Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Talented Pima football team prepping for brutal schedule
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The most daunting football schedule in 2017 doesn’t belong to Clemson or USC or to the New England Patriots. It will be played by the Pima College Aztecs.
“Whoever made that schedule is probably an idiot,” said PCC coach Jim Monaco, who is precisely the man who agreed to play No. 1 Arizona Western twice and also open the season Saturday at No. 4 Trinity Valley of Texas.
Along the way the Aztecs will play No. 10 Mesa, No. 19 Eastern Arizona and No. 20 Snow College.
The No. 1 Arizona Western club had difficulty scheduling opponents in Yuma and asked Monaco if the Aztecs would consider a home-and-home series on Sept. 9 and Oct. 21.
The Aztecs will receive $7,000, about enough to cover travel expenses (via bus) to play at No. 4 Trinity in this week’s opener. That, too, is an elective.
“You can play all the softer teams you want, but it doesn’t get you anywhere,” said Monaco. “I look at it as an opportunity to do something amazing.”
The Aztecs rose to No. 12 in the NJCAA rankings last year and played in the Region championship game a year earlier. From 2015-17, they have had the most high-profile talent in the school’s football history, with players signed by Utah, TCU, Kansas, Idaho and Oregon State.
Star linebacker Bryant Pirtle of Louisville, Kentucky, has more than 20 FBS scholarship offers, including one from Arizona. Defensive back Aaron Maddox of South Carolina, son of former UA Desert Swarm linebacker Richard Maddox, is a FBS prospect, as is Salpointe Catholic’s 2014 state championship receiving standout Kaelin DeBoskie, who left Arizona and transferred to Pima.
The Wildcats last week offered a scholarship to PCC cornerback Haki Woods of Chicago. The starting QB is expected to be Pueblo High grad Justin Martin, who passed for 1,918 yards and rushed for 331 in eight starts as a freshman.
Getting to Saturday’s opener near Dallas, won’t be easy. The Aztecs will drive overnight, beginning at 9 p.m., Wednesday. They will work out in Midland, Texas, on Thursday, practice at TCU on Friday, play Trinity Valley on Saturday evening, and drive home immediately after the game.
“This isn’t a pleasure trip,” said Monaco. “We are going to keep a study hall going while we’re traveling. We have a chance to be well-rested and ready to go by kickoff. To me, this is a much better option than playing the Sisters of the Poor.”
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Mike Candrea turns 62 next week and retirement is not on his agenda.
When he agreed to a five-year extension last week, through 2022, he became what is believed to be the second-highest paid college softball coach. Oklahoma’s Patty Gasso is paid $482,000 at Oklahoma; Candrea’s new deal gives him a base salary of $345,000, with potential bonuses and a university-inspired investment partnership that could surpass Gasso’s numbers. Beyond that, Candrea is also one of the highest-paid softball coaches by equipment manufacturers.
Oregon recently raised the salary of coach Mike White to $237,000; White’s Ducks have dominated the league over the past five seasons.
UA AD Dave Heeke similarly secured baseball coach Jay Johnson through the 2022 season, at $500,000 per season. That’s a raise of about $150,000 per year, but it doesn’t put Johnson among the Pac-12’s highest-paid baseball coaches.
UCLA paid John Savage $1.125 million per season with a deal in 2014. Oregon State’s Pat Casey has a contract worth $850,000 now that escalates to $1.1 million if he stays through 2022. It does, however, put Johnson beyond ASU’s Tracy Smith, whose contract is for $375,000 through 2019.
Heeke has been on the job for about 130 days. What’s next? My guess is that he’ll announce the site and construction date of an indoor facility for, among other things, football workouts and fan entertainment, and perhaps approve and plan the construction of a statue/memorial to Lute Olson.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As Arizona opens its 2017-18 sports season, not much has changed at the top. The three leading teams on campus look to be Sean Miller’s basketball team, Laura Ianello’s women’s golf team and possibly Dave Rubio’s volleyball team. Ianello has a chance to win her third Pac-12 championship and advance to the final eight playoffs at the NCAA finals. She already had a Big Three returning — U.S. Amateur standouts Haley Moore, Krystal Quihuis and Gigi Stoll — and appears to have filled in the gaps with Denmark freshman Cecilie Bofill, one of Europe’s top female amateur golfers, and by getting Gonzaga transfer Bianca Pagdanganan to enroll at Arizona, eligible immediately. Pagdanganan, who is from Quezon City, Philippines, shot an NCAA-record 61 last spring while winning the Thunderbird Invitational at 14-under par.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Coaching news: Sabino High and UA grad Tod Brown, the top pitcher on Arizona’s 1993 baseball team that reached the NCAA regionals, last week signed a four-year contract extension as North Dakota State’s head coach. Brown has coached the Bison to the Summit League championship game four times in the last six years. Meanwhile, former Ironwood Ridge softball standout Robin Landrith, a four-year starter at catcher for NCAA power Baylor, has joined the softball coaching staff at Yale. Landrith will work to finish her advanced degree work in Philosophical Theology while coaching at Yale. She spent the summer working at the Yale Art Gallery.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As it turns out, new UA assistant basketball coach Lorenzo Romar is not the highest-paid assistant in the Pac-12. Romar is paid $400,000 by Arizona but Utah elevated the contract of assistant Tommy Connor to $525,000, according to school documents. While Romar was in Spain on the UA exhibition basketball tour, fifth-year senior forward Talbott Denny, a Salpointe Catholic and Lipscomb University grad, did not play. He did, however, participate in his first full practice with the club after a medical examination showed that the ACL he tore a year ago is now ready for competition. Denny’s return will give the UA so much depth it is ridiculous.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The Chinese pro basketball season is the earliest starter among top overseas leagues and the two names to surface this month are both Tucson-connected. Santa Rita grad Terrell Stoglin made his Chinese debut Friday night and scored 51 points for China Hunan. Stoglin, who played in Lebanon last season, was matched against Arizona’s 2013 All-Pac-12 guard Mark Lyons. Lyons, who is also in his first season in China, scored 39. A week earlier, Lyons scored 60 for China Guizhou when he made 12 of 18 3-point shots. Lyons played last season in Israel.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
The emerging name from BYU’s preseason football camp is Sabino grad Matt Bushman. After completing a two-year LDS mission in Santiago, Chile, Bushman is the likely starter at tight end in BYU’s opener against Portland State on Saturday. “You can tell there’s something special about him,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake told reporters last week.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
As new Arizona swimming coach Augie Busch begins the imposing job of rebuilding the school’s once-dominant programs, he faces these odds: SwimSwam.com projects that 21 of the 40 top recruits in the Class of 2017 – men and women combined – signed with Pac-12 schools. None signed with Arizona. Worse, Arizona lost three of its leading women’s swimmers, who transferred before Busch was hired. Augie’s younger brother, Sam Busch, who initially was to be part of the Arizona staff, was instead hired by TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte to be the Horned Frogs head swimming coach. Sam Busch has an even more difficult assignment: TCU’s main swimming complex is indoors and isn’t regulation size. About 75 former UA swimmers are expected on campus next week for a reunion to honor the Frank Busch years and participate in the swimming-centric 2017 UA Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies. The ex-UA swimmers have already begun a fundraising campaign to help with Hillenbrand Aquatics Center facilities, which includes locker rooms, a timing system and the facility’s lobby.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Scott Schultz, golf pro at Oro Valley Country Club, last week raised about $6,000 for the First Tee of Tucson by playing 108 holes (six full rounds) at OVCC in just under nine hours. Incredibly, Schultz shot 7 over par during his heat-of-the-day marathon. Those at OVCC helped with more than donations; 25 people shared caddie duties for Schultz.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Ironwood Ridge senior running back Nick Brahler has become a force in Arizona prep football. He gained 246 yards and scored four touchdowns in a thrilling 42-35 victory over rising power Marana on Friday. You could almost see this coming. At midseason, 2016, Brahler became a starter at Ironwood Ridge, gaining 797 yards in his last five games. One of the special items about Ironwood Ridge’s come-from-behind victory Friday was that Nighthawks coach Matt Johnson placed a green “VF” sticker on the helmet of each of his players. It was to honor the late Vern Friedli, who was Johnson’s coach and mentor at Amphitheater 27 years ago.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Kevin Singleton, Arizona’s standout linebacker of the late 1980s and early 1990s who overcame leukemia to return to the UA lineup, has linked up with the son of Larry Smith, the man who recruited Singleton to Arizona out of New Jersey 30 years ago. Singleton is now the linebackers coach for Tempe McClintock High School, coached by Corby Smith, Larry’s son. Smith and Singleton will make their McClintock debut Friday against Casa Grande Vista Grande.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
At 40, Tucsonan Abdi Abdirahman hasn’t given an inch in his international distance-running career. At last week’s annual TD Beach 10K in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the four-time Olympian was sixth overall. His time of 28:32, was only 14 seconds off what he ran in his first TD Beach race in 2002. Abdirahman was paid $4,900.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One omission from my Top 10 of Everything summer series: In listing the Hasseys as the top family in Tucson sports history, I didn’t include Mary Ann Hassey, sister of UA All-American and 13-year MLB catcher Ron Hassey. Mary Ann was one of the state’s top tennis players at Rincon High from 1978-80, and became a regular on the UA tennis team in the early 1980s.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
ASU president Michael Crow last week told reporters in Phoenix: “Losing records over more than one year in any sports are unacceptable. … We’re excited about this (football) season, but losing seasons at our level of performance expectation are unacceptable.”
Two things: Crow has become the George Steinbrenner of Power 5 conference sports. He is impatient and demanding and willing to speak his mind.
But this is nothing new. The reality of coaching a revenue sport in a Power 5 conference, especially football, is that patience and diplomacy vanished long ago.
Arizona parted ways with its best-ever football coach, Dick Tomey, after he went 6-6 and 5-6 in 1999-2000. USC fired once-sainted John Robinson after he went 6-6 and 6-5 in 1996-97.
Once a coach has been given his break-in years, rebuilding a bad situation, two years has been the customary limit of extended failure. A half-century ago, Arizona fired football coach Jim LaRue, who had gone 29-20-1 in his first five years. He was considered a miracle worker.
But LaRue then went 3-7 and 3-7 and was fired after the 1966 season.
The only difference now is that Crow is one of the few administrators willing to put a coach on notice publicly.
The most daunting football schedule in 2017 doesn’t belong to Clemson or USC or to the New England Patriots. It will be played by the Pima College Aztecs.
“Whoever made that schedule is probably an idiot,” said PCC coach Jim Monaco, who is precisely the man who agreed to play No. 1 Arizona Western twice and also open the season Saturday at No. 4 Trinity Valley of Texas.
Along the way the Aztecs will play No. 10 Mesa, No. 19 Eastern Arizona and No. 20 Snow College.
The No. 1 Arizona Western club had difficulty scheduling opponents in Yuma and asked Monaco if the Aztecs would consider a home-and-home series on Sept. 9 and Oct. 21.
The Aztecs will receive $7,000, about enough to cover travel expenses (via bus) to play at No. 4 Trinity in this week’s opener. That, too, is an elective.
“You can play all the softer teams you want, but it doesn’t get you anywhere,” said Monaco. “I look at it as an opportunity to do something amazing.”
The Aztecs rose to No. 12 in the NJCAA rankings last year and played in the Region championship game a year earlier. From 2015-17, they have had the most high-profile talent in the school’s football history, with players signed by Utah, TCU, Kansas, Idaho and Oregon State.
Star linebacker Bryant Pirtle of Louisville, Kentucky, has more than 20 FBS scholarship offers, including one from Arizona. Defensive back Aaron Maddox of South Carolina, son of former UA Desert Swarm linebacker Richard Maddox, is a FBS prospect, as is Salpointe Catholic’s 2014 state championship receiving standout Kaelin DeBoskie, who left Arizona and transferred to Pima.
The Wildcats last week offered a scholarship to PCC cornerback Haki Woods of Chicago. The starting QB is expected to be Pueblo High grad Justin Martin, who passed for 1,918 yards and rushed for 331 in eight starts as a freshman.
Getting to Saturday’s opener near Dallas, won’t be easy. The Aztecs will drive overnight, beginning at 9 p.m., Wednesday. They will work out in Midland, Texas, on Thursday, practice at TCU on Friday, play Trinity Valley on Saturday evening, and drive home immediately after the game.
“This isn’t a pleasure trip,” said Monaco. “We are going to keep a study hall going while we’re traveling. We have a chance to be well-rested and ready to go by kickoff. To me, this is a much better option than playing the Sisters of the Poor.”
Mike Candrea turns 62 next week and retirement is not on his agenda.
When he agreed to a five-year extension last week, through 2022, he became what is believed to be the second-highest paid college softball coach. Oklahoma’s Patty Gasso is paid $482,000 at Oklahoma; Candrea’s new deal gives him a base salary of $345,000, with potential bonuses and a university-inspired investment partnership that could surpass Gasso’s numbers. Beyond that, Candrea is also one of the highest-paid softball coaches by equipment manufacturers.
Oregon recently raised the salary of coach Mike White to $237,000; White’s Ducks have dominated the league over the past five seasons.
UA AD Dave Heeke similarly secured baseball coach Jay Johnson through the 2022 season, at $500,000 per season. That’s a raise of about $150,000 per year, but it doesn’t put Johnson among the Pac-12’s highest-paid baseball coaches.
UCLA paid John Savage $1.125 million per season with a deal in 2014. Oregon State’s Pat Casey has a contract worth $850,000 now that escalates to $1.1 million if he stays through 2022. It does, however, put Johnson beyond ASU’s Tracy Smith, whose contract is for $375,000 through 2019.
Heeke has been on the job for about 130 days. What’s next? My guess is that he’ll announce the site and construction date of an indoor facility for, among other things, football workouts and fan entertainment, and perhaps approve and plan the construction of a statue/memorial to Lute Olson.
As Arizona opens its 2017-18 sports season, not much has changed at the top. The three leading teams on campus look to be Sean Miller’s basketball team, Laura Ianello’s women’s golf team and possibly Dave Rubio’s volleyball team. Ianello has a chance to win her third Pac-12 championship and advance to the final eight playoffs at the NCAA finals. She already had a Big Three returning — U.S. Amateur standouts Haley Moore, Krystal Quihuis and Gigi Stoll — and appears to have filled in the gaps with Denmark freshman Cecilie Bofill, one of Europe’s top female amateur golfers, and by getting Gonzaga transfer Bianca Pagdanganan to enroll at Arizona, eligible immediately. Pagdanganan, who is from Quezon City, Philippines, shot an NCAA-record 61 last spring while winning the Thunderbird Invitational at 14-under par.
Coaching news: Sabino High and UA grad Tod Brown, the top pitcher on Arizona’s 1993 baseball team that reached the NCAA regionals, last week signed a four-year contract extension as North Dakota State’s head coach. Brown has coached the Bison to the Summit League championship game four times in the last six years. Meanwhile, former Ironwood Ridge softball standout Robin Landrith, a four-year starter at catcher for NCAA power Baylor, has joined the softball coaching staff at Yale. Landrith will work to finish her advanced degree work in Philosophical Theology while coaching at Yale. She spent the summer working at the Yale Art Gallery.
As it turns out, new UA assistant basketball coach Lorenzo Romar is not the highest-paid assistant in the Pac-12. Romar is paid $400,000 by Arizona but Utah elevated the contract of assistant Tommy Connor to $525,000, according to school documents. While Romar was in Spain on the UA exhibition basketball tour, fifth-year senior forward Talbott Denny, a Salpointe Catholic and Lipscomb University grad, did not play. He did, however, participate in his first full practice with the club after a medical examination showed that the ACL he tore a year ago is now ready for competition. Denny’s return will give the UA so much depth it is ridiculous.
The Chinese pro basketball season is the earliest starter among top overseas leagues and the two names to surface this month are both Tucson-connected. Santa Rita grad Terrell Stoglin made his Chinese debut Friday night and scored 51 points for China Hunan. Stoglin, who played in Lebanon last season, was matched against Arizona’s 2013 All-Pac-12 guard Mark Lyons. Lyons, who is also in his first season in China, scored 39. A week earlier, Lyons scored 60 for China Guizhou when he made 12 of 18 3-point shots. Lyons played last season in Israel.
The emerging name from BYU’s preseason football camp is Sabino grad Matt Bushman. After completing a two-year LDS mission in Santiago, Chile, Bushman is the likely starter at tight end in BYU’s opener against Portland State on Saturday. “You can tell there’s something special about him,” BYU coach Kalani Sitake told reporters last week.
As new Arizona swimming coach Augie Busch begins the imposing job of rebuilding the school’s once-dominant programs, he faces these odds: SwimSwam.com projects that 21 of the 40 top recruits in the Class of 2017 – men and women combined – signed with Pac-12 schools. None signed with Arizona. Worse, Arizona lost three of its leading women’s swimmers, who transferred before Busch was hired. Augie’s younger brother, Sam Busch, who initially was to be part of the Arizona staff, was instead hired by TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte to be the Horned Frogs head swimming coach. Sam Busch has an even more difficult assignment: TCU’s main swimming complex is indoors and isn’t regulation size. About 75 former UA swimmers are expected on campus next week for a reunion to honor the Frank Busch years and participate in the swimming-centric 2017 UA Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies. The ex-UA swimmers have already begun a fundraising campaign to help with Hillenbrand Aquatics Center facilities, which includes locker rooms, a timing system and the facility’s lobby.
Scott Schultz, golf pro at Oro Valley Country Club, last week raised about $6,000 for the First Tee of Tucson by playing 108 holes (six full rounds) at OVCC in just under nine hours. Incredibly, Schultz shot 7 over par during his heat-of-the-day marathon. Those at OVCC helped with more than donations; 25 people shared caddie duties for Schultz.
Ironwood Ridge senior running back Nick Brahler has become a force in Arizona prep football. He gained 246 yards and scored four touchdowns in a thrilling 42-35 victory over rising power Marana on Friday. You could almost see this coming. At midseason, 2016, Brahler became a starter at Ironwood Ridge, gaining 797 yards in his last five games. One of the special items about Ironwood Ridge’s come-from-behind victory Friday was that Nighthawks coach Matt Johnson placed a green “VF” sticker on the helmet of each of his players. It was to honor the late Vern Friedli, who was Johnson’s coach and mentor at Amphitheater 27 years ago.
Kevin Singleton, Arizona’s standout linebacker of the late 1980s and early 1990s who overcame leukemia to return to the UA lineup, has linked up with the son of Larry Smith, the man who recruited Singleton to Arizona out of New Jersey 30 years ago. Singleton is now the linebackers coach for Tempe McClintock High School, coached by Corby Smith, Larry’s son. Smith and Singleton will make their McClintock debut Friday against Casa Grande Vista Grande.
At 40, Tucsonan Abdi Abdirahman hasn’t given an inch in his international distance-running career. At last week’s annual TD Beach 10K in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the four-time Olympian was sixth overall. His time of 28:32, was only 14 seconds off what he ran in his first TD Beach race in 2002. Abdirahman was paid $4,900.
One omission from my Top 10 of Everything summer series: In listing the Hasseys as the top family in Tucson sports history, I didn’t include Mary Ann Hassey, sister of UA All-American and 13-year MLB catcher Ron Hassey. Mary Ann was one of the state’s top tennis players at Rincon High from 1978-80, and became a regular on the UA tennis team in the early 1980s.
ASU president Michael Crow last week told reporters in Phoenix: “Losing records over more than one year in any sports are unacceptable. … We’re excited about this (football) season, but losing seasons at our level of performance expectation are unacceptable.”
Two things: Crow has become the George Steinbrenner of Power 5 conference sports. He is impatient and demanding and willing to speak his mind.
But this is nothing new. The reality of coaching a revenue sport in a Power 5 conference, especially football, is that patience and diplomacy vanished long ago.
Arizona parted ways with its best-ever football coach, Dick Tomey, after he went 6-6 and 5-6 in 1999-2000. USC fired once-sainted John Robinson after he went 6-6 and 6-5 in 1996-97.
Once a coach has been given his break-in years, rebuilding a bad situation, two years has been the customary limit of extended failure. A half-century ago, Arizona fired football coach Jim LaRue, who had gone 29-20-1 in his first five years. He was considered a miracle worker.
But LaRue then went 3-7 and 3-7 and was fired after the 1966 season.
The only difference now is that Crow is one of the few administrators willing to put a coach on notice publicly.
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