No list of undefeated teams in Tucson sports history is complete without significant mention of Sunnyside’s wrestling program. The best decade? It’s too close to call. The Blue Devils had a dual meet winning streak of 314 matches from 1998 to 2011, and an earlier streak of 187 consecutive dual victories across most of the ’80s.
The ’90s were special in Tucson sports. Jeff Scurran coached Sabino High School to 14-0 state football titles in 1990 and 1992. Wayne Jones coached Mountain View to a dominating 14-0 state football title in 1993. Dwight Rees coached Tucson’s last undefeated boys basketball team in 1993; Sunnyside won it all at 29-0. Juanita Kingston coached Rincon to an unmatched Tucson girls volleyball record, 26-0, winning the ’93 state championship.
Sunnyside wrestler Romego Young flips an opponent in 1998, a year in which the Blue Devils went undefeated.
But it all comes back to Sunnyside, which had undefeated state championship wrestling seasons in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 under Richard Sanchez, and again in 1996, 1998 and 1999 under Bobby DeBerry.
- 2000s: Ten Tucson soccer teams, boys and girls, have won undefeated state championships. Canyon del Oro’s boys did it twice, in 2009 and 2010, and Salpointe Catholic’s girls did it in 1990 and 1992.
But Charlie Kendrick took soccer success to a new level at Catalina Foothills, going 26-0 in girls soccer in both 2006 and 2007, and again, 16-0 champs, in 2010. It was the last girls prep soccer team in Tucson to go undefeated.
- 2010s: Comprehensive records of high school girls and boys tennis teams are spotty for all but about the last 10 years, but there’s little question that Catalina Foothills’ boys tennis teams may have set the standard for undefeated state champions in Tucson.
The Falcons have won six consecutive state titles, building a 109-match winning streak that started in 2014, rivaling records established by Sunnyside’s wrestling programs. Coach Jeffry Bloomberg’s club was in pursuit of a seventh consecutive undefeated state championship season when COVID-19 shut down high school sports in Tucson in March.
