Now with Arizona in Big 12, history will show TCU the way back to Tucson

The Star's Big 12 Blitz is presented by Tucson Appliance Company.

TCU has played in the Rose Bowl (2010). Arizona? No bueno.

TCU has won two football national championships (1935, 1938) and, more recently, is just two seasons removed from finishing national runner-up.  Arizona? Its highest finish was No. 4 in the AP poll, 1998.

TCU has produced two first-team All-American quarterbacks (Sammy Baugh and the first-ever Heisman Trophy winner, Davey O’Brien). Arizona? It went 0-for-46 in attempts to get a All-Pac-12 first-team QB.

Despite some recent history in soccer, baseball and men's basketball, the two schools, new rivals in the Big 12, have little in common, historically speaking. (They’ve never met in softball. Full disclosure: TCU doesn’t have a softball team.)

That doesn’t mean the Horned Frogs don’t know their way to Tucson.

Perhaps the most celebrated TCU athlete ever was Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, Class of ‘36, quarterback of a 12-1 national championship team, who went on to become a six-time pro bowl QB in the NFL. To previous generations, he was John Elway or Joe Montana.

Slingin’ Sammy. Has any pro athlete ever had a better nickname? Not many.

That’s why Arizona expected a near-sellout crowd on Nov. 9, 1957 when Baugh, then the head coach of Border Conference rival Hardin-Simmons, played at Arizona Stadium. Slingin’ Sammy had such a high profile in the 1950s that even the worst team in Wildcat history, a talent-thin 1957 club that would finish 1-8-1, drew 15,000 to watch Baugh’s 3-3 Cowboys.

Arizona had lost a school-record five straight games, which grew to six in its 28-20 loss to Hardin-Simmons, but it didn’t deter Tucson ticket-buyers. They showed up en masse that night to see Slingin’ Sammy, and why not?

Baugh and the Hardin-Simmons’ coaching staff dressed up as cowboys for every game. Stetson hats, blue jeans and cowboy boots. Really. It was a show, not just a football game. Not only that, in 1957 perhaps the most popular TV character besides Mickey Mouse was the Lone Ranger (actor Clayton Moore), who happened to be in Tucson filming the hit movie “Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold.

Baugh and his coaching staff had dinner with the Lone Ranger the night before the game at the downtown Santa Rita Hotel. You can imagine the stack-up of autograph seekers waiting at the door.

A poor Arizona football team got more publicity than at any time in its dismal season, the worst in UA history until Jedd Fisch’s 1-11 unit of 2021.

Slingin’ Sammy wasn’t as successful as a coach (23-28 in four seasons at Hardin-Simmons and 18-24 as head coach of the NFL’s old Houston Texans) as he was a quarterback. But he remains a legend at TCU, rivaling or surpassing future Horned Frogs Bob Lily and Ladanian Tomlinson, NFL all-stars. Baugh was selected to the first-ever NFL Hall of Fame, Class of 1963, with fellow legends Jim Thorpe, Bronko Nagurski, George Halas and Red Grange.

His name still rings a bell at TCU. It remains visible.

When Arizona begins its Big 12 football rivalry against TCU on Nov. 2 in Fort Worth, the Wildcats will drive by the Sam Baugh Indoor Arena, which is similar to the Davis Indoor Center on Arizona’s campus.

Baugh is the only Horned Frog athlete so honored. The other big-money sports facilities on TCU’s campus are all named after wealthy donors. Such as:

• Amon G. Carter football stadium, named after the publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

• Schollmaier basketball arena, named after the CEO of an eye-care laboratory and pharmaceutical corporation.

• Lupton baseball stadium, named after the owner of a Coca-Cola franchise in Texas.

It’s not often a school, TCU or Arizona or any school, names a high-level sports facility after an athlete. Most are named after donors, and the Big 12 is no different.

West Virginia’s Pusker football stadium is named after a pharmaceutical billionaire.

Baylor’s McLane football stadium is named after a food and grocery warehouse magnate.

Texas Tech’s Jones AT&T Stadium was first named after a 1940s school president, who 50 years later split the billing with AT&T.

Houston’s TDECU football stadium is named after Texas Dow Employees Credit Union.

Oklahoma State’s Boone Pickens stadium is named after a high-profile hedge fund capital management executive.

Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium is named after an ex-Bearcats football player whose grandfather became the president of Proctor & Gamble.

Kansas’ David Booth stadium is named after an investment management CEO from Texas.

But at TCU, Sammy Baugh’s legacy carries on, sort of like Arizona’s John “Button’’ Salmon, he of “Bear Down’’ fame. Few schools can match the history that follows those two.

As Arizona journeys to the Big 12, I would list Baugh among the 10 biggest names in Big 12 football history (holdover members only). Here’s my list:

• Sammy Baugh, TCU.

• Gayle Sayers, Kansas.

• Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State.

• Sam Huff, West Virginia.

• Zach Thomas, Texas Tech.

• Mike Singletary, Baylor.

• Davey O’Brien, TCU.

• John Riggins, Kansas.

• Steve Young, BYU.

• Bob Lily, TCU.

Arizona’s got some work to do get some names on that list.