Because Sahuaro High School opened in 1968, four years before east side rival-to-be Sabino High School, it took time to accurately use the term “rivals” to define their football series.
But after that, oh my.
Before the 1998 game, the Daily Star wrote, “The Sabino-Sahuaro rivalry has come to resemble a late-summer blockbuster movie.”
The Sabino-Sahuaro game reached the can’t-miss level by 1991 when it became the first high school football game of the year in Tucson — the Kickoff Classic — played on Thursday nights between state championship coaches Howard Breinig and Jeff Scurran.
“I remember reported attendance of 10,000 when our Booster Club made enough money off concessions for all of our yearly needs,” Scurran recalls.
In 1993, the Kickoff Classic drew an overflow crowd reported to be close to 7,000 at Sabino. A year later, when Breinig would coach Sahuaro to the state championship, it was reported that every seat at Sahuaro’s football facility was filled 45 minutes before kickoff. To add more juice to the already-juiced rivalry, Sabino rallied from 14 points down in the fourth quarter to beat the future state champs, 21-20.
Said Breinig: “There are a lot of hearts and souls left on the field after this game.”
The Sabino-Sahuaro showdown matched the two most high-profile Tucson teams of the late 20th century. From 1983-94, Breinig went 108-34-3, with four appearances in the state championship game. From 1988-99, Scurran went 126-25-1 at Sabino, winning three state championships.
Jeff Scurran is carried off the field after leading Sabino High School to the 1998 state 4A football title.
Perhaps the series was destined for greatness when Sabino hired Tucson coaching legend Ollie Mayfield in 1977 after the Sabercats had back-to-back 0-10 seasons. Mayfield had led Tucson High School to historic back-to-back state championships in 1970 and 1971, before agreeing to build the football program at the new TUSD school.
Amazingly, Mayfield coached Sabino to a 17-0 victory over Sahuaro in his second season, beating an 8-2 Sahuaro team blessed with future college players like Jay Dobyns and Mark Mistler. Said Mayfield: “This is a big game no matter what the records are. It’s like the Tucson-Salpointe rivalry when I was at Tucson.”
Sahuaro's student section gets involved as the Cougars run out to a big lead in the third quarter of their game at Sabino High School, Aug. 31, 2018, in Tucson.
It became that and more.
Mayfield retired after three seasons, and the rivalry ebbed a bit before Scurran was hired in 1988. Breinig, a former blood-and-guts UA offensive lineman, was hired at Sahuaro in 1983 and put together nine-win seasons his first two years, yet lost to Sabino twice.
Game on.
“This is a natural rivalry,” said Breinig, a member of the Arizona Coaches Hall of Fame. “The kids know each other. They go to the same parties. They want to beat each other.”
Sahuaro High School football coach Howard Breinig during a game against Tucson High in October 1988.
And so they did. Sahuaro almost took down Scurran’s undefeated state champs of 1992, losing just 10-6. A year earlier, Breinig beat Sabino’s defending and undefeated state champs 17-7. Breinig coached Sahuaro to a 13-1 season that fall, No. 2 in the state.
The Scurran-Breinig battle seemed too good to last, and that was the case. Breinig retired before the ’95 season and later, believe it or not, became an assistant coach at Sabino. Scurran left Sabino after the ’99 season. The memories are enduring.
Will Kreamer replaced Breining and maintained the excellence. He went 24-11 in three seasons and kept the rivalry perking. He beat Sahuaro 12-7 in 1995, before Scurran put together back-to-back 12-1 and 13-1 seasons.
“The rivalry was real,” says Kreamer. “It was fueled by the personalities of Howard and Jeff. Even when I took over for Howard we had some great battles. We could see each other’s stadium lights from our fields. So one year when we were to meet Sabino in the playoffs, I told our night custodian to leave the lights on at the stadium until the end of his shift. The Sabercats would see our lights and think we were practicing.”
Excellence reigned. From 1979-99, Sahuaro went 175-65-8. Sabino was 172-70-2 in the same period, one blessed by Amphitheater and coach Vern Friedli, who was the only other coach in Tucson to keep pace with Sabino and Sahuaro in that period.
Students cheer on the Sabino football team as they take on Sahuaro in the second half during a game at Sabino High School on Aug. 18, 2016. Sabino won 41-35.
Before the ’79 game, the Star’s headline said: “Blood bath. Fierce rivalry. Do or die.” It stayed that way for a bit more than two decades, after Sahuaro’s Nemer Hassey, who coached the Cougars to the 1999 state championship game, left to coach at Cienega High School. After that, Sahuaro couldn’t keep pace with new Sabino coach Jay Campos, who reached the state championship game four times.
The Sabino-Sahuaro rivalry was blessed by many all-state players, from Sahuaro’s Rodney Peete and Reggie Robertson, to Sabino’s Saffer brothers: Mike, Jeff and Jon.
Perhaps the cap to the rivalry came in 1998 when Hassey coached against Scurran, in his last season at Sabino. Hassey had played quarterback at Sabino in the late 1980s and had been on Scurran’s first staff a year later. But in ‘98, Hassey’s Cougars beat the soon-to-be Sabino state champions 20-19. The jubilant Cougar fans rushed the field, engulfed the winning team and celebrated so loudly it could probably be heard at Sabino.
“To me,” Scurran said, “playing Sahuaro is often more nerve-wracking than the state championship game.”
Sahuaro and Sabino still play one another annually, but it’s not the same. Enrollment counts have changed, and Sabino has dropped to Class 3A, where it plays Coolidge, Thatcher and Benson. Sahuaro is in 4A, but it hasn’t reached the playoffs since 2019. The long-ago, strongly anticipated “Kickoff Classic” has become a fading memory.
Sabino’s Max Trainer (21) takes Sahuaro’s Jamell Webb (17) off his feet, stopping his run up the middle in the third quarter of their game at Sabino High School, Sept. 9, 2022.
