Arizona men's tennis built on success of 1960s Wildcats | Greg Hansen

I still remember those 40-match losing streaks to UCLA, Stanford and USC stretching back several decades. UA tennis was long a bottom-feeder with no community interest. Shields' turnaround belongs in a class with UA predecessors such as Lute Olson, Frank Busch and Joan Bonvicini.

The UA happily reported its victory over the Sooners with this headline: "Historic win sends Arizona to first Elite Eight in program in history." Media outlets and sports websites repeated those words: First-ever Sweet 16 victory.

I was almost certain that couldn't be true. Just to be sure my memory hadn't conked out, I checked the archives of the Daily Star, the Los Angeles Times and the NCAA. Here's what I found:

– 1962 NCAA men's tennis championships: 1: USC; 2: UCLA; 3: Arizona.

– 1963 NCAA men's tennis championships: 1: USC; 2: UCLA; 3: Northwestern; 4: Miami; 5: Arizona.

– 1964 NCAA men's tennis championships: 1: USC; 2: UCLA; 3: Northwestern; 4: Arizona; 5: Cal.

Arizona was indeed a full-blown NCAA men's tennis power in the ’60s under future Hall of Fame coach Dave Snyder. Somehow, it has gotten lost in the school's record archives, which is somewhat understandable. Records for tennis are nowhere as complete as those kept and updated yearly for football, basketball and softball. Nowhere on the UA tennis website is there mention of Arizona men's teams any earlier than 2000.

It even became a topic in February when the UA College of Law honored 1963 Wildcat tennis player Rick Fried as its Alumni of the Year. Fried, who has donated more than $410,000 to the UA College of Law, was part of the 1963 tennis team that finished No. 5 nationally. Fried, who grew up in Scottsdale and was a long-time attorney in Hawaii, returned to Tucson and talked about those historic UA tennis teams that overflowed with talent.

Overflowed?

Consensus All-American Bill Lenoir of Tucson High went on to play at Wimbledon six times, beating UCLA legend Arthur Ashe in 1962.

All-American Willie Hernandez, who grew up in the Philippines, played in the 1961 U.S. Open and at Wimbledon in 1962.

UA standout Pete Barizon, from San Francisco, went on to be a tennis coach at Florida State and Colorado State.

UA tennis player George Stoesser, from Carmel, Calif., also played in the U.S. Open. He was an ITA All-American in 1961 and 1962.

UA standout Fred Drilling, the son of an All-American tennis player from Michigan State, was an ITA All-American in 1964.

And after that core group of the early '60s built Arizona into a Top 10 program, along came Brian Cheney, an ITA All-American in 1966, 1967 and 1968, leading Arizona to Top 10 finishes in the NCAA finals twice.

In 2016, Snyder sent me a handwritten, four-page letter detailing the success of Lenoir and his UA teammates in the '60s.

"To conclude," he wrote, "I think we finished as high as third in the NCAA finals while Bill was on the team and the UA finished in the Top 10 nationally seven more times."

Snyder left to coach at his alma mater, Texas, in 1972.

This isn't to subtract from Shields' remarkable success at Arizona. Hired away from Utah State in 2016 by athletic director Greg Byrne, Shields inherited a program in such decay that his first two Arizona teams went a combined 0-15 in the Pac-12, continuing their decades-long losing streaks to Stanford, UCLA and USC. Then it all changed. Arizona has been 34-5 in conference standings the last five seasons. They finished No. 9 in the men's tennis poll in 2024.

What Shields has built at Arizona the last decade compares favorably with what Snyder built in the ’60s. If someone had suggested that was a possibility 10 years ago, it would've been met with a "no way" laugh.