Rather than accompany his Utes to McKale Center, Utah athletic director Mark Harlan chose to be in San Francisco to attend Saturday’s funeral service for Felicity Hammerschmidt, wife of Arizona’s 1989 All-Pac-10 football player and former assistant coach, Jeff Hammerschmidt.
It put perspective on Arizona’s surprising struggle to beat Utah, 82-64, adding context to the Utes’ 1-6 start to the Pac-12 season.
There are far more important things than a basketball game.
Felicity died of cancer on Christmas eve. She was only 51. Harlan and Hammerschmidt became friends 35 years ago, when both began their college education at Arizona. Their mentor was UA football coach Dick Tomey, who taught life as much or more than he coached football.
Harlan, then at the beginning of a 14-year tenure working for the Arizona athletic department, and Hammerschmidt, then on Tomey’s coaching staff, got an enduring lesson on the true importance of a ballgame in September 1995.
Two weeks after UA tight end Damon Terrell died from complications of a ruptured spleen, Tomey, whose football team was ranked No. 17, chose not to attend a game at Illinois but instead flew to Los Angeles for Terrell’s funeral.
Arizona lost 9-7, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Hammerschmidt, now part of the Syracuse football staff, and his two young children, Bryn and Bode, must move on without Felicity. That’s what I was thinking about Saturday when told that Arizona point guard Kerr Kriisa would miss the game with an injury. That’s what I kept in mind when Arizona opened Saturday’s game by shooting 1 for 16 from 3-point distance.
The Wildcats get to play basketball again this week, at Stanford and Cal. Fly on a private jet. Stay in a 4-star hotel. They might be ranked as high as No. 3 in the nation. What’s not to like or enjoy?
After No. 3 UCLA lost a home game to Oregon on Thursday, I watched a video of Bruins coach Mick Cronin that made me cringe, an outburst that, frankly, embarrassed college basketball.
Cronin said that unless the Bruins performed better “I’ll get new players.’’ He twice said, “it’s an abomination.” He roasted his players for being selfish and a litany of other things.
“I failed miserably,” said Cronin. Yes, Mick, you did. You let the game become bigger than life.
By comparison, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd was calm, measured and optimistic after Saturday’s game.
I asked him what perspective he would apply to the two-game homestand, which included some struggles against the unranked Utes and Colorado. His answer was a home run.
“It’s hard to win games. You never take it for granted. And especially in the circumstance we kind of went through today,” he said. “It’s a character-building win. It’s a program win to be able to overcome a little bit of adversity when things aren’t going your way. So, I would categorize it as a very successful homestead. I’m looking forward to going out on the road here a little bit and seeing what we can do.”
In a basketball sense, Arizona is about to enter the most challenging phase of Lloyd’s first season. Road games at UCLA, USC, Stanford and Colorado are beyond daunting. The trip to Washington and WSU no longer looks like a routine 2-0 sweep. Home games against Oregon and UCLA could go either way.
Lloyd understands the challenges ahead more than anyone else.
“We’re not there yet,” he said. “I know a lot of people are trying to anoint us that we’re all this or all that. We’re not. We’re a young team that’s going through some growing pains and we’ve just happened to stack up some wins.”
Life at McKale Center isn’t like life on the road, and there is no better example than Arizona’s history against Colorado and Utah. Since the Buffaloes and Utes entered the conference for the 2011-12 season, the Wildcats are a combined 17-0 against them at McKale Center.
Yet on the road, in Salt Lake City and Boulder, Arizona is 7-10 during a period the Wildcats were usually ranked in the Top 25 and the Utes and Buffaloes weren’t.
Here’s an even better perspective on the lasting value of a ballgame: In 2013, Colorado appeared to beat No. 3 Arizona on a last-second 3-point shot by guard Sabatino Chen. After a long review, officials ruled Chen’s shot no good, saying it left his hand about a tenth of a second after the final buzzer.
Arizona won in overtime. The Buffaloes of the Pac-12 years still haven’t won in Tucson.
Sabatino Chen? On New Year’s Day, he posted a photo of his family’s home in Louisville, Colorado, a suburb of Boulder. It had burned to the ground during the raging Marshall wildfire of Dec. 27. His father and sister escaped with the clothes on their back.
Chen created a GoFundMe account to help his family’s recovery. In a week, more than $50,000 had been raised by the CU community.
Maybe UCLA’s Mick Cronin should learn that those wins and losses don’t last forever.
Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711
