Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Arizona Wildcats' path to roses may not be so far-fetched

In 2019, Arizona’s athletic department will complete its 30-year mortgage on the press box, sky boxes and loge suites built in 1989.

It will begin decades of payments for $25 million of improvements to Arizona Stadium, and another $16 million for the imposing Cole and Jeannie Davis Indoor Sports Center.

It is in the infancy of paying off the $72 million Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.

So you ask: After $113 million of football projects in recent years, how much closer is Arizona to the Rose Bowl?

Will this football dream, this New Year’s Day in Pasadena, happen in your lifetime? Are the Wildcats getting closer, or is Kevin Sumlin’s recruiting Class of 2019 destined to be nothing more than part of a few 7-6 or 8-5 teams, at best?

You might be surprised that the composition of Washington’s Rose Bowl team — the Pac-12’s leading football program — is not out of Arizona’s reach.

The 2018 Huskies starting lineup is built this way:

• Five starters from No. 36-ranked recruiting class of 2014.
• Eight starters from No. 30-ranked recruiting class of 2015.
• Six starters from No. 37-ranked recruiting class of 2016.
• Three starters from No. 23-ranked recruiting class of 2017.

Nor are the Huskies star-heavy. When they play Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, Washington will start 13 three-star recruits and three two-star prospects.

Isn’t that within Arizona’s range? Or is that fool’s gold?

On signing day last week, Arizona receivers coach Taylor Mazzone described four-star receiver Boobie Curry of Texas as a “physical, explosive playmaker who will give defenses mismatches. His work ethic and passion will make an instant impact on our program.”

Sounds a lot like what UA coaches said about Rob Gronkowski, Class of 2007.

Alas, the oft-injured Gronk started just 19 games at Arizona and the Wildcats went 13-12.

Now, a decade later, the Wildcats are essentially starting over. Washington? In Gronk’s last year in Arizona’s starting lineup, the Huskies went 0-12.

So maybe there’s hope after all.

Donnie Moore’s father grew up on the Cherokee Indian reservation in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. He enlisted in World War I, was wounded in Europe, and moved to Tucson when the war ended. He became a deputy sheriff.

What a success story.

“My aunt’s last name was Walkingstick,” Moore told me when I met him in the 1990s. “She never left the reservation. It’s amazing what my family has made of itself.”

The purpose of my meeting with Moore was to write about his Hall of Fame officiating career. For 50 years, “Hoss” worked thousands of Southern Arizona high school, junior college and WAC baseball, football and basketball games. He was one of the best. His warm and approachable personality surely changed the way many coaches felt about referees and umpires. He officiated until he was in his early 80s.

But there was so much more to “Hoss” than funny stories about being escorted by policemen out of Nogales and Douglas on nights the unhappy home teams lost close games.

A retired mailman, Moore was part of Tucson High’s undefeated state baseball championship team of 1946. His brother, Corky, was even better, playing on the 1941 and 1942 state champions at THS.

But before Corky could step into Pop McKale’s Arizona baseball lineup in 1943, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He became a “Leatherneck,” a paratrooper, and was in fierce combat on Iwo Jima the day before the famous American flag was planted on Mount Suribachi, 1945.

“Corky was killed by a sniper,” Donnie said then, his eyes swelling with tears. “He was only 21. It has been 50 years, but I think about him all the time.”

Donnie Moore died last week. He was 92. I’d like to think he had a happy reunion with Corky somewhere in baseball heaven.

A celebration of his life will be held Jan. 5 at the Adair Avalon Chapel, 8090 N. Northern Ave. The event starts at 4 p.m.

The Southern Arizona Coaches Institute, which will feature baseball for the first time, continues to grow an impressive roster of Tucson-related baseball coaches.

Twelve professional coaches will join former Arizona head coach Jerry Stitt for the Jan. 13 baseball institute on the Pima College West campus from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Cost is $25 for those who preregister at soazcoachesinstitute.com. Registration is open to anyone.

Stitt last week announced a staff that includes Washington Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long; Chicago Cubs Triple-A hitting coach Keoni DeRenne; Houston Astros pitching coach Brent Strom; Toronto Blue Jays field coordinator Shelley Duncan; Los Angeles Angels minor league field coordinator Jack Howell; Angels minor league hitting coordinator Damon Mashore; Colorado Rockies minor league field coordinator Anthony Sanders; Arizona baseball coach Jay Johnson; UA pitching coach Dave Lawn; Pima College head coach Ken Jacome; Diamondbacks Triple-A pitching coach Gil Heredia and Washington Nationals bench coach Chip Hale.

In his negotiations with the CBS Sports Network, Nova Home Loans Arizona Bowl chairman Ali Farhang did one very smart thing. “I insisted that I control the date and time of our game,” he said. That’s why the fourth Arizona Bowl will kick off at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday at Arizona Stadium. “Thirty-six of 41 bowls are controlled by one network (ESPN) and they are essentially programming fillers,” Farhang said. “We won’t do that in Tucson. We won’t play at night and we won’t play in the middle of the week.” The Arizona Bowl had sold 34,000 tickets as of early last week. Farhang insists a sellout of 55,000 is possible, but if 40,000 show up for Saturday’s Nevada-Arkansas State game, he and his staff should get a medal.

When Sean Miller’s UA basketball team was outrebounded 51-19 by Baylor last week, it seemed impossible that any UA team, any time, could’ve had less. But in a February 1984 game at Oregon State, the Wildcats got just 16 rebounds. More amazing is that OSU had just 13 in a 53-48 victory over Arizona. What happened? In a slow-tempo game, OSU shot 63 percent and Arizona 61 percent, so rebound opportunities were scarce. Against Baylor, it was just inadequate effort.

Tim Derksen, Arizona’s 2012 Gatorade basketball player of the year at Amphitheater High School, has excelled in his third year of EuroLeague basketball. Derksen, a small forward from USF, is second in scoring in the Slovakia pro league with an 18.8 average. He’s also ninth in assists at 3.9 per game. Derksen played his first two pro seasons in Spain.

Former Arizona golf standout and UA assistant coach Andy Barnes, a long-time PGA Tour caddie, is now working for Charley Hoffman, a virtual cash machine who has earned $26.6 million in official tour money over the years. That’s a good gig, for sure. Andy’s younger brother, former Arizona All-American Ricky Barnes, no longer has full playing privileges on the PGA Tour. He earned $340,000 last year in 22 events, and also played in five Web.com Tour events.

Catalina Foothills High School golfer Maya Benita, who finished second in state last month, took an official recruiting visit to Arizona and was offered a scholarship by UA coach Laura Ianello. Benita had a breakout junior season, winning, among other things, the national long-drive championship for her age group. In the last 25 years, only one Tucson golfer, Salpointe Catholic product Krystal Quihuis, has made the UA starting lineup.

It didn’t take long for Pima College’s outgoing football staff to get attention.

Empire High School last week hired PCC defensive backs coach George Kelly to be its new football coach, replacing W.T. Jeffries, who went 31-30 in six years.

In today’s diminished world of high school football at all but a handful of Tucson high schools, Kelly is a big-time catch. He played in college at both Pima and UTEP and broke in as a high school coach in El Paso, and later at Catalina High School. He has been on Pima’s staff for five years.

Married with two children, Kelly has a master’s degree in counseling/mental health from the UA. He is a counselor at Cragin Elementary School.

Hiring a capable high school football coach in Tucson has become more and more difficult, especially by TUSD schools. For example, Catalina, Rincon/University and Santa Rita have employed 14 head coaches in six years. Cholla is on its fifth coach in 11 years.

In that period of coaching shuffles, Santa Rita is 7-61; Palo Verde, which also has a coaching vacancy, has gone 10-41; Rincon/University is 10-51; and Catalina 10-40. Cholla is 27-94 over its 11 years of coaching instability.

That’s an aggregate of 64-287 as high school football in Tucson continues to lose participation numbers. My prediction is that by 2025, several Tucson high schools will eliminate football.

Joe Abney taught and coached at Sabino High School for 27 years. You name it, he did it. JV basketball. JV football. A friendly face and counselor-at-large.

Abney coached with three of the top names in Tucson prep football history: Jeff Scurran, Howard Breinig and Jay Campos. None of those wins and losses went under Abney’s name, but over his 27 years at the school he won ’em all.

Abney died of complications from diabetes last week at age 64. The hundreds who attended his memorial service on Friday remembered what former Sabino assistant principal Will Kreamer called “a gentle soul.”

A Long Island, New York, native — a Joe Namath and Jets fan of the first rank — Abney played college football in South Dakota and arrived in Tucson in 1981 as the head coach at Palo Verde Christian.

But it was at Sabino where Abney created a legacy. The school honored him with the Martin Luther King Award for “character and contributions to athletics.” He was inducted into Sabino’s athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.

But it was not about the games Abney coached. It was about his connections and concern about others.

“We bonded because he was a consummate professional,” said former Sabino teacher Annette Sechrest. “Joe was a blessing to our English Department. He was one of the kindest, most compassionate and considerate human beings on the planet.”

In 2005, when Sechrest’s husband underwent hip surgery on the day of final exams, Abner got up about 5 a.m. to prepare a hot breakfast for Sechrest. He delivered it to her classroom.

In he same vein, 1992 Sabino grad Nikki Fellner said “it didn’t take long to get to know and adore Joe. What I find amazing about Coach Abney is the amount of lives he impacted over so many generations.

“I attended Joe’s service with my nephew, who played football at Sabino more than 20 years after I graduated. Two generations greatly affected by this man. What makes me feel sad is that future students will not have the honor and privilege for Joe teach our boys to be men and our girls to be strong women.”

Abney, who grew up in a military family in New York, had his right leg amputated a few years ago. After surgery, he returned to school and continued his role as mentor to scores of students.

“Joe had one of the most beautiful singing voices I have ever heard and every time he sang ‘Ave Maria’ or the national anthem, he brought tears to my eyes,” said Sechrest. “I wish we could hear him sing just one more time.”