Two-time UA football All-American linebacker Ricky Hunley, the highest-drafted former Arizona football player — No. 7 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals in 1984 — had an entirely different draft day experience than UA receiver Tetairoa McMillan did last week. In the spring of ’84, Hunley did not watch the ESPN coverage of the NFL Draft for a simple reason – he couldn’t afford cable TV at his Tucson apartment. So Hunley got the news of the draft on an old-fashioned walkie-talkie. Really. I was there to see it. Not only that, Hunley was studying for his final exams and told the Bengals he could only stay in Cincinnati for media interviews overnight. He had to get back to the UA to complete his degree requirements in the next few days.
Ricky Hunley celebrates with coach Larry Smith after Arizona’s 1983 win at ASU. Hunley was part of some of the top wins in UA history during the early 1980s.
— McMillan will find one of the most successful UA football players in history when he arrives at Carolina. The Panthers’ linebackers coach is Peter Hansen, who was an extraordinary special teams player at Arizona from 1998-2000, blocking seven field goals and one point-after attempt, making the All-Pac-10 second team. Hansen, who is 6-feet, 7-inches, also played two years on Lute Olson’s Arizona basketball teams. Hansen has coached for the Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers, at Stanford and UNLV.
— Saddened to learn that long-time Palo Verde High School boys basketball coach Lou Hopkins, an Arizona basketball letterman from 1957-59, died recently. He was 90. Hopkins won more than 300 games at Palo Verde from 1962-90 and was the Star’s 1987 Coach of the Year. He was an all-city player on a 1953 Badgers team with notable soon-to-be Tucson public figures Burt Kinerk and Pat Flood.
— Arizona’s 1993 All-Pac-10 outfielder John Tejcek and his family appeared on two episodes of “Family Feud” last week. I happened to be flipping through the channels and saw his name — TEJCEK — on the big board on Family Feud’s set. Tejcek drove in 60 runs for Jerry Kindall in 1993, hit 334 at the UA and was a starter on the 1992 Pac-10 championship team. Now 54, he has two daughters — both with him on “Family Feud.” He lives in Indiana and works for a drug manufacturer for Oncology and cancer care providers.
— You know you’ve made an impact in football coaching when your retirement ceremony includes the who’s who of Tucson prep football coaches. That’s how it was for Mica Mountain’s state championship coach (14-0 in 2024) Pat Nugent last weekend when Tucson coaches Will Kreamer, Tommy Steele, Nemer Hassey, Chuck McCollum, Jay Campos, John Kashner, Jorge Mendivil, Dustin Peace and Pat Ryden, among others, were among about 150 attending Nugent’s send-off party. Nugent, who coached at CDO, Flowing Wells, Pima College, Cienega and Mica Mountain, got his start in football as a manager on Dick Tomey‘s UA teams of the late 1980s. Nugent won 171 high school games over 22 seasons in Tucson, fifth in history.
