One fall morning in 1978, Arizona cross country coach Dave Murray accompanied his athletes to a workout in the foothills above Skyline Drive and Campbell Road, running on trails to the north of where La Encantada Shopping Center stands today.
“When it came time to take our team picture that year, I thought a great place was on a little bluff where Campbell Road dead-ended in the foothills,” Murray says now. “When we got back to the office and had the film developed, I took one look at it and said ‘that would be a great logo.’ The cactus and mountains were a beautiful backdrop.”
Murray, a 1960s UA distance runner who coached his alma mater’s track and cross country teams from 1968-2002, was onto something special.
He took the black-and-white image to a photo shop at the Student Union. From there, he was directed to a print shop, where he asked that the photo be printed onto the jerseys of the UA cross country team.
“I didn’t ask anybody for permission,” Murray says. “We got it colored, an image of the sun was added, and we put it on the jerseys. A few years later it was put on the court at McKale Center.”
UCLA head coach Ben Howland claps during practice on March 16, 2005, in preparation for their NCAA Tournament game against Texas Tech at McKale Center.
From 1984-85 to 2008-09, the saguaro cactus amid a mountain range and a setting sun was the coolest, most identifiable logo in college basketball. And then a new administration eliminated it, saying the Block A didn’t need competition.
Now, in a bit of genius, Arizona Athletic Director Desireé Reed-Francois, who attended the UA Law School in the mid-’90s and came to appreciate the cactus-and-sunset logo, is bringing it back in the fall.
Former UA women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes was among the first to wear a small cactus-and-sunset logo on her apparel five years ago. She said she “adored it” when she played for the Wildcats in the late 1990s. Men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd expanded use of the logo even further.
“I never went around saying ‘that’s my logo,’” says Murray. “I wasn’t in it to make money, to patent it, but I am sure glad to see it returning. I remember once we had a cross country meet in Bangor, Maine, and the coach of another team came up to me and said ‘that’s the coolest logo I’ve ever seen.’”
