In the highs and lows of a Hall of Fame football career, Wayne Jones became familiar with both sides.
As a senior quarterback at Purdue, 1959, Jones was part of the Boilermakers’ climb to No. 6 in the AP poll, an unforgettable period that included back-to-back 21-point victories over No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 9 Wisconsin.
Lows? As the first-year coach at Marana’s new Mountain View High School in 1988, the Mountain Lions went 0-10. Highs? Five years later, the Mountain Lions went 14-0 to win the state championship.
Jones was the QBs coach on two losing Arizona football teams in 1977-78, but all that changed. In 2016, the football facility at Mountain View High School was named “Wayne Jones Field.’’
Jones retired as a high school football coach in 2006 with 134 victories, then the fifth-highest total in Tucson history. His remarkable career will be celebrated Nov. 16 when he becomes part of the 35th class of the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.
Jones is one of 12 individuals and two teams that will be honored that day at the DoubleTree Hotel, Reid Park. PCSHOF president Pat Darcy, a former World Series pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds and Rincon High graduate, said that the Class of ’25 “is one of the best we’ve ever had, dating to 1990.“
Mountain View High School head coach Wayne Jones shares a laugh with the officiating crew prior to the game against Sierra Vista Buena, Marana, Ariz., Oct. 6, 2006.
This year’s class includes Marc Barcelo, an all-city basketball player at Sahuaro High School who pitched Pima Community College to the 1992 NJCAA championship game and became the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, 1993, going 12-4 at Arizona State. He was the No. 33 draft pick of the Minnesota Twins.
Joining Barcelo and Jones will be Chris Fanning, who has coached Sahuarita High School to more than 600 softball victories, a Southern Arizona record, leading the Mustangs to state championships in 1999, 2011 and 2018.
The Class of ’25 includes Eric Finical, possibly the top male swimmer in Tucson history, leading Tucson High to state championships in 1977, 1978 and 1979, and then being a key part of the Texas Longhorns 1981 NCAA championship.
Two members of Canyon del Oro’s history of baseball excellence are in the Class of ’25. Outfielder Colin Porter, a starter on CDO’s 1994 state championship team and a first-team All-Pac-10 outfielder at Arizona in 1998, will be honored. Porter went on to a pro career that included playing for the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros.
His ’94 CDO coach, Phil Wright is also in the Class of ’25. Wright was a standout for the Dorados’ 1979 state championship team, who then coached his alma mater to 1994 and 1997 state titles, producing six future MLB players.
Possibly Tucson’s top amateur golfer of the last half-century, Amphitheater High School grad Jeff Kern, is in the Class of ‘25. Kern won a record nine Tucson City Amateur championships, including four in a row. He also won the Arizona Amateur, was second in the U.S. Public Links championships and played in 11 PGA Tour events.
The Class of ’25 includes 1970s Pima Community College teammates Steve Owen and Dan Noli, who both became national-level Judo athletes, each reaching the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials. They’ll be inducted with Walt Haywood, Santa Rita High School class of ’79, who won state championships in the long jump, 200 meters and 4x100 relay, and went on to ASU where he won two Pac-10 titles in the 4x100 relay.
Tommy Steele, one of the leading high school coaches in Tucson history – he spent 37 years as an assistant football coach, mostly at CDO – will join Kathryn Bertine, a nationally-known Tucson cyclist who runs a non-profit that gives women cyclists a place to stay during winter training sessions.
The two teams to be inducted at the November ceremony will be the 1997 Catalina Foothills High School girls basketball team, state champs with a 31-2 record, coached by Patty Patton-Shearer and led by state scoring leader Julie Brase-Hairgrove, and the 1993 Sunnyside High School boys basketball team, 29-0, coached by Dwight Rees, the last Tucson prep basketball team, boys or girls, to go undefeated.
A news conference for the PCSHOF Class of ’25 inductees will be held in mid-October; ticket information for the banquet is available at 520-667-5035.
