Nov. 27, 1982: Arizona knocks Arizona State out of the Rose Bowl as UA athletics rises to untouched heights
The day after Cedric Dempsey was hired as Arizona’s athletic director, he drove to Camp Cochise to watch the Wildcats’ afternoon football practice. He was greeted not just by his new coach, Larry Smith, but by a fierce thunderstorm.
It was symbolic of the UA athletic department in late August 1982: storm clouds everywhere.
Smith and Dempsey retreated to the Cochise gymnasium to get to know one another. At times, looking over the approaching storm on the Mexican border, Dempsey must have wondered what he had gotten himself into.
Arizona’s athletic department was $417,000 in debt and the football program was under an NCAA investigation for improper payments to players dating to the mid-1970s. Worse, the Wildcats had been humbled by powerful, Frank Kush-inspired ASU football teams for 17 years. More bad news: the UA basketball program was about to begin a 4-24 season, the worst in modern school history.
Entering their fifth season as a member of the Pac-10, the Wildcats appeared to be in over their heads, positioned to become a perennial bottom feeder to rank with Oregon State and Washington State.
Dempsey had accepted a base salary of just $66,000 to leave a similar position at Houston, and, frankly, some wondered if he had properly thought it through. Behind Phi Slama Jama, Houston was in the middle of three consecutive berths in the Final Four. The Cougars’ men’s golf team had just won the 1982 NCAA title, and Houston’s football team had gone a remarkable 34-13-1 in four seasons, including two trips to the Cotton Bowl, then one of the Big Four of college football.
“I’ve wanted to be the (AD) at Arizona since 1972, but I was turned down then,” Dempsey said in attempt to explain his unexpected move. “We can make it work here.”
When the storm broke and Dempsey returned to the football field, a rainbow appeared to reach all the way to Mexico.
Over the next 15 years, the sun would shine on the UA athletic department with unprecedented brightness. The Wildcats would surpass ASU in football and basketball and become one of the NCAA’s 10 leading athletic departments, year after year, as recorded by the Sears Directors’ Cup.
It didn’t take long; two days after Thanksgiving, November 27, 1982, the UA’s ascent began with one of the most dramatic football games in school history.
The Wildcats (5-4-1) were supposedly looking down the wrong end of another Sun Devil juggernaut, a 9-1 team that only needed to win in Tucson to jump into their first Rose Bowl game and further expand the competitive gulf between the rival schools.
ASU had created a revolutionary, blitz-from-everywhere defense that included future NFL standouts Vernon Maxwell, Jim Jeffcoat and Mike Richardson. The Sun Devils were 12-point favorites.
There was no telecast, live or delayed, of the game. A crowd of 58,515, which was then an Arizona Stadium record, settled in on a chilly November evening.
Walking back from the practice field Thursday night, Smith told the Tucson Citizen’s Corky Simpson and me that he wasn’t sure Arizona could beat ASU “even if we play a perfect game.”
“I’ve never seen a defense like it,” he said.
But Smith was the mastermind of three colossal upsets in his first three UA seasons. He bumped off No. 2 UCLA in 1980, shocked No. 1 USC in 1981, and took down undefeated and No. 9 Notre Dame a month earlier in South Bend, Indiana.
It wasn’t like Arizona was without talent; All-America linebacker Ricky Hunley and future NFL starters Randy Robbins, Vance Johnson and all-conference players Max Zendejas, Jeff Kiewel and David Wood populated the roster.
It was scoreless early in the second quarter when junior quarterback Tom Tunnicliffe retreated into the end zone under a typically strong ASU blitz.
“My assignment was to dump the ball off quickly when ASU blitzed,” Tunnicliffe said. “They had to leave someone open.”
Tailback Brian Holland stood alone at the 8-yard line, unguarded by the onrushing Sun Devils. Tunnicliffe tossed him the ball and Holland sprinted 92 yards for a touchdown.
In the 87 years of football at Arizona Stadium, the noise created during Holland’s long run probably set a record for decibel levels. But it would get even louder in the third quarter when nose guard Joe Drake smothered ASU tailback Darryl Clack for a safety, giving Arizona a 12-0 lead.
Ninety seconds later, after an ASU fumble, Tunniciliffe beat the ASU blitz again, throwing a quick strike to future NFL receiver Brad Anderson, who beat man-coverage and ran 65 yards for a touchdown.
Bedlam. Arizona 19-0.
The Wildcats capped their stunning victory when Drake buried another ASU tailback for a safety in the fourth quarter. Arizona won 28-18. Both goal posts were torn down and paraded up and down Speedway Boulevard until the wee hours.
“I don’t like to say this is the ‘greatest something’ or that was the ‘biggest win,’” said Smith, who had cried like a baby while being carried off the field. “But this is as good as it gets. UCLA will be a great representative in the Rose Bowl. We were happy to help.”
ASU did not beat Arizona again until 1991.
Momentum grew. Part III of the Dempsey Trifecta didn’t take long to fall into place. Three months later, he fired basketball coach Ben Lindsey and flew to Kansas City in search of a new coach and a new vision.
After Villanova beat Iowa 55-54 in the Sweet 16, Dempsey told Iowa athletic director Bump Elliott he planned to talk to the Hawkeyes’ basketball coach, Lute Olson, about the vacancy at Arizona.
After Olson’s season-ending press conference in KC, Elliott pulled him aside.
“The athletic director at Arizona wants to talk to you about their coaching job,” he said.
Olson, 48, three years removed from a stirring run to the Final Four, agreed to meet Dempsey for breakfast the next morning, a Saturday.
By Sunday afternoon, Lute and Bobbi Olson were in Tucson, touring McKale Center and meeting boosters hand-picked by Dempsey. In record speed, Olson agreed to become Arizona’s coach and 36 hours later, at 10:30 a.m., on Tuesday, March 29, Olson held a press conference at McKale Center.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work,” he said, “but I’m not coming here to finish second.”
In the space of seven months — the most defining period in UA sports history — Arizona changed the face of its athletic department. By the time Dempsey left to become executive director of the NCAA in late 1993, the Wildcats began an eight-year period in which they never ranked lower than No. 9 in the Sears Cup rankings of NCAA athletic departments.
“What (Dempsey) accomplished here was unprecedented,” UA president Manuel Pacheco said upon Dempsey’s departure. “He set the bar as high as it can be set. It’s a tough act to follow.”
Where are they now: Dempsey, 83, is retired and lives in San Diego. As a consultant in 2010, he acted as a one-man search committee who recommended the hiring of Greg Byrne as Arizona’s athletic director.
How he did it: Dempsey completed the link to Arizona’s legendary AD/coach Pop McKale. Both men graduated from Albion (Michigan) College. Small world, huh?
