The Star's longtime columnist also discusses the upcoming Game of the Year between CDO and Mica Mountain, long-overdue golf Hall of Fame inductions, why UA fans shouldn't expect two games vs. Kansas each year and why Keona Wilhite's decommitment shouldn't come as a surprise.
Tucsonans once were D-backs faithful, then club left Tucson behind
A few weeks before the Diamondbacks' inaugural season, 1998, the fuss and furor over Major League Baseball in Tucson was such that 14 people from the Daily Star gathered at the home of senior editor Debbie Kornmiller for a colossal draft party.
We pooled our money to buy two Diamondbacks season tickets for the ’98 season. Each staff member would get about six picks. Six games. None were more coveted than the opening series against Colorado and a late-May series against the Dodgers.
The long commute to Bank One Ballpark? No problem. Tucson had a long-awaited link to the big leagues. I must’ve gone to 20 games that season, fueled by the pledge of high-profile owner Jerry Colangelo that the D-backs would soon be a winner.
Tucson jumped aboard.
The D-backs drew a now unimaginable 3.6 million people in ’98, roughly 44,000 per game, to see a 97-loss team whose lineup was dotted by David Dellucci, Omar Daal and Yamil Benitez.
Such was the clamor for big-league baseball in this state. When the D-backs beat the Yankees in an unforgettable Game 7 in the 2001 World Series, the Diamondbacks owned Tucson’s sports heartstrings.
D-backs players sign autographs for fans at Tucson Electric Park in March 1998.
Now? Time has changed everything. Everywhere you go in Tucson, no one is talking about the Diamondbacks. Apathy rules. The D-backs barely drew 1.9 million fans this season. No surprise there; the D-backs went 52-110 as recently as two years ago.
The D-backs have been so bad for so long that even though they were contending for a playoff spot all season, they drew 11,044 and 12,944 for September home games in a creaky old ballpark that rivals Tampa’s Tropicana Field as the worst in baseball.
Full disclosure: I haven’t gone to a Diamondbacks game for six years — and that was only to see the Yankees.
But now the D-backs are in the playoffs. They are a young and essentially unknown team with names I have to type slowly to make sure I am spelling them correctly: Brandon Pfaadt. Geraldo Perdomo.
No Big Unit among the bunch.
Tucson’s brief love affair with the Diamondbacks died a slow death. It can be traced not only to a decade of bad baseball, but also to the club‘s decision to part ways with an achiever like Colangelo, who was fully responsible for the D-backs' decision to make Tucson their spring training headquarters.
Alas, once Colangelo had been dismissed, the Diamondbacks punched Tucson baseball fans in the gut, accepting a $120 million offer from a Scottsdale-area casino in 2009 to move their spring training home to the Scottsdale area. The D-backs’ Triple-A affiliate, the Tucson Sidewinders, shuffled off to Reno, Nevada.
A few years later, the Diamondbacks even discontinued their weekend bus shuttle of Tucson fans to Friday and Saturday games at Chase Field. There was never a show of gratitude. The Diamondbacks left Tucson with a hollow feeling.
As difficult it is for a Yankee fan to say, let me say this about the ongoing playoffs: Go Dodgers.
Tucson’s game of the year matches old friends
Ever since Salpointe Catholic High School moved up in class and found itself in a Phoenix-based football league, Tucson has been aching for a high school Game of the Year.
Finally, undefeated Class 4A powers Canyon del Oro and Mica Mountain, both 6-0, will meet Friday at 7 p.m. at CDO. There is a lure beyond positioning for a state championship: CDO coach Dusty Peace inherited the head coaching job (and an 11-2 team) in 2009 when the Dorados’ Pat Nugent became the head coach at Pima College.
Mica Mountain’s Pat Nugent will face his old team when the Thunderbolts meet Canyon del Oro in a matchup of undefeated teams Friday.
It is a rare match of 100-game winners in Tucson prep football: Peace is 111-50 at CDO; Nugent is 153-65 in stints at Flowing Wells, CDO, Cienega and Mica Mountain. It’s Tucson’s modern version of a Jeff Scurran vs. Howard Breinig coaching showdown of yesteryear.
Mica Mountain and CDO have both outscored their opponents by an average of 42-13 this season and should coast to three victories after Friday’s game. In a city that has lacked a must-see high school football rivalry for years, this is what we’ve waited for.
Hall of Fame inductions overdue
Since the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame inducted its first class in 1968, Tucson has had a mere eight golf-related people selected and honored. For years, I argued that the AGHOF should be called the Phoenix Golf Hall of Fame.
But on Oct. 25 in Scottsdale, two titans of Tucson golf, Judy McDermott and Wade Dunagan, will be inducted. Their Tucson predecessors include the biggest names in our golf history: Dell Urich, Hi Corbett, Ed Updegraff, Dot Straw, Jack Rickard, Rick LaRose, Fred Hickle and Ricki Rarick.
Judy McDermott will be inducted into the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame later this month.
McDermott, president of the First Tee of Tucson program, was executive director of the Tucson Conquistadores for 30 years. For eight years, she was the key Tucson operative when the Accenture-Match Play championships were held here.
Dunagan, who played golf at Arizona in the early 1980s, has been the golf pro/director of golf at Tucson Country Club, Tucson National, Starr Pass, the Gallery Golf Club and at the Randolph Golf Complex. For two years, he was the executive director of the Accenture-Match Play championships.
After McDermott and Dunagan are inducted, the next Tucsonans who should be considered for selection are golf architect Ken Kavanaugh, seven-time City Amateur champion and long-time club pro Jeff Kern and Don Pooley, a two-time PGA Tour winner and 2001 U.S. Senior Open champion who has become a key figure in the First Tee of Tucson.
Short stuff: Don't expect two games vs. Kansas yearly, Wilhite's decision not unexpected
• Arizona basketball fans who are hopeful the UA’s move to the Big 12 will include a must-watch home-and-home series every year with Kansas are likely to be disappointed. The chances of that happening are close to zero.
This year, for example, Kansas only has a home-and-home arrangement with Oklahoma State and Baylor. The league will multiply from its current 14 teams to 16 next season, making a Pac-12-type home-and-home schedule almost impossible. KU does not play at Big 12 members Houston, BYU, TCU, Texas, Cincinnati or TCU this season.
Arizona’s Jamelle Horne, right, steals the ball from Kansas’ Markieff Morris during a 2008 game. The Wildcats and Jayhawks will be in the same conference a year from now, but that doesn’t mean Kansas will be making yearly trips to McKale Center.
One hopeful item: Baylor athletic director Mack Rhodes, a Rincon High and UA graduate, said last week that the Big 12 has been discussing expanding its league basketball schedule from 16 to 20 games next year. ...
• Salpointe Catholic defensive end Keona Wilhite last week announced he will not attend Arizona after all. He committed to the Wildcats in June. Clearly, that’s not an unexpected transaction in the here-today, gone-tomorrow world of college sports.
As far back as 1994, Seattle basketball whiz Jason Terry committed to play at hometown Washington in October. A month later, Terry jumped to Arizona, where he became a first-team All-American in 1999. Washington got even with Arizona a decade later when Seattle’s Brandon Roy, later a first-round NBA draft pick, committed to Arizona and, a month later, flipped to his hometown Huskies.
Wilhite, who is being strongly recruited by Washington, is typical of today’s elite prep recruits. On recruiting trips to UCLA and Oregon State last summer, Wilhite posed for photographs wearing Bruins and Beavers gear. It’s similar to what his teammate, defensive end Elijah Rushing did on his recruiting trips to Oregon, UCLA, Georgia Tech, Miami, Florida and Maryland. On all of those trips, he posed in the gear of those football teams. Rushing committed to Arizona in June, but it’d be naive to think that he is not being recruited actively by, among others, Washington.
Last week, the NCAA announced that it is proposing legislation to ban those recruiting photo shoots, which has gotten so out of control that it has become a time-consuming hardship on athletic department staffs. A decision is expected by Jan. 10. ...
• Arizona softball coach Caitlin Lowe has been proactive in recruiting Big 12 turf, prepping for the UA’s first Big 12 season in 2025. Arizona has already received commitments from two elite Texas prospects from the Class of ’25: Houston pitcher-first baseman Rylie Holder and Humble, Texas, catcher-shortstop Addyson Sheppard.
As far as I have been able to research, Arizona has almost never recruited softball prospects from Texas, choosing to concentrate heavily on California and Arizona players the last 35 years. The only full-time Arizona starter from Texas in that period was pitcher Alyssa Denham, a transfer from Louisiana who played high school softball in Alvin, Texas. ...
Alyssa Denham is one of the few UA softball players to ever come from Texas, a state that will become much more important to the Wildcats once they join the Big 12.
• A headline last week in the Star aptly described Arizona’s lack of success against Stanford in non-revenue sports. The headline said: “UA soccer, volleyball teams lose at Stanford.’’
Indeed, Arizona is now 10-75 all-time against Stanford in volleyball and 3-27 against Stanford soccer teams. It’s the same in women’s basketball; Arizona is 14-75 against Stanford, dating almost 40 years. In women’s swimming since 1986, Stanford has won 26 Pac-12 championships. Arizona: three.
UA women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes last week said she will miss the Pac-12, but also laughed when she said she won’t miss the twice-yearly challenges of playing Stanford.
Bring on Iowa State, right? ...
• Scott Stanley was an all-city baseball player at Catalina High School in the mid-1970s who went on to be a key piece of Arizona’s 1980 NCAA championship team and part of Rich Alday’s coaching staff when Pima College played in the championship game of the 1985 NJCAA finals.
Stanley has used that baseball acumen to create a remarkable career in pro baseball. He just completed his 31st year as part of the Miami Marlins scouting department. Stanley is responsible for scouting Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico and was part of the Marlins’ impressive run to the National League playoffs this season. Stanley plans to return for a 32nd season in 2024.
My two cents: Wagner was vital part of Tomey's coaching tree
Bob Wagner was a valued part of the Dick Tomey coaching tree. He was Tomey’s defensive coordinator at Hawaii from 1977-86, and then replaced Tomey as Hawaii’s head coach when Tomey was hired by Arizona in 1987.
When Arizona went a historic 12-1 in 1998, Wagner reunited with Tomey as the linebackers coach on a UA club loaded with talented linebackers such as Marcus Bell and Scooter Sprotte.
Bob Wagner
At Arizona, Wagner was part of what was surely one of the top defensive staffs in Pac-12 history. The UA’s defensive coordinator, Rich Ellerson, had worked under Wagner at Hawaii in the 1990s. Arizona’s secondary coach, Duane Akina, had also worked under Wagner at Hawaii in the 1980s.
Sadly, Wagner died last week in Honolulu. He was 76.
Much like Tomey, Wagner was a positive force. When he went to Camp Cochise near the Mexican border for the UA’s 1998 training camp, he took a look around. For a man who had lived in Hawaii for 25 years, it must’ve been like looking at a moonscape.
“This is paradise,’’ he told me. “I mean it, this is a football paradise. The whole setup is great.’’
The ’98 football season turned out to be just that.
Diamondbacks reliever Kevin Ginkel discusses his breakout season and his memories from playing with the 2016 Arizona Wildcats (video by Michael Lev / Arizona Daily Star)
