Summer of 1970: Bill Tripp was working as a lifeguard at the UA's campus pool, finishing a master's degree, with no career plans to be a football coach.
Rich Ellerson was entering his senior year at Salpointe Catholic, a linebacker with some pop who was destined for a congressional appointment to the Naval Academy and a career in the military.
One day at the pool in 1970, someone told Tripp that an assistant coaching position was available at Salpointe. Would he be interested? Oh, yes. He would.
On the first day of football practice at Salpointe, Tripp was introduced to Ellerson, one of three future Division I players on the squad.
"I still remember seeing Rich," Tripp said Tuesday. "Good kid. Very smart kid. You knew he had a promising future, whatever it might be."
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Tripp had no clear plan to be a football coach, or even to remain in Arizona. He grew up in New York and was "only visiting while getting a graduate degree."
Ellerson had given even less thought to a career as a football coach. His father, Col. Geoffrey Dixon Ellerson, was the deputy commander of Fort Huachuca. His two older brothers, John and Geoffrey Jr., had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His family had produced three generations of military officers.
His destiny seemed to be one with brass on the shoulders, not a Nike logo on his shirt.
Over the next 30 years, Tripp became the head football coach at Canyon del Oro, Salpointe and Sahuarita high schools. He has been an assistant at Boise State, Nevada, Cal Poly, Idaho, and in the Arena Football League.
"Here it is, 36 years later, and I sort of became a football coach by accident," Tripp said, chuckling. "And to find myself here with Rich? I guess you never know."
Ellerson went to the Naval Academy as planned, but after his freshman year, he went on a summer training mission near Hawaii. He met a friend who attended the University of Hawaii. Ultimately, the lure of the beach won out over the lure of a battleship.
Ellerson played three seasons at Hawaii, and when Dick Tomey was hired as the school's head coach in 1977, Ellerson inquired about a graduate assistant coaching job.
Here it is, 36 years later, and Tripp finds himself coaching the offensive line for Ellerson's No. 3-ranked Cal Poly Mustangs, the defensive terror of Division I-AA football, ranked No. 1 in total defense and scoring defense.
Desert Swarm II, anyone?
On Friday, Ellerson and Tripp will take a three-hour bus ride to San Jose for Saturday's engagement against Tomey's San Jose State Spartans — old home week continued — in which Ellerson will look across the field and see not only Tomey, but former Arizona defensive starters David Fipp and Charlie Camp, who were so much a part of Ellerson's fabulous Arizona defensive teams in the 1990s.
Fipp coached first at Cal Poly with Tripp and Ellerson. He has since joined Camp and former UA and Cal Poly assistant coach Brent Brennan in San Jose.
With everything Cal Poly has to gain by beating a Division I team — and with Tomey on the cusp of turning Stanford-slaying San Jose State into a winning program — Saturday's game is among the most compelling of the college weekend.
"I think of it as a blessing that I have been fortunate enough to coach for Dick Tomey and Rich Ellerson," said Fipp. "They are so similar; sometimes, when one is speaking, you'd think it was the other guy in the room."
The book on Ellerson is not as well established as the book on Tomey, but it has the same three fundamental chapters: 1, Treat People Right; 2, Be Intense and Play Hard; 3, Family First.
It is not unusual, over 36 years in the business, that Tripp and his old Salpointe pupil, Ellerson, crossed paths long before Saturday's game at SJSU. They coached together, under former UA lineman and Salpointe head coach Jerry Davitch, in the 1981 season at Idaho.
Small world: Their Idaho team played Tomey's Hawaii team 25 years ago next week; Hawaii won 21-6.
Predictably, both Tomey and Ellerson are attempting to defuse any type of Coach vs. Pupil II angle this week.
"Building the defense at Arizona," Tomey said, "was a group effort, but Rich was as prominent a voice in the formation of that concept as anybody."
Ellerson said, simply, "they have some unique insights into what we do."
Tomey, at 68, is probably building a winner for the final time in a grand career.
Ellerson, at 53, is building a winner for the first time.
"Rich got the community fired up," said Tripp. "We got a lot of name recognition last year by beating (perennial I-AA power) Montana in the I-AA playoffs. They're rebuilding the stadium, adding seats, and Rich is behind all of it. He's an intelligent man, capable of coaching any place."
Fipp remembers what it was like when Ellerson began to build at Cal Poly. The Mustangs would take bus trips to NAU, for example, and sleep on the bus, instead of getting hotel rooms.
And now, time and opportunity position Ellerson against his friends and colleagues from Arizona.
"Coach Tomey is acting like this is just another week, and I'm sure coach Ellerson is the same way with his guys," Fipp said with a laugh. "But it's not like just another week at all."
