Tucson's Cholla, Pueblo wrote the book on high school football rivalries

How to create a high school football rivalry, Part I: In preparation for the 1969-70 school year, Cholla High School was built 3 miles from Pueblo High School.

Part II: Cholla hired long-time Pueblo assistant Ed Brown to be its head coach; Brown had helped the Warriors win the 1967 state championship and had been a Pueblo assistant since 1961.

Part III: The Tucson Unified School District altered the Pueblo’s boundaries, which ultimately led to 34 Pueblo football players being transferred to Cholla.

“I don’t think we ever had an official nickname for the Pueblo-Cholla football game,” former UA lineman and Pueblo head coach Don Bowerman once told me. “But you couldn’t print it in the newspaper. It was pretty wild.’’

For the last 50 or 60 years, Cholla and Pueblo were never powerhouse football programs for more than a minute, nothing to compare to the state championship programs at Amphitheater, Salpointe or Sabino, but along the I-19 corridor and in the southwest part of Tucson, the Cholla vs. Pueblo football game almost never failed to turn heads and fill the seats. Even this season, the seats at Pueblo were packed.

“Wow, the stories I hear,” says Pueblo principal Frankie “Sammy” Rosthenhausler, a devout Pueblo letterman. “I hear about the crowds, the overall quality of play, something I’m not sure these schools will ever get back.”

After three years of building enrollment and playing football in lower classifications against Globe, Kingman and Safford, Cholla moved to big-boy football in 1972 and lost its second game to Pueblo. After that, it was game on. Brown’s Chargers beat the long-established Warriors six times in the next seven years as Pueblo scrambled to find a suitable replacement for Pima County Sports Hall of Fame coach Lou Farber, who retired after the 1971 season, the only football coach in Pueblo history.

Over the next decade, Pueblo struggled. It hired Bowerman and another former Arizona standout, Larry McKee. By 1980, Ed Brown’s newbies at Cholla led the series 5-2.

That’s when things changed. Pueblo hired former star running back Saturnino “Curly” Santa Cruz and matched him against Brown. Over the next 15 seasons, Pueblo won 10 of 15 games, but it was never easy. In Santa Cruz’s debut in the I-19 rivalry, he faced Brown’s best team to date. It was led by future Arizona and Denver Broncos star Vance Johnson, who ran for 216 yards that night as Cholla won 21-14.

“I never thought I’d see a better high school receiver than (former Pueblo standout Leonard Thompson, a future NFL star for the Detroit Lions),” said Brown. “But Vance, wow. What can you say?”

The game drew a standing-room-only crowd of about 7,000. The Tucson Citizen referred to the contest as “The Tucson Spotlight Game.” Cholla was on a roll; Brown’s Chargers won at least seven games in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987. The 1987 game might’ve been the height of the Cholla-Pueblo rivalry.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

But it was the 1980 game, won 21-14 by Cholla, that was considered perhaps the most cherished of Brown’s career. The Chargers finished 8-3.

“I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the night. It feels so good,” said Brown, the first Black head coach in Tucson prep sports history. “I’m sure I’ll feel even better Saturday and Sunday.”

Fittingly, Brown’s last game of his 18-year career at Cholla came against Pueblo, his old school. Pueblo won in overtime 8-7. Forced to play the old AIA rules that dictated that the two teams both get one offensive possession, starting at the 50-yard line. Whoever gained the most yards would win. Pueblo outgained Brown’s 9-3 Cholla club 38-13.

“I think there’s a better system,” said Brown, who congratulated Santa Cruz and, a few weeks later, announced his retirement.

Said Santa Cruz: “This rivalry keeps coming up with new ways to pipe up the intensity. I’m proud to be part of it.”

After that, Santa Cruz and Pueblo owned the rivalry, winning six of seven before Santa Cruz retired in 1994. In that period, Pueblo had a 10-1-1 season in 1988 as Cholla began a down cycle in which it hired 12 head coaches over the next 38 years. Pueblo similarly had difficulty replacing the quality of Santa Cruz’s clubs. It has hired eight head coaches in the last 30 years.

“So much has changed in high school sports with different conferences as some schools gain enrollment and others drop off,” says Rosthenhausler. “Cholla and Pueblo are in a unique scenario where we’ve stayed relatively the same. We have been a bit more competitive over the years, but the game matters very deeply to both sides and all of its stakeholders. I believe this rivalry is only going to heat up within the next few years.”