• Rincon/University High boys soccer coach Roxanne Taylor, a three-time state champion who won her 500th game last season (she now has 505), was believed to be retiring after the 2023-24 season. But she will instead return for her 38th season, sharing head coaching duties with her nephew Josh Schwartz, according to Rincon athletic director Lance LaVetter. The season begins Dec. 12.
• If you’re looking for a Coach of the Year candidate, any sport, consideration should go to Pima College volleyball coach Dan Bithell. The Aztecs set a school record for most ACCAC victories ever — 12 — last week, which included a victory over No. 1 seed Glendale College in the region playoffs. It was PCC’s best overall season since 2015. Bithell, who moved to Tucson to attend the UA in 1990 — he was a member of the UA’s Pride of Arizona Marching Band in the early 1990s — has been Pima’s volleyball coach since 1999. He also played on the UA lacrosse club team while in college. The only Pima College coach in history with a longer tenure at the school is men’s two-time NJCAA championship soccer coach Dave Cosgrove, in Year 27.
• When the NBA G League began its 2024-25 season Friday night, four ex-Arizona Wildcats were on league rosters: Keshad Johnson is with Sioux Falls; James Akinjo is with Wisconsin; Christian Koloko is with the South Bay Lakers; and Brandon Williams is with the Texas Legends. Former Wildcat Allonzo Trier, who has been out of organized basketball since 2021, was signed last month by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers but soon released. Chase Jeter, a UA center in the Sean Miller days, was released last week by the Oklahoma City Blue. Jeter has been playing in Czechoslovakia.
Arizona forward Keshad Johnson has clean run to the bucket, scoring a tomahawk dunk against Dayton early in the first half in their round of 32 game in the West Region of the NCAA Basketball Championship at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on March 23, 2024.
• Arizona State spent $15 million in the offseason making infrastructure upgrades to the aging Desert Financial Arena, money spent mostly on mechanical and electrical issues at the 52-year-old facility. It didn’t help men’s basketball coach Bobby Hurley draw a bigger crowd in last week’s opener against Idaho State; the crowd was listed at just 6,966. ASU’s basketball interest still outranks that of UCLA, which drew just 4,489 at Pauley Pavilion for Mick Cronin‘s opener against Rider. Then, the Bruins lost to New Mexico on Friday night. Good luck in the Big Ten, Mr. Grouch.
• One thing I clearly remember about Arizona Hall of Fame pitching coach Jim Wing is that former Arizona athletic director Dick Clausen told me he almost hired Wing to be the head coach in 1973, not Jerry Kindall. Wing was that impressive. At the time, Wing was the coach at Palo Verde High School. Wing, who died last week at age 88, was then one of 14 men Kindall interviewed to be the UA pitching coach, including Mesa College coach Jim Brock, who went on to become ASU’s Hall of Fame, two-time NCAA championship head coach.
Former University of Arizona head baseball coach Jerry Kindall, left, chats with his former assistant Jim Wing at Frank Sancet Field during the annual alumni game in 2005.
• Good to see Mountain View football coach Matt Johnson making the Lions relevant again. In his sixth year of a rebuilding job, Johnson might’ve registered his biggest win at the school on Friday, beating 8-1 rival Ironwood Ridge, the school at which Johnson won the 2012 state championship. Mountain View, 6-4, opens the Class 5A state playoffs as the No. 13 seed on Friday.
• Johnson’s relevancy in Tucson prep football coaching history is noted by the list of 11 men to coach at least 100 victories: Vern Friedli, Amphi, 288; Jeff Scurran, Sabino/CDO/Catalina Foothills, 251; Dennis Bene, Salpointe, 184; Todd Mayfield, Tucson/Palo Verde, 173; Pat Nugent, CDO/Cienega/Mica Mountain, 163; Richard Sanchez, Sunnyside/Santa Rita, 161; Nemer Hassey, Sahuaro/Cienega, 151; Wayne Jones, Mountain View, 134; Matt Johnson, Rincon/Foothills/Ironwood Ridge/Mountain View, 128; Howard Breinig, Rincon/Sahuaro, 118; Ollie Mayfield, Tucson/Sabino, 102.
