From quarterback to coach, Marc Lunsford was a Wildcat to the end

Tomey was smart enough to keep Lunsford and initially make him chief of recruiting, as well as a receivers coach. Among the first assignments Lunsford aced was being charged with flying to Dallas to recruit SMU's fractured roster. The Mustangs had just been given the "death penalty'' by the NCAA, and their entire roster, 85 players, were free to play anywhere. Lunsford and Tomey targeted quarterback Bobby Watters. It was critical inasmuch as Smith did not leave a valued QB when he left for Los Angeles.

Lunsford, who sadly died here last week (cancer) at age 70, was up to the job. When Sports Illustrated published a photo of a mass of recruiters in the SMU locker room, Lunsford was pictured sitting next to Watters. He got his man. Watters was the UA's starting quarterback in 1987 until he broke his thumb against UCLA.

That wasn't the end of Lunsford's recruiting excellence. In 1990, he flew to Roseville, California, to scout an under-the-radar lineman, Tedy Bruschi, whose only offers were BYU and Washington State. Lunsford once told me he watched Bruschi in a track meet — he was a shot-putter — and that Bruschi's intensity and desire to succeed led him to tell Tomey that he should offer Bruschi a scholarship ASAP.

A few years later, after Bruschi became the all-time NCAA sacks leader and a consensus All-American, Bruschi told me that Lunsford saw what other recruiters didn't. "Most of the recruiters looked at my height (6 feet) and moved on,'' said Bruschi. "But Luns just came up to Roseville and saw what kind of a guy I was and how hard I played.''

Lunsford was the longest-tenured UA football assistant, 19 years, since Fred Enke retired from football in 1951. His biggest moment on the field? In the 1976 season opener against Auburn at Arizona Stadium, Lunsford, a QB from Bloomington, Indiana, making his first start, passed for 178 yards to upset Auburn 31-19 before a then-record Tucson crowd of 52,206. Not that UA coaches were surprised; Lunsford had turned down offers from Purdue, Michigan and Indiana to attend Arizona. He had successfully led Bloomington South High School to an undefeated record as a senior, stretching South's winning streak to 61 games.

I last talked to Lunsford at Tomey's memorial service at McKale Center in 2019. He couldn't stop crying. He was a Wildcat to the end.

A funeral service for Lunsford will be held Aug. 15 at 10 a.m., at Northwest Bible Church, 889 W. Chapala Dr.