When the women's basketball coaching job at Pima College became available in spring 2006, Arizona women's assistant coach Todd Holthaus applied.
You almost had to wonder what he was thinking.
Holthaus was being paid about $70,000 at Arizona; the Pima job was considered part-time, paying $16,000 with no benefits. Worse, the Aztecs were coming off a 48-147 record the previous six years, including 1-29 and 5-22 the previous two seasons.
Holthaus, married with three young children, accepted the job and somehow worked 40 hours a week at Velocity Fitness center to make ends meet. What few could have expected was that Holthaus could, against all odds, stay at PCC the next 19 years and go 429-181, finishing in the top five of the NJCAA championships six times, including winning the 2026 championship a week ago.
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Todd Holthaus, head women's basketball coach at Pima CC, high-fives players during formation drills, Aztec gymnasium, Feb. 12, 2026.
Pima has since elevated the pay of its head coaches closer to $100,000. Holthaus has coached 14 first-team NJCAA All-Americans and become just the third head coach in ACCAC women's basketball history, dating to 1975, to win a national title. Coaches at Mesa College and Central Arizona College preceded him.
"The word I use about Todd is 'disposition,'" says PCC assistant coach Jim Rosborough, who was also an assistant coach at Arizona from 1989-2007. "He has the perfect disposition. The girls see him as a father figure. He's organized, he works hard and he knows the game. There is a great continuity at Pima. What else do you want?"
Only four Tucsonans have been elected to the ACCAC Hall of Fame in its long history: Pima softball coach Stacy Iveson, who won two NJCAA national titles, Cochise College men's basketball coach Jerry Carrillo (who is from Salpointe Catholic High School and the UA), Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea of Central Arizona College, and former Arizona All-American distance runner George Young, an Olympic bronze medalist, who was a coach and AD at Central Arizona College. Holthaus should soon join that elite group.
Pima has now won six NJCAA championships: two men's soccer championships under Dave Cosgrove, two softball championships under Iveson, a men's cross country title under the late Jim Mielke and now Holthaus' championship.
