A lot of championship basketball teams are blessed with a Big Two or Big Three, but it’s rare when any coach is able to deploy a certifiable Big Four.
But that’s what Tucson High boys coach Tony Morales put on the court in the 1968-69 season: Guards Hoegie Simmons and Delano Price were clearly the state’s best backcourt. Small forward Kenny Ball might’ve been the top prospect in the state. And 6-foot 8-inch center Chuco Miranda developed into the state’s most dominating big man.
When the Badgers completed an epic 23-1 season by beating Tempe High 80-76 in the state championship game, Morales’ Big Four was too much to handle, scoring 79 of the team’s 80 points. Price and Simmons both scored 24 points, Miranda had 21 and Ball 10.
In a semifinal victory over Phoenix Brophy Prep, it was reversed: Price and Ball combined for 49 points, while Miranda and Simmons added 33.
“They really had difficulty guarding us,’’ Price told me recently. “We had so many options.’’
It wasn’t like the ’69 Badgers rolled through the season without tough opposition. From 1962-70, Tucson was the hub of basketball power among Arizona high schools. The Badgers won 1962 and 1969 state titles. Coach Galen Kintner’s Catalina Trojans won it all in 1963, coach Dick Kings Rincon Rangers were state champs in 1965 and Dick McConnell’s Sahuaro Cougars won it all in 1970.
Tucson High went 23-1 in 1969 to win the state basketball title.
Before the ’69 Badgers got to the state finals, played in Phoenix, they had already won a memorable best-of-three series against what they considered the state’s No. 2 team, Rincon.
The Rangers had been so good in the ’60s that they went on a 12-game winning streak against THS and beat the Badgers in a classic 86-84 finish on Jan. 24. It would be the only loss of the year for Tucson.
The five-year losing streak against Rincon ended in a Feb. 11 rematch at the THS gymnasium, 98-88 as Price, Ball and Simmons combined to score 77 points. Two weeks later, Tucson High again beat the Rangers in the region playoffs.
After hoisting the state championship trophy, Morales declined to compare his ’69 Badgers to his undefeated ’62 Badgers.
“I don’t want to compare them,’’ he said. “Both of them were really special.’’
From left: Kenny Ball, Bruce Klewer, Chuco Miranda, Delano Price and Hoegie Simmons, the starting five on Tucson High’s 1969 state championship basketball team.
Morales hadn’t told anyone outside of his wife and five children, but he planned to retire after the ’69 season, win or lose. His 14½ year journey as THS basketball coach had not always been smooth; he replaced five-time state championship coach Bud Doolen in mid-season, 1955, after Doolen died of a heart attack.
Morales’ Badgers went 178-113 during a period the local competition intensified as Catalina, Rincon and Sahuaro opened.
One of 11 children of a Douglas laborer and a stay-at-home mother, Morales became an all-state basketball player at Douglas High. After a four-year period serving in the Navy during World War II, Morales became a starter for the UA baseball and basketball teams. He was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.
Three days after winning the 1969 state championship, Morales announced he resigned his coaching position. He was 45.
“It’s been a grind, a tough grind,’’ he told the Star. “There are a lot of intangibles you have to deal with when you’re coaching. You are working with kids who are up one day and down another. I demand a lot of myself and the players. Sometimes I think I demanded too much.’’
Tucson has not won a basketball state championship since Morales retired. He moved to San Diego, where he died in 2014 at 89.
Neither Ball, Simmons, Price or Miranda became major-college basketball players, although Simmons became a star at small-school Texas A&I, and Price became an all-ACCAC guard at Phoenix College, while Ball and Miranda became standout players at Pima College.
