Steve Kerr, along with Sean Elliott, led the Arizona Wildcats to their first-ever Final Four in 1988. Elizabeth Mangelsdorf, Arizona Daily Star 1988

 Elizabeth Mangelsdorf, Arizona Daily Star 1988

By early June 1988, Tucson's Network West sports production firm pre-sold about 2,000 copies of "Memories ’88" for $29.99 each β€” roughly $75 in today’s dollars.

The demand would grow and grow over the next few months.

"Memories ’88" is a 95-minute movie about Arizona’s 1987-88 basketball season produced, directed and written by Tucson sports TV host and emcee Dana Cooper and narrated by CBS Hall of Fame sportscaster Ray Scott.

"This is the year it all came together," says Scott.

The VHS movie ends with the epic Bill Medley/Jennifer Warnes song, "I've Had The Time of My Life," from the 1987 movie "Dirty Dancing."

"I’ve never felt this way before."

By late summer, 1988, it seemed like every person from every walk of life in Tucson had watched and re-watched "Memories ’88."

Tucson had never felt that way about a basketball team, about any team.

"It was a once-in-a-lifetime season," Steve Kerr, a point guard on the 1987-88 team, said in the summer of 1995. "I still think about it lying in bed at night."

Cooper, now a senior manager and business consultant in the UA athletic department, spent 230 hours creating "Memories ’88" and putting it to music.

"I don’t know how big the multiplier effect was; how many total people watched it," Cooper says now. "Many people told me they wore out their copy."

Arizona rose to national prominence in November and December of 1987, beating No. 9 Michigan, No. 1 Syracuse, No. 3 Iowa and No. 9 Duke in a four-week period. As Arizona rose to No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time in history, basketball analyst Billy Packer said the Wildcats had "the greatest non-conference season in the history of college basketball."

It became the most memorable season in Tucson sports history, a year in which a basketball team coached by Lute Olson and led by Sean Elliott and Kerr captured Tucson’s hearts and imagination. Olson, Kerr and Elliott became the three most recognizable sports figures in UA history, which remains true today.

Cholla High School grad Sean Elliott turned out to be the perfect player to help Lute Olson turn the Wildcats’ program around.

Tucson’s image changed almost overnight, from that of a dusty old cowtown to that of a city of winners. The Wildcats went 35-3, reached the Final Four and won the Pac-10 with a 17-1 record.

Don Dickinson, a high school teacher and one of Tucson’s leading tennis instructors and a successful high school basketball coach in the ’80s and ’90s, has closely followed UA sports for almost 40 years.

"That team put the University of Arizona on the map nationally," he says now. "Being from Michigan before moving to Arizona, I couldn't tell you the difference between Arizona and Arizona State, including which was in Tucson or Phoenix.

"The intangibles for the ’88 team revolve around the impact on the Tucson community, nationally establishing Arizona as an equal to Eastern and Midwest basketball and creating a national identity of Tucson as a legitimate resort and winter destination.

"All of this has been the foundational piece of Arizona basketball, of which top basketball coaches like Sean Miller and Tommy Lloyd have been drawn to."

The 1987-88 Wildcats outscored opponents by an astonishing 85-64 per game, a record of the Pac-10/12 years dating to 1978. Elliott averaged 19.6 points per game, Kerr shot an incandescent 57.3% from 3-point range, center Tom Tolbert averaged 14.1 points per game and power forward Anthony Cook 13.9.

Olson took on all comers. In early December 1987, he didn’t back away from an invitation to play No. 3 Iowa β€” the team he coached to the 1980 Final Four β€” at the "House that Lute Built," the Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Coach Lute Olson is beaming while listening to star player Sean Elliott at a rally and parade for the men’s basketball team after the Wildcats’ 1988 Final four season.

On that emotional night, the fourth-ranked Wildcats won 66-59. In "Memories ’88," Cooper programmed Billy Joel’s hit record "Pressure" to describe the intensity. It was a perfect fit.

Once Arizona beat Iowa in Iowa City, it became obvious that the ’88 Wildcats were something special.

By year’s end, sophomore guard Harvey Mason wrote and produced a popular song, "Wild About the Cats," watched by more than 87,000 on YouTube since 2011 alone. Sings Kerr: "I’ll drill it in from 3-point land."

It was the season of the "Gumbies" and the Ooh Aah Man, two of the staples of the foundation Olson built.

"Thirty-four years later, we can more fully appreciate the 1987-88 Wildcats not so much for what they accomplished on the court, but for who they were as people and who and what they would become in life," Cooper says now.

"The roster produced a combined 17 NBA Championships as players and coaches. They were led by an eventual Hall of Fame Coach deeply in love with his wife. The highly-adored and favored local son Sean Elliott became the National Player of the Year. A tragic hero adopted by an entire community, Steve Kerr, was named the nation’s Most Courageous Player.

"There was the flamboyant loudmouth, Tom Tolbert, and the shy heartthrob, Craig McMillan. The 'Gumbies' bench included an eventual six-time MLB All-Star, Kenny Lofton, a future corporate attorney, Matt Muehlebach, and a budding songwriter, Harvey Mason, who became one of the nation’s leading music producers.

"The most beloved Wildcat team of all-time helped give our community an identity we still embrace to this day."

Arizona ultimately lost to Oklahoma in the ’88 Final Four, prompting a trail of tears from Kansas City back to Tucson. But over the years, those tears were replaced by the memories of a lifetime.

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711

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