Hansen's Top Teams, No. 54: With no college prospects, Amphi still won at the highest level in 1979

It is almost baffling to examine the list of Tucson’s 1979 All-City football team.

Twelve of the All-City players attracted notable college recruiters. Oklahoma signed Sunnyside running back Fred Sims. Arkansas got Sahuaro’s Jay Dobyns and Mark Mistler. BYU signed Santa Rita’s Ty Mattingly. Notre Dame was successful in recruiting Salpointe’s Rock Roggeman.

Arizona got Sahuaro’s Skip Peete, CDO’s Cliff Thorpe, Cholla’s Vance Johnson and Tucson’s Danny Hill. And on and on.

Incredibly, the undefeated state champion Amphi Panthers did not produce a FBS college prospect. Starting QB Sam Molina wasn’t all-city. That was Flowing Wells’ Randy Sorich.

“We had no one close to being a Division I player,’’ said Amphi coach Vern Friedli, “although Idaho did sign (running back) Arlen Bethay. But as a whole, we were the best team in the state.’’

Friedli operated an option offense. He left the more popular passing offenses to his opponents.

It took a few years to add perspective to Amphi’s 1979 Class 5A state championship. It’s still the last Tucson school to win Arizona’s top-classification state football title. That’s 43 years and running. By the time Friedli became the winningest high school football coach in state history, retiring in 2011 with 331 victories, it was clear that Friedli made more out of less than almost any coach in Tucson history.

His undersized, numbers-challenged teams of the ’80s and ’90s had records of 13-1, 12-1, 11-1, 11-1-1 and 12-2 in the state’s largest classification, but could never win the Big One again.

It made his perfect 1979 season even more impressive.

“We had 19 senior starters on that ’79 team,’’ Friedli told me. “We had the best offensive line in the state, and none of them were recruited by four-year schools.’’

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Indeed, the ’79 Panthers won with toughness, chemistry and intelligence. The starters on the offensive line — Neil Hamilton, Tim Jones, Craig Geyer, Jesse Shelton and David Osteen — were productive and consistent.

In the state championship game, a 27-0 rout over Mesa High School, the Panthers outgained Mesa 386-110 at ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium before a crowd of 11,000, about half of them from Tucson.

Molina, the QB, threw just three passes, completing all three, one of them a 57-yard touchdown to open the game. After that. Friedli kept it simple. Bethey ran 86 yards for a touchdown and gained 148 yards in the game. Backup running back Joey Canizales ran for 106 yards.

Defensive players like Kim Hewson and Kurt Werner kept Mesa to just 11 offensive plays in the second half. This was long before Friedli had the good fortune of sprinkling future NFL players like Michael and Mario Bates and future Pac-10 standouts like Jon Volpe into his Amphi lineups.

“That team just clicked, it was a joy to coach them,’’ Friedli told me. “If you had told me they’d be our last state champion, I wouldn’t have believed it. We came so close so many times, but the Phoenix schools kept growing and growing. When we’d play Mesa Mountain View in the state championship game, or some other Phoenix team like that, we’d be outnumbered 2 to 1 or more.’’

Until the 2000s, Friedli steadfastly declined chances to drop down a classification or two, suiting Amphi’s enrollment. Even in a period when Sabino, Sahuaro and Mountain View became state powers (and state champs) at what was essentially Division II, Friedli wouldn’t budge.

Friedli, who grew up in a small logging community in Northern California, moved to Tucson in the late 1950s as part of his military service commitment. He earned a degree from Arizona, got married, began a coaching/teacher career at Sunnyside Junior High School and later became the head football and baseball coach in the small towns of Morenci and San Manuel.

In 1976, Amphi hired Friedli to replace 1975 state championship coach Jerry Loper, who had moved to Mesa McClintock High School.

“I’m a wishbone coach,’’ Friedli says. “We won’t be flashy, but we’ll do what it takes to win.’’

He was true to his word.