Mel Karrle moved to Tucson after a tennis career with the Kansas Jayhawks in the early 1960s, becoming a graduate assistant for UA coach Dave Snyder, who then operated a Top 10 tennis program at the UA.
Fifteen years later, hired to be Cholla High’s boys basketball coach in 1977, Karrle could’ve had no idea the best basketball player in Tucson history, Sean Elliott, would soon change his life, and that of Elliott.
“I’m fortunate to have had a lot of good breaks in my life, and one of them was meeting coach Karrle,” Elliott told me upon learning that Karrle, 84, died in Tucson last week. “He did everything for me, including taping my ankles before our games. He was an amazing coach, taught me a lot of life lessons and was always there for me.”
Sean Elliott and the Arizona Wildcats celebrate an Elite Eight victory over North Carolina in Seattle in 1988.
Elliott, who had been a soccer and baseball player in his junior high days, walked into the Cholla gym before his freshman season, 1981-82, and was introduced to Karrle.
“I asked Sean what sport he played and he said ‘soccer,’” Karrle told me on several occasions. “I took a look at his very long arms and said, ‘son, you should try basketball.’ He grew from 6-2 to 6-8 over the next four years.”
As a freshman, Elliott’s Cholla team lost 100-18 to Amphitheater. But after his sophomore year, Karrle elevated him to varsity; the Chargers went 44-9 the next two seasons, reaching the state semifinals in 1985.
“Coach Karrle was really smart,” Elliott remembers. “Because I was our tallest player my senior year I was getting box-and-one defenses against me, the triangle-and-two. So coach Karrle moved me to the perimeter and everything opened up for me and our team. We should’ve won the state championship.”
Before coaching at Cholla, Karrle was the tennis coach at Palo Verde High School. He became a rival of Pima County Sports Hall of Fame coach Robb Salant, who coached nine state championship teams.
“I can’t say enough good things about Mel,” Salant said last week. “I had the players, he didn’t. But he was very, very competitive. Very good working with young athletes. He really left his mark.”
