Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Wildcats' scrimmage gives insight into Kevin Sumlin's plans, personality

1. When you watch a UA football practice, you almost have difficulty picking out the head coach. Kevin Sumlin is not in the middle of everything. He’s not loud. He’s doesn’t overreact. He’s the anti-Rich Rodriguez.

Sumlin’s ego has not been on display in three months since he took office. He has not made himself available for post-practice interviews, choosing instead to let his assistants introduce themselves. Most of the assistants have spoken about the lack of ego within the staff.

Most coaches don’t do it that way. They insist on being the show. But because Sumlin has been so visible the last eight years in football country, Texas, he obviously learned that being an out-front control freak doesn’t win football games.

And one more thing: How in the world did Sumlin ever start at linebacker at Purdue in the mid-1980s? He doesn’t look any bigger than a slot receiver. I suspect he was a tough sonofagun. Those qualities — toughness and staff togetherness — have been missing at Arizona.

Sumlin has chosen not to speak about personnel until he fully evaluates the roster in spring practice. He hasn’t been premature in stating Khalil Tate’s case to contend for the Heisman Trophy. The time will come for that.

This is a coach who knows the ropes.

2. For the last six seasons, Arizona hasn’t had Pac-12 quality defensive linemen. The UA’s defensive front has looked more like a Sun Belt Conference group.

But on Saturday the optics changed. UA defensive linemen Finton Connolly, Dereck Boles, PJ Johnson and JB Brown, among others, passed the eye test.

3. Those entering Arizona Stadium for the scrimmage were re-directed to the west grandstand. Construction workers are going six days a week on reworking the infrastructure beneath the Zona Zoo, part of a much-needed $25 million face-lift.

When the east-side grandstand area is completed this summer, the Zona Zoo will have a terrace that opens to the field, a refreshment area at which they can watch the game and circulate rather than stay in one seat. It’ll be the first of its kind in the Pac-12.

Zona Zoo attendance has been dismal since 2014. This should be a move toward filling those seats.

New offensive line coach Joe Gilbert told reporters last week that he was “shocked” when he saw Arizona Stadium in January. He visited campus during the Mike Stoops era and, after leaving the Indianapolis Colts staff in December, accepted a job offer from Sumlin without visiting Tucson.

“I was shocked when I came back and saw this,” Gilbert said. “I came in and said, ‘Man we got something special that we can build around.’”

That’s what a $75 million football plant can do for perception.

4. Sumlin opened Saturday’s scrimmage with five kickoff plays. Those who watched UA special teams struggle in recent years will be encouraged. Much like Arizona’s two most successful coaches of the last 40 years, Larry Smith and Dick Tomey, Sumlin appears to understand the value of special teams.

If you follow hockey closely, you knew about Tucson Roadrunners coach Mike Van Ryn before he was hired last summer.

He was part of Michigan’s Class of 1997, a 10-man class that helped the Wolverines win the 1998 Frozen Four national championship. After two years, much like a Gilbert Arenas or Mike Bibby at Arizona, Van Ryn jumped to the NHL draft and was a first-round selection of the New Jersey Devils.

Now 38, Van Ryn has been coaching for eight seasons; his 283-game NHL career was scuttled by a chronic wrist injury. He has since become one of the hot young names in coaching.

While playing for the NHL’s Florida Panthers, Van Ryn met and married his wife, Amber, who was a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. They have three children under the age of 10, and the Van Ryns aren’t a stay-at-home-and-watch-movies kind of family.

His father, Ted Van Ryn, operates a family fishing camp in Tobermory, Ontario, overlooking the Georgian Bay. Mike inherited that gene. The Van Ryns spend the offseason — what there is of it — fishing in Florida and Canada.

More? Van Ryn is a descendant of Dutch painter Rembrandt.

“I was told by a lot of coaches that I would probably be a coach someday, but at the time I was too worried about playing and fishing,” Van Ryn said with a laugh. “We still live in Florida, I married a Florida girl, and my family is made up of hard-core anglers.

“That’s all we do. You think you can play forever, but when your career ends, you find something else. I’ve been fortunate to have a great family, and add to it with coaching and fishing. It’s a good life.”

Along the way, Amber Van Ryn fought and has overcome breast cancer. “She’s a saint,” Mike says. “If not for her, I don’t know what would happen. She keeps everything moving for us. We’re really enjoying our first year in Tucson.”

The Roadrunners are in first place and bound for the Calder Cup playoffs. Even to a fisherman of Van Ryn’s level, that’s landing a big one.

Sometime this week, the merger of Tucson’s two largest soccer clubs — Tucson Soccer Academy and Tanque Verde Soccer Club — should be announced.

The consolidated group — which is likely to have 1,800 to 2,000 soccer players — will be called FC Tucson Youth Soccer Club and will be aligned with the United Soccer League’s Phoenix Rising franchise and FC Tucson’s minor-league franchise.

It will be the largest recreational sports program in Southern Arizona.

The merger will mean that youth soccer in Tucson will have the developmental and competitive capacity of most larger cities. It will be equipped with a clubhouse, a fitness center, a computer/video room, and be able to attract a larger and more capable pool of coaches.

Pima College Hall of Fame soccer coach Dave Cosgrove will be the director of coaching. Tucson attorney Ted Schmidt, whose devotion to Southern Arizona youth soccer has been dynamic, will be president of the new group.

This merger and the connection to Phoenix Rising, could someday soon lead to a USL franchise in Tucson. It would first require Phoenix to become part of Major League Soccer. If and when that happens, FC Tucson would probably become Tucson Rising.

It’s a grand plan for Tucson’s soccer future, all triggered by the merger of Southern Arizona’s two leading youth soccer leagues.

Tucsonan George Cunningham, the NCAA’s 50th-ranked golfer, earned his PGA Tour/Canada card last week in a qualifying-school tournament in Phoenix. Cunningham, a UA senior, shot 68-72-73-68 to finish 7 under par. He was third among 132 golfers. His next six weeks will be spent attempting to get Arizona into its first NCAA Tournament in six years; the Wildcats are ranked No. 34 nationally, their highest ranking since 2010. Cunningham will be among those favored to contend for the Pac-12 championship April 23-25 in Los Angeles. After that, Cunningham will join the Canadian Tour for the first of 16 summer events. 

Tucsonan Michael Thompson, a Rincon/University High grad, is back on the PGA Tour with playing privileges. He was given a minor medical exemption for five tournaments — Thompson missed time last year with a shoulder injury — and earned $177,000 in those five events, capped by a 14th-place finish at the Houston Open. Thompson is now 129th in PGA Tour rankings; his best ranking was 66th in 2013.

Arizona’s embattled basketball program would score an offseason victory if it hires Danny Peters as an assistant coach this week. Peters, who played under Thad Matta at Ohio State, spent four seasons on the UA staff (2010-14), mostly in operations and scouting. He has flourished as a full-time assistant coach under ex-Wildcat assistant James Whitford at Ball State the last four seasons. While at Ball State, Peters was chosen among the Top 20 Coaches Under 30 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

The UA last week announced that it will cost about $12,500 a year for tuition at the school. That high cost to attend college makes the value of a college baseball scholarship more coveted than ever.

In 2014, Sahuaro High School baseball coach Mark Chandler piloted the Cougars to a 24-7 record and the state semifinals. The lead player off that team, outfielder Alex Verdugo, was a second-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He signed a $975,000 bonus and spent last September on the Dodgers roster. Verdugo opened the season at Triple-A Oklahoma City and is considered one of the top 50 prospects in MLB.

Those who played with Verdugo at Sahuaro haven’t received the same sort of attention, but they have done well. Six of those Class of ’14 seniors earned scholarships and are doing well at all levels of college baseball.

Last week, Winston Welch of Arkansas State went 5 for 5 against Louisiana in a Sun Belt Conference game. A few days earlier, he was 4 for 7 against UL Monroe and raised his batting average to .374.

Ex-Cougar teammate Vinnie Tarantola, playing for Liberty in the Big South Conference, has a 3.79 ERA in 19 relief appearances.

Former Sahuaro pitcher Justin Hammergren is 5-0 with a 1.46 ERA at NAIA power Lewis-Clark . His Sahuaro teammate, Andrew Black, is hitting .209 for Minot State.

Two ex-Cougars, Jake Northrup and Hunter Green, are playing well at NAIA contender Sterling College of Kansas. Northrup is hitting .346 and Green .413, leading Sterling in home runs and RBIs.

It might not be the big leagues, but neither is it a case where the former Sahuaro Cougars are paying $12,500 a year for tuition.

Two years ago, after finishing 15-17, UCLA basketball coach Steve Alford requested the fifth year of his five-year contract be eliminated.

He vowed to do better.

It wasn’t much of a gamble; the already-wealthy Alford had Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf in his incoming recruiting class. But it was one of the few times a monstrously-high paid college basketball coach showed enough humility to mess with his money.

Nor was it much of a risk last week when Sean Miller willingly tied 25 percent of a potential $4 million retention bonus to the outcome of ongoing FBI and NCAA investigations.

It was damage control. It was an effort at image-building. But it was about all the school can do at this point.

Miller has been paid about $25 million in his nine UA seasons. To him, it’s not about the money at this stage. It’s about his reputation and ability to win again.

It would’ve been more effective had he put the entire $4 million bonus into play, not just 25 percent of it.

When UA president Robert C. Robbins said Miller “put his money where his mouth is,” it was a wild exaggeration.

The UA is trying its best to protect a $22 million basketball empire. Yet the program is almost paralyzed. It is unable to recruit at its accustomed high level, uncertain what will happen in the FBI investigation, and, as much as anything else, worried that the May 1 deadline for season ticket holders to renew for the 2018-19 season will sink to the lowest levels of the last 30 years.

This is a follow-the-money dilemma. But it’s the school’s money, not that of Sean Miller, that is most at risk.