Greg Hansen's Notebook: This entry is part of longtime Star columnist Greg Hansen's weekly notebook.
Subscribers can read this week's "Hansen's Notebook" in its entirety in the Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, edition of the Arizona Daily Star (Page C2) — either in print or at Tucson.com/EEdition. Or, dig into the Hansen archives at Tucson.com/Hansen.
Greg Hansen is the longtime sports columnist for the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson.com.
• In winning the Folds of Honor women’s collegiate golf tournament last week in Michigan, the 19th-ranked Arizona Wildcats and their new coach, Giovana Maymon, beat No. 3 Texas, No. 6 Florida State and No. 8 North Carolina.
Texas was coached by Maymon’s Arizona predecessor, Laura Ianello, who left her $ 185,000-a-year job at Arizona for a $275,000 contract with the Longhorns.
First-year Arizona women’s golf coach Giovana Maymon (far right) and her Wildcats finished first overall in Maymon’s first tournament at the helm of the UA program, winning the Folds of Honor Collegiate this month in Grand Haven, Michigan.
What’s next for Arizona? It could be a national title contender. Four of its players — Charlotte Back, Carolina Melgrati, Nena Wongthanavimok and Julia Misemer — all had scoring averages of 73.9 or better last year.
The Wildcats will play in the prestigious, invitation-only St. Andrews Collegiate Links tournament Oct. 14-16 in Scotland, which involves the men’s and women’s teams from Arizona, Northwestern, Howard and the University of St. Andrews. ...
White Sox center fielder Brian Anderson signs a baseball for fans following a 2006 spring training workout at Tucson Electric Park.
• Brian Anderson, an all-city pitcher/outfielder from Canyon del Oro High School and a first-round draft pick out of Arizona in 2003, is back in coaching again.
After retiring from baseball in 2013, Anderson returned to Tucson and was an assistant coach at both Pima College and Arizona. He spent the 2023 season on the staff at Northwestern and was hired as its interim head coach, but then left Northwestern after he reached an agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on recruiting violations and the appropriate penalties for those violations.
He is now on the staff at LaSalle, which hasn’t had baseball since 2021, but will resume playing in 2025. ...
(Left to right) Gonzaga assistant coach Donny Daniels, assistant coach Brian Michaelson, head coach Mark Few, assistant coach Tommy Lloyd and director of basketball operations Stephen Gentry sit on the bench during the second half of Gonzaga matchup with Incarnate Word in Spokane, Washington on Nov. 29, 2017.
• Gonzaga basketball coach Mark Few last week told reporters that when he retires, Zags assistant coach Brian Michaelson will be his successor.
That job had been promised to Tommy Lloyd until he accepted the Arizona job three years ago. Few is only 61. He could coach the Zags for another decade, at which time Lloyd would be 60.
By then, if he remains at Arizona, he will likely have been paid close to $70 million, given his base salary this season of $5.25 million. Leaving Spokane has been very, very good to Mr. Lloyd. ...
Michael Thompson chips on the 9th hole of the during the first round of the 3M Open golf tournament in Blaine, Minnesota on July 23, 2020.
• Tucson’s two-time PGA Tour champion Michael Thompson of Rincon/University High School, did not make a cent on the PGA Tour this year.
At 39, he was sidelined by elbow and shoulder surgeries; he used the same surgeon that NFL QB Peyton Manning used for a neck surgery and U.S. Open champ Brooks Koepka used for wrist surgery. Thompson, runner-up at the 2012 U.S. Open has earned $12.6 million in official PGA Tour money. He won the 2013 Honda Classic and the 2020 3M Open.
He and his wife, Rachel, are expecting a third child this year. ...
As pitching coach for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1996-2011, Dave Duncan embraced analytics and tapped into a vast trove of data to exploit hitters’ tendencies.
• Good to hear that long-time Tucsonan Dave Duncan was inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals baseball Hall of Fame last week.
Duncan, who is probably one of the top four pitching coaches in MLB history, with Ron Perranoski, Mel Stottlemyre and Tucson’s Brent Strom, helped St. Louis win two world championships and another with the Oakland A’s.
Duncan moved to Tucson for spring training in 1973 when he was a catcher for the Cleveland Indians — a former Sports Illustrated cover boy. He met his wife, Tucsonan Jeanine Colaw, in Tucson.
Their two sons, Shelley and Chris, both all-state players at Canyon del Oro High School, combined to play 12 MLB seasons. Shelley is currently the manager of the New York Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Scranton-Wilkes Barre, one game out of first place in the International League.
