Hansen's Notebook: 'One of a kind' Roxanne Taylor earns historic 500th high school soccer win

The Star's longtime columnist on Roxanne Taylor's journey to 500 soccer wins, how Gunner Maldonado now belongs as part of a "Super Six," how Jedd Fisch seems determined to stay in Tucson awhile, and more.

Impressive Taylor stands alone after victory No. 500

On a winter day in 2019, a few days before Pueblo High School named its basketball gymnasium after 1977 and 1978 state championship coach Roland LaVetter, I was sitting on a couch in LaVetter’s living room. He suddenly changed the subject.

“Do you know that I hired Roxanne Taylor to be our boys soccer coach?’’ he asked.

He beamed. The man who coached future NBA All-Star guard Fat Lever, the man whose 28-0 state title team of ’78 is widely regarded as the best in Tucson prep basketball history, wanted to talk soccer.

Now we know why. On Thursday, Taylor coached the Rincon/University High boys soccer team to her 500th career victory.

LaVetter died last year, but his successor as the Rincon athletic director, Hank Matz, picks up the story.

“I succeeded Roland and became the AD at Rincon in 1991 and inherited Roxanne,’’ Matz remembers. “She was a woman coaching a boys soccer team. Do you realize how rare that is? She’s one of a kind."

During Matz’s years as Rincon’s AD, 1991-2015, Taylor coached the Rangers to state championships in 1997, 1998 and 2007.

“Remember,’’ says Matz, “this was before open enrollment. Her team was made up of neighborhood kids. There was no recruiting.’’

The numbers speak loudly: Taylor’s Rangers are 500-100-15. Only Salpointe Catholic soccer coaching legend Wolfgang Weber has coached more prep soccer victories in this state. Taylor, who is 75 and will retire at season’s end, has coached more victories than any female coach in Tucson prep history, any sport.

By my count, Canyon del Oro softball coach Kelly Fowler has 392 victories. Catalina Foothills’ former girls tennis coach, Kristie Stevens, retired with 403 wins. Mary Hines, one of the pioneers of women’s high school coaching in Tucson, won 288 volleyball games at Catalina.

That should put Taylor’s accomplishments in proper context.

What makes Taylor’s career so compelling is that LaVetter and Rincon had to be creative to find a spot for Taylor on the school’s coaching staff in 1986. Because girls soccer had not yet become a sport recognized by the Arizona Interscholastic Association in the mid-’80s, and because Taylor did not have a college degree or AIA-certified teaching certificate, LaVetter had the school’s Hall of Fame baseball coach, Gary Grabosch, use his teaching certificate to be the so-called “head coach.’’

Taylor would be his “assistant,’’ although she fully coached the team. Grabosch supported and encouraged Taylor. Roxanne soon completed her UA degree and later earned a master's degree, all while raising three daughters. Her journey to 500 victories took 37 years.

“Her connection to the kids is just so impressive,’’ says Matz. “She really knows what she’s doing. I adore her.’’

Talk about a tough act to follow.

Gunner’s play one for the UA ages

Until Arizona rallied to beat Oklahoma 38-24 in the Alamo Bowl, a century of UA football had produced five plays for the ages:

• Safety Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception return to clinch a 1986 victory over ASU’s Rose Bowl-bound Sun Devils, 34-17, and lead the Wildcats to a 9-3 finish.
• Quarterback Ortege Jenkins’ 11-yard “Leap By The Lake,’’ a somersault into the end zone to stun Washington 31-28 in the final seconds, setting the stage for Arizona’s 12-1 season, 1998.
• Tailback Bobby “The General’’ Thompson’s zig-zagging, breathtaking 67-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run to beat Frank Kush’s favored Sun Devils 22-13 in 1961, overcoming a 13-0 halftime deficit to finish the season 8-1-1, then the best in UA history.
• Running back Chuck Levy’s 68-yard sprint in the 1994 Fiesta Bowl, a 29-0 victory over the mighty Miami Hurricanes, giving Arizona a 16-0 lead and a first-ever 10-win season.
• Linebacker Scooby Wright’s sack-and-strip of ASU quarterback Taylor Kelly in the first minute of what turned out to be the 2014 Pac-12 South championship game. Scooby’s sack-and-strip led to a fumble, returned 25 yards for a touchdown by Anthony Lopez as Arizona won the South title 42-35. It produced such a crowd reaction that the press box and loge suites at Arizona Stadium shook on their bearings, a football earthquake.

To qualify for mention with the above-mentioned historic plays, there must be an earthquake-type qualifier. Arizona All-American cornerback Darryll Lewis twice made game-winning plays in 1990, a last-play-of-the-game tackle at the goal line to stop Oregon QB Bill Musgrave and save a 22-17 victory, and, two weeks later, a 70-yard interception return to beat UCLA with 49 seconds remaining, 28-21, at the Rose Bowl.

But that UA team finished a modest 7-5. Lewis’ plays didn’t lead to an epic, season-turning victory over a big-name foe.

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Now comes UA junior safety Gunner Maldonado’s 87-yard fumble recovery-and-score against Oklahoma, a game-changing, heart-thumping play that narrowed OU’s lead to 24-21 and gave Arizona momentum to win a seventh consecutive game, finish 10-3 and force the history books to be dusted off and rewritten.

To make Maldonado’s play more compelling, we have since learned that his appearance in the game was iffy. He told a Phoenix reporter that he had such a severe case of the flu a few days before the game that UA trainers contemplated him not making the trip to Texas.

Maldonado spent the first two days in San Antonio in bed in his hotel room. He only participated in one full practice before the Alamo Bowl.

So, I suggest that the Big Five plays of UA football history add a new member. Maldonado makes it a Super Six.

Tucson loses two sports icons

Two of the leading names in Tucson sports, Bill Reeves and Ken Bowman, died over the holidays. Both made a huge impact in sports.

Reeves, 88, remains the UA’s single-season rebound leader (13.2 per game in 1956). He went on to become the president of the Tucson Conquistadores and associate director of the UA Alumni Association. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Reeves; he had a personality as big as his basketball-rebounding size at 6-5. For 25 years, he stood on the first tee at the PGA Tour Tucson Open and introduced each golfer. It was a special time.

Bowman, 81, a Tucson attorney for 30 years, finished his career as a special magistrate for Tucson, Oro Valley and Marana. He moved to Tucson after his sparkling NFL career as one of the leading names for Vince Lombardi’s epic Green Bay Packer teams of the ’60s and ’70s, winning two Super Bowls as Lombardi’s starting center. A kind and gentle man, Bowman had a 3-by-5-foot photo of the Packer offensive in the living room of his Oro Valley home.

Short stuff: 'The Boys in the Boat' a must-watch, Fisch seems committed to UA, Cats get foes' best shot

• I highly recommend seeing the new movie “Boys in the Boat,’’ now in theaters. It’s a story of the Washington Huskies’ 1936 Olympic gold-medal rowing team, a medal competition witnessed by Adolf Hitler in Berlin, Germany. There is a local link: One of Washington’s eight gold-medal rowers, Gordy Adam, is the father of former Daily Star sports writer David Adam, and father-in-law of retired Pima County Superior Court Judge Karen Adam. David Adam was the beat writer for the UA basketball team under Fred Snowden. ...
• Arizona football coach Jedd Fisch last week told syndicated radio-TV sports-talk host Jim Rome that he’s close to finalizing an extension to remain in Tucson. “I think we’re very, very close. We want to be done here very soon, and we want to be a part of this program for a long time. I’ve moved a lot in this business to be able to be here today. I have no interest in going anywhere.’’ Three previous UA football head coaches jumped to jobs perceived to be on a bigger stage — Tex Oliver, to Oregon in 1938; Larry Smith, to USC in 1987; and Jim Young, to Purdue, 1977. Oliver was ultimately fired by the Ducks. Smith led USC to three Rose Bowls before being let go after six years. Young was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame after successful terms at Purdue and Army. Fisch? It appears to be that, like in-demand Lute Olson in 1985 and 1989, he will dig in, stay and fight in Tucson.

• Fisch was paid $25,000 for playing in a non-playoff bowl game and will be paid another $25,000 for finishing in the final AP Top 25. That’s relatively small among college football coaching bonuses. The $3.25 million Fisch was paid in 2023 ranks 54th out of 119 FBS coaches whose salaries are public record, according to USA Today. The only Pac-12 coach making less than Fisch is Washington State’s Jake Dickert, at $2.8 million. Fisch even made less than ASU first-year ASU coach Kenny Dillingham, $3.85 million. When Fisch signs his new contract, it’s likely to be close to $5 million per season, a relatively low cost of doing business in Top 25 football.
• History repeats in UA basketball. Coach Tommy Lloyd last week referred to the UA’s nonconference stretch against Duke, Michigan State, FAU, Wisconsin, Purdue and Alabama as a “gauntlet.’’ I still don’t think it surpassed Lute Olson’s 1987-88 nonconference challenge against No. 1 Syracuse, No. 4 Iowa, No. 9 Michigan and No. 9 Duke. The ’88 Wildcats won all of those games and climbed to No. 1. Three days after beating Duke, the Wildcats had to play New Mexico at the Pit; the Lobos were coming off victories over UCLA, Ohio State and Texas. The Lobos beat Arizona 61-59 in what UNM still refers to as the greatest game in Lobos basketball history. By now, Lloyd knows what life is like for a Top 10 program. There is no off day, as Tucsonans have known for 40 years. Last week's 18-point loss at Stanford won’t be the last so-so team to give Arizona its best shot.

My two cents: Prep academies changing the game in high school basketball

It was inevitable that Tucson’s high school basketball world would be affected by the nation’s growing number of basketball-centric prep basketball academies.

The Premier Prep Tucson Volunteers, an online academic institution coached by former Sabino High coach Marty Roth, now includes Isaiah Hill, who was projected to be Tucson’s leading high school basketball player this season. Hill, a senior guard, averaged 21.9 last year for a Pueblo team that went 20-9 and reached the state playoffs.

Hill, who had scored 1,153 points in his Pueblo career, now plays mostly out of The Sporting Chance gymnasium on Tucson’s west side, playing other academy teams such as Hillcrest Prep, AZ Compass Prep, Dream City Christian and Bella Vista Prep.

The lure is that the Tucson Vols play year-round against better competition and have considerably more games. The Tucson Volunteers, for example, have 18 total games scheduled in January and February. Hill’s team includes former Cienega High guard Xander Werner, also projected as one of the city’s leading prep players.

The days of a Sean Elliott developing and playing three years at Cholla, his neighborhood school, or Terrell Stoglin, winning a state championship for his neighborhood school Santa Rita, are surely at an end.