Hansen's Notebook: Thanks to NIL, former UA QB Jim Krohn is helping program 44 years after last snap

The Star's longtime columnist also discusses how UA AD Dave Heeke impacted Heisman race, Austin Wells adds to UA's MLB number and Leta Lindley again falls just one shot shy of title.

Krohn still helping out Cats

Among dozens of infractions that led to ASU football’s 1980-82 NCAA postseason ban was this nickel-and-dime item:

Amphitheater High School football standouts Riki Ellison and Jerry Krohn were provided “improper benefits’’ on a late 1970s recruiting visit to ASU. Those benefits? A free dinner or two in Tempe and gas money for the trip from Tucson.

Oh, how times change.

Last week, Krohn’s younger brother, former Amphi state championship quarterback Jim Krohn, announced he would pay all 110 players on Arizona’s football roster through myNILpay, a digital platform that allows fans to pay student-athletes directly, as simple as using a Venmo account.

And it’s all legal under the NCAA’s Names, Image and Likeness guidelines. It is part of Arizona’s “Desert Takeover’’ NIL program that financially supports the school’s football program.

I registered on the easy-to-navigate myNILpay website, and within a minute, I could’ve sent UA quarterback Jayden de Laura, say, $100, or any amount. The website confirms that the student-athlete — in any sport at any NCAA school — need not perform any off-field duty for the financial contribution. He or she wouldn’t have to promote a brand, make a public appearance or participate in a coaching clinic.

Welcome to 2023.

“Coach (Jedd) Fisch is building an elite program,’’ Jim Krohn said. “I want to increase my involvement to help him finish what he started.’’

This all falls under a “fair market value’’ platform that was unimaginable for the last 100 years. But now anything goes.

The myNILpay process is known as the TCA — The Collective Association. USC, Tennessee, Penn State, Georgia, ASU, Louisville, Ohio State and Missouri, among others, are also partners in the system.

A day after Krohn announced his involvement with Arizona’s NIL collectives, former Cal all-conference linebacker Ron Rivera, head coach of the NFL’s Washington Commanders, donated $500,000 to the Bears’ NIL fund.

Jim Krohn is most known for being Arizona’s starting quarterback in 1978-79, the only Tucsonan to regularly start at QB for the Wildcats since Fred W. Enke in the late 1940s. Krohn hasn’t been a high-profile donor to the UA athletic department, but he has season tickets on the 50-yard line at Arizona Stadium, prime seats in Row 54, just under the press box. His connection to Tucson and his alma mater goes far beyond supporting 110 football players financially.

Krohn signed a letter of intent to play for Arizona on Christmas Eve, 1975. His daughter, Jaime, was a letterwinner on Arizona’s 2001 swim team. His wife, Lori, was his high school and college sweetheart at Amphi and the UA.

When Amphi celebrated the 40th anniversary of its 1975 state football championship, Krohn rented the Sand’s Club in the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility, hosted dozens of his old Amphi teammates, and arranged to have the video of the ’75 state championship victory over Maryvale High School shown on the stadium's mammoth jumbotron.

Krohn, who is the founding partner of a property management firm in Southern California, is from a third-generation Tucson family. His mother, Dorothy, and father, John, are buried at Evergreen Cemetery, not far from the gravesite of UA legend John “Button’’ Salmon.

Sadly, his older brother, Jerry, a talented linebacker who started opposite Arizona Hall of Famer Ricky Hunley in 1980, is also buried at Evergreen Cemetery. In 1982, Jerry died of a brain aneurysm when he was only 22.

That was about the time Jim Krohn completed his football career — he played in the USFL and in the Canadian Football League — and began a remarkable property management business career, one that today is said to be worth more than $8 billion.

Now, 44 years after he took his last snap as Arizona’s quarterback, Krohn is helping his hometown football team try to keep pace with the USCs and Oregons in a way he could have never imagined.

Oregon of ’23 copies Heeke’s Ducks of ’01

In 2001, Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington was the biggest star in New York City — literally. The Ducks’ athletic department placed a giant billboard of Joey in the Big Apple to promote Harrington's Heisman Trophy campaign.

The unconventional and unprecedented marketing campaign was the idea of Oregon AD Bill Moos and his two lieutenants of the day, Dave Heeke and Mike Marlow.

Now, 22 years later, history has repeated itself. The new Ducks athletic administration, under AD Rob Mullens, has placed a massive billboard of Oregon QB Bo Nix in downtown NYC.

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That might've potentially led to an amusing conversation at Saturday’s Arizona-NAU football game. Moos, now retired, was expected to be the guest of Heeke, in his seventh year as Arizona’s AD, and Marlow, NAU’s athletic director.

The Ducks are hoping Nix’s Heisman campaign is as successful as Harrington’s in 2001, a season the Ducks went 12-1, finished No. 2 in the AP poll and crushed Arizona 63-28 as Harrington finished No. 4 in the Heisman balloting.

Arizona’s baseball legacy towers over Big 12

Former Arizona catcher Austin Wells made his long-anticipated MLB debut for the New York Yankees on Friday. It made Wells the 94th Wildcat to play in the big leagues.

Here’s some perspective. Arizona is the No. 5 college baseball program in sending players to the major leagues. USC leads at 118, followed by ASU at 117, Texas at 110, Stanford at 102 and then UA.

When coach Chip Hale’s club enters the Big 12 conference next year, the Wildcats won’t be looking up at league members with a more impressive big league connection. The Big 12 leaders in MLB players produced, not including ASU and UA, are Oklahoma State, 65; Baylor, 47; TCU, 46.

The next ex-Wildcat, No. 95, to reach the big leagues? How about lefty relief pitcher Rio Gomez, son of the late ESPN baseball analyst and Arizona Republic sports columnist Pedro Gomez? Rio has struck out 49 batters in 42 innings for Boston’s Triple-A affiliate Worcester, a rise to prominence after he was drafted in the 36th round after a so-so career at Arizona.

Short stuff: Lindley comes close again, Hollis-Jefferson goes for 39, remembering Reffkin

• Leta Lindley, one of the five leading women’s golfers in UA history, finished second in the U.S. Women’s Senior Open last week, one stroke out of the lead for the second straight year. Lindley, 51, was the Pac-10 champion in 1994 and finished No. 3 overall for the Wildcats at the 1993 NCAA championships. She went on to play all or parts of 18 seasons on the LPGA Tour. Now a teaching pro in Palm Beach, Florida, Lindley finished two strokes ahead of former Arizona national champion Annika Sorenstam last week. ...

• What is it about college football coaches who wear hoodies and sweatshirts on the sideline when temperatures are 90-plus degrees? The latest to do so is Colorado's Deion Sanders, who wore a white hoodie in Saturday’s game at TCU. Temperatures exceeded 90 degrees in Fort Worth and the humidity must’ve been suffocating. Sanders also chose to sport a "Prime" logo instead of a CU logo on the sleeve of his hoodie. If any coach should wear his own name on his football gear, shouldn’t it start with Nick Saban? Another to wear a hoodie last week was ASU’s rookie head coach Kenny Dillingham. That was absurd. It was 102 at kickoff at Sun Devil Stadium for Thursday’s game against Southern Utah. ...

• Playing for Jordan in the ongoing FIBA World Cup basketball championships, former Arizona forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scored 39 points last week against New Zealand. Yes, 39 points. At the UA, Hollis-Jefferson was a defense-first, rebound-second, shooting-challenged ballplayer who averaged 10.2 points per game over two seasons. He only scored 20 or more points once as a Wildcat, 23 against Texas Southern in 2015. Hollis-Jefferson has been out of the NBA for two seasons and played in the Puerto Rican pro league. He’s only 28. Perhaps an NBA team will rediscover him in the coming season. ...

• Mattie Fowler Burkhardt probably had the most impressive season in Tucson prep softball history in 2011. She drove in a state-record 91 runs, hit .565 and smacked 18 home runs and went 17-1 as a pitcher as Canyon del Oro went 35-1, thought by some to be the No. 1 softball team in Tucson history. But last week in Lincoln, Nebraska, Mattie might’ve topped that. An assistant athletic director at Nebraska, Mattie was part of the group that promoted and staged the Cornhuskers’ record crowd of 92,003 at Memorial Stadium in a volleyball victory over Omaha. (General admission tickets were $25). She is married to Nick Burhardt, who was also involved in the record-setting day. Nick is Nebraska’s assistant AD for creative services. During Mattie’s college softball career, she was the Cornhuskers’ team captain all four years as a varsity starter. ...

• Sad to learn of the death of Tucson tennis titan Jim Reffkin. He died last week at 84. The Marquette graduate had been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Reffkin’s half-century career in Tucson tennis was marked by these dates: 1964, became athletic director and tennis coach at Salpointe Catholic; 1975, became director of tennis for the City of Tucson; 1996 and 1998, coached Pima College’s women’s tennis teams to NJCAA national championships; 2009, was honored as the city’s downtown tennis facility was named the Jim Reffkin Tennis Center. Reffkin brought dozens of USTA and USTPA tournaments to Tucson through the years and put Tucson on the map.

My two cents: UA's recent tough times reflected in NFL numbers

As of Friday, the UA had just four players on NFL active rosters: San Francisco linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, New York Giants running back Gary Brightwell, Cleveland Browns linebacker Tony Fields and Tennessee Titans placekicker Nick Folk.

It’s the fewest Wildcats on an NFL roster since I kept tracking the numbers from Arizona’s entry to the Pac-10 in 1978. It surely reflects the school’s inability to produce a winning season since 2017.

As of Friday, all other Pac-12 schools more than doubled Arizona’s number of active NFL players. Here’s the list: Washington, 36; Stanford, 35; USC, 33; UCLA, 32; Oregon, 32; Utah, 24; ASU, 18; Oregon State, 17; Cal, 16; WSU, 11; Colorado, 10.

Talk about being left in the dust.

Until Jedd Fisch has time to help develop more NFL-bound players — tackle Jordan Morgan, receiver Tetairoa McMillan and cornerback Ephesians Prysock come to mind — it’s unlikely the Wildcats will make a move to get back into the Top 25.