Hansen's Notebook: Stadium naming forever links Sahuaro HS, legendary coach Howard Breinig

'Howard Breinig Stadium' honors longtime Sahuaro football coach

Howard Breinig was a 5-8, 180-pound college lineman who played both ways, an old-school “60-Minute Man.’’ He was, said football Arizona coach Jim LaRue, ”the best lineman I have ever coached.’’

After Arizona went 8-1-1 in 1961, a newspaper referred to Breinig as “stubby’’ and described how the club’s co-captain won the Bear Down Award as the UA’s Most Inspirational player.

The never-give-an-inch lineman from Pittsburgh received what he remembers to be “20 to 30’’ scholarship offers, including one from Pennsylvania native Frank Kush, whose Arizona State team all but owned Arizona in the 1950s.

“I had just turned down a scholarship from Nebraska and had gotten married and had a child,’’ Breinig says now. “I didn’t want to go to the UA because Kush had bad-mouthed it all the time. But when he found out I had gotten married, Kush said ASU didn’t give scholarships to married freshmen.’’

Sight unseen, Howard Breinig moved to Tucson and became a Wildcat. It was a success. “We never lost to ASU,’’ he says proudly.

That was just the start of Breinig’s impact in Tucson football. Over the next 50 years, he became a Cougar — a Sahuaro High School Cougar — a period in which he left a legacy like few coaches in Tucson history.

Friday night, his old school named its football facility “Howard Breinig Stadium.’’ He was suitably humbled.

“It makes me feel like what I did was OK, that I was relevant,’’ he said before Friday’s ceremony. “Coaching at Sahuaro was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never wanted to be anything but a coach.’’’

After being an assistant coach at Sahuaro for eight years, Breinig was hired as the school’s head coach in April 1983, it seemed as though he had been blessed by the football Gods. Sahuaro’s QB was Rodney Peete, who was probably the most talented high school QB in Tucson history, an eventual 16-year NFL player who would finish No. 2 in the Heisman balloting at USC.

But a month later, Peete announced his family was moving to Kansas, where his father, Willie, an old UA teammate of Breinig’s, had accepted a coaching job with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Incredibly, Breinig developed a new QB, Brad Chilcotte, and a year later played in the state championship game against Phoenix mega-power St. Mary’s. By the time Breinig retired in 1995, he had played in the state championship games of 1991, 1993 and 1994, won 118 games and was clearly recognized with Amphi’s Vern Friedli, Sabino’s Jeff Scurran, Tucson’s Rollin Gridley and Ollie Mayfield, on the short list of the best to ever coach high school football in this town.

“When I quit coaching I had had five back operations related to my days playing football at Arizona, and my knees were so bad I could hardly walk,’’ Breinig says now. “But after a few surgeries, I came back to help coach the JV and freshman teams at Sabino and Sahuaro.''

Brenig became the seventh football coach in Tucson history to be honored with his name on the school’s stadium. Friedli, Gridley, Salpointe’s Ed Doherty, Catalina’s Ev Nicholson, Cholla’s Ed Brown, Mountain View’s Wayne Jones and Pueblo’s Curly Santa Cruz preceded him.

“When I heard something like this might be in the works, I tried not to get my hopes up,’’ Breinig says. “All of those kids who played for me, all of those men who coached for me, made this possible.’’

Rushing’s flip to Oregon not the first

When Salpointe Catholic defensive lineman Elijah Rushing decommitted from Arizona and vowed to play for the Oregon Ducks last week, it wasn’t a first in Tucson prep football.

In the winter of 1996, standout Amphitheater running back Tamoni Joiner did the same, pulling out from his commitment to Arizona and choosing Oregon. How’d it work out? Joiner missed the 1996 season for eligibility reasons. He'd ultimately start five games for the Ducks in 1999 and was done in Oregon before the season ended.

Three years ago, Salpointe’s four-star offensive lineman Jonah Miller committed to Oregon but left the Ducks after the 2021 season and now plays for Santa Rosa Junior College near San Francisco. Miller has received offers from Boise State, North Carolina State, Houston and Utah State, among others.

Choosing the right school can be a fragile business. Let’s hope Rushing got it right this time.

Morales and Hicks reunite at Pima County Hall of Fame

When Tucson High School went 28-2 to win its second consecutive state baseball championship in 1988, the Badgers were led by .406-hitting catching star Willie Morales, who was interviewed by Channel 4 weekend anchor Dan Hicks, a Sabino High and UA graduate. From that day, their careers blossomed.

Hicks has gone on to be NBC’s leading PGA Tour voice and the network’s No. 1 broadcaster for Olympics swimming and skiing the last 25 years. Morales became an All-Pac-10 catcher at Arizona and played for the Baltimore Orioles.

Next Sunday at noon, Hicks and Morales will be inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame at the DoubleTree Hotel, two success stories that began in Tucson more than 30 years ago. They are part of the PCSHOF Class of 2023 that includes 18-year NFL referee Rich Hall, Pima College 2004 national championship softball All-American Ashley Monceaux and nine-time state championship volleyball coach Heather Moore-Martin of Salpointe Catholic. Tickets are available at (520) 244-8907 or on the Hall of Fame website at pcshf.org.

Short stuff: Amphi hoops legend Derksen retires; D-backs' Strom Hall-worthy; NBA riches for recent UA hoopers

• Tim Derksen, one of the leading high school basketball players in Tucson history during his time at Amphi, has retired from the game after playing seven years in the EuroLeague in Switzerland, Spain, France, Italy and Slovakia. Derksen led Amphi to the 2011 state championship and was 88-9 in his three years on coach Ben Hurley’s Amphi teams, 2010-12. As a senior, Derksen was Arizona’s Gatorade Player of the Year, the last Tucsonan to be the state player of the year. He went on to start for the San Francisco Dons. At 30, Derksen is living in Belgium. ...

• It’s unfortunate that baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., doesn’t have a wing for pitching coaches. It’s a no-brainer that Arizona Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom, who has lived in Tucson for 40 years, would be a first-ballot inductee. Strom’s performances for the Houston Astros and Diamondbacks the last 10 seasons puts him in a class with fellow Tucsonan Dave Duncan as perhaps baseball’s two leading pitching coaches of the last quarter century. ...

• Dave Rubio retired as Arizona’s volleyball coach a year ago, but he hardly retired. When he was inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame Friday night at the Westin La Paloma, Rubio had to get time off from his role on Athletes Unlimited as a volleyball coach. Rubio, who also coached and mentored Tucson high school and youth volleyball teams this summer, is called a “facilitator’’ at Athletes Unlimited, working as a coach/mentor with 44 of America’s leading professional volleyball players during a five-week season in Mesa. ...

• Zeke Nnaji and Josh Green were one-and-done freshmen for Arizona in the 2019-20 season, which ended prematurely because of COVID-19 shutdowns. We hardly got to know them; Nnaji was then the No. 22 overall pick by the Denver Nuggets and Green the No. 18 overall choice of the Dallas Mavericks. For three seasons, Nnaji and Green spent most of the time on the bench but improved enough in limited playing time to become wealthy young men. Nnaji is averaging 13 minutes per game for the defending NBA champions; last week, he signed a four-year, $32 million contract extension. Green, whose role has been extended to 29 minutes per game at Dallas this season, similarly signed a new deal, three years for $41 million. Their freshman point guard at Arizona, Nico Mannion, hasn’t been as fortunate. He is currently the backup to former Wake Forest guard Codi Miller for Italy’s Baskonia Vitoria, averaging 2.8 points per game. ...

• Somewhere in football heaven, Dick Tomey is smiling today. His granddaughter, Taylor Tomey of Scottsdale Horizon High School, will sign a scholarship letter of intent this week to swim in college for the Utah Utes. She is the daughter of Rich Tomey, a Salpointe Catholic and UA grad who pitched for the Wildcat baseball team in the early 1990s. What’s more, Rich’s son, Ryan Tomey, intercepted a pass for Horizon’s JV football team in their final game of the season last week. To make it more special, Ryan wrote his grandfather’s famous coaching battle cry, “The Team, The Team, The Team’’ on his wristband before last week’s game. ...

• Gary Colson, the man who coached the New Mexico Lobos to a stunning 61-59 victory over No. 1 Arizona at the infamous “Pit’’ in Albuquerque in the 1987-88 season, died last week. He was 89. What few knew was that Colson was previously the coach of Tucsonan Paul Weitman at Valdosta State in Georgia. Weitman, a Tucson businessman who became Lute Olson’s best friend, had an early dinner with his old coach before that game, at which Colson accurately predicted the Lobos would beat undefeated Arizona. Sean Elliott’s 3-point attempt with two seconds remaining was blocked, prompting a wild celebration at the Pit, a game the Lobos and their fans still refer to as the No. 1 win in UNM history. Weitman, owner of Royal Buick in Tucson, went on to become close friends with Bob Baffert, who trained Weitman’s thoroughbred Lookin’ At Lucky at the 2010 Kentucky Derby.

My two cents: Reimagining Reid Park, Randolph Golf could prove costly

The Tucson City Parks and Recreation Department held a public forum Saturday at the Randolph Golf Complex to discuss the touchy “Reid Park Reimagined’’ concept.

The city’s proposal would create a public walking path between the Randolph and Dell Urich golf courses, which would require the redesign and rebuild of the 98-year-old Randolph course, eliminating holes 1, 2, 10 and 11.

The proposal would shrink Randolph from about 150 acres to 90 acres. It will squeeze the margins of the Dell Urich layout, making it less golfer-friendly. That's bad enough.

To do so would cost millions. Maybe $10 million. Maybe lots more. Tucson makes about $4 million each year at the Randolph Golf Complex. After expenses, the profit is close to $650,000.

The Randolph Golf Complex is a jewel in downtown Tucson. I don't see any good coming from this proposal. Not a thing.