A few days after Sahuaro High School won the 1998 girls state basketball championship, coach Jim Scott raised an eyebrow when his incoming mail included a letter from the University of Arizona basketball office.
It was a hand-written letter from Lute Olson.
“You and your staff did as good a job with your defense as I have seen at any level,’’ Olson wrote on March 3, 1998.
Scott still has that letter. It was a fitting end to his remarkable 15-year career as Sahuaro’s head coach, a period in which the Cougars went 332-69 and won the 1993 and 1998 state titles. Now, a quarter-century later, Scott’s ’98 Cougars have been informed they will be inducted into the Class of 2022 at the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.
There is no prescribed route to becoming a high school basketball coach, but Jim Scott, son of the county attorney in the southeast Arizona mining town of Clifton, didn’t take the suggested path to a state championship.
After his father died during Scott’s high school days, his family moved to Tucson; Scott enrolled at Amphitheater High School. He did not play varsity sports, and after graduation found himself as part of the 40th Armory Division of the United States Army.
It was during that time that Scott dedicated himself to returning to school, earning a college degree and becoming a teacher. Coaching? It wasn’t on his radar. He was not an identifiable name in the coaching community.
But after teaching science at Sewell Elementary School and Magee Middle School, Scott’s interest in sports, in coaching, manifested itself. Unlike most high school coaches, who get their first opportunity at a much younger age, Scott became Sahuaro’s girls freshman coach in his early 40s.
He got a late start, but it didn’t inhibit his success.
Jim Scott
His ’97 team bumped into the Catalina Foothills state championship team, led by Olson’s granddaughter, Julie Brase, and lost in the state semifinals. But a year later, Sahuaro beat Brase’s Foothills team in three of four games and reached the title game against No. 2 Scottsdale Saguaro.
On game day at America West Arena in downtown Phoenix, Scott wore his red “lucky sweater’’, which he had worn on the occasion of big games dating to the 1980s. It worked. His pressing defensive pressure held Saguaro to 11% shooting in the first half as the Cougars rolled to the championship, 57-35.
“I believe that the 1997-98 team was not only the best team that I coached while at Sahuaro, but also one of, if not the best, teams in Arizona regardless of division that year,’’ Scott says now. “ And I believe that they proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. ‘’
Sahuaro’s ’98 team didn’t have a superstar, a go-to player, but when the Star compiled the votes for the 1998 All-City team, three of Scott’s starters were selected to the first team: Nicole Nelson, Kelli Glowacka and Katie Bruns. The second team included Cougars Kate Gonzalez and Kristina Henry.
How’s that for depth?
Scott also had a strong coaching staff that included Steve Botkin, who replaced Scott the following season and has since coached Sahuaro to 590 victories, the most in Tucson girls prep basketball history.
“We suffered our only loss of the season at Catalina Foothills, 53-49, before a very large and boisterous crowd,’’ Scott remembers. “We got our revenge a few weeks later when we defeated them 55-27 at home. ‘’
In the state tournament, Sahuaro got even better. It won games 70-41, 73-29 and 48-34 before taking down Saguaro.
“While I was extremely proud of this team’s performance on the basketball court, I was equally proud of the class and dignity with which they carried themselves,’’ says Scott. “There was no ‘trash talk’ or unsportsmanlike behavior. They were intelligent and likable and treated opponents with respect.
“(Sahuaro’s Hall of Fame boys basketball coach) Dick McConnell and I used to laugh about how they were such sweet and outgoing girls until the tip-off. Then suddenly they became unbelievably focused, tough, and aggressive until the game was over — then revert once again to the friendly, thoughtful, girls they were.’’
