For almost a quarter-century, 1985-2008, Sheila Baize had one of the most time-consuming and critically important jobs in Tucson sports.
As director of interscholastics for the Tucson Unified School District — basically the athletic director overseeing nine high schools and about 20 middle schools — Baize was responsible for more than 300 teams and 3,000 athletes per year. She was in charge of:
Transportation
Facilities
Budgets
Eligibility
Equipment
Officiating
Schedules
Equity and inclusion
Hiring coaches
Making sure TUSD athletes got an even shake from the Phoenix-based Arizona Interscholastic Association.
Even though she often drove to Phoenix three times a week for job-related issues, Baize said, “I have the best job in the district” when she retired 13 years ago.
When she was hired in 1985, Baize’s athletic administrative background was thin. She was the AD at San Manuel High School. But the TUSD administration saw something special in Baize, and she delivered the same way she did as an athlete and coach.
Raised in a working class family in midtown Tucson — her father, Harold, was a custodian at Whitmore Elementary School — Baize excelled as an athlete, playing for the revered Mary Hines on Catalina High School’s perennial state championship volleyball power, and earning three degrees at the UA, where she was active in volleyball and softball.
Just as softball was getting started as a varsity sport in Southern Arizona, Baize made her presence known by coaching San Manuel to five state championships — 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 — completing her tenure at the school with a remarkable 185-15 record.
She also coached the San Manuel girls basketball team to a pair of state championship games.
Along the way, Baize became an AIA volleyball official, getting an in-person look at how to work with coaches and athletes. She also got a look at how not to do things.
When she was the AD at San Manuel, she fought to get equal treatment for girls athletes.
“I experienced a lot of resistance over the years,” she told me. “Once, at San Manuel, I needed some tape for the ankles of one of my injured basketball players. But the athletic director told me there was no tape. Well, I’m in the gym complaining when one of the boys coaches walks by with a box full of tape.”
Once she became the first female athletic administrator to run a school district in Southern Arizona, Baize continued to see that girls sports were treated fairly. Against strong opposition, she moved the girls prep basketball season from spring to a traditional winter schedule. She changed the softball season from winter to spring.
She often joked that “no one calls me when they’re happy.” Parents or coaches would be upset about bus schedules, concession stands, the condition of a football field or a failing grade that made a standout ballplayer ineligible.
TUSD director of interscholastics Sheila Baize at Catalina High School in 1987.
Baize’s legacy of improving gender equality and inclusion in the TUSD athletic system was carried on by her successor, Herman House, and his successor, former Arizona basketball standout Dee Dee Wheeler.
“When you sit back now and see the before and the after,” she said in 2019, “it’s very inspiring.”
