Nick Foles joins Arizona's growing lineup of sports broadcasters | Greg Hansen

– Last week, Brian Jeffries marked the 40th season he has served as the play-by-play voice for the UA football team. A few yards down the corridor in the press box at Casino Del Sol Stadium, Tom Duddleston celebrated his 44th year as the leader of the statisticians who so impressively compile Arizona's statistics, play by play and year to year. Duddleston, who was the UA's sports information director through the 2013 season, is also the chief of the UA's men's basketball statistics crew. The UA appropriately honored the highly respected Duddleston by putting his name on the wall inside the press box at the football stadium.

– The UA athletic department lost a key fundraiser last week when Phil Maben, part of the UA's development staff since 2013, accepted a position as deputy athletic director of the University of Hawaii. Maben is married to Brandy Collins Maben, who was a team captain on Arizona's 2008 NCAA women's championship swimming team, and a former all-city swimmer and track athlete at Sabino High School. Brandy was an assistant swimming coach at Arizona from 2012-17.

– Arizona's 2021 Final Four point guard, Aari McDonald, hasn't played in the WNBA since July 2025, sidelined by a series of injuries. Last week she was signed by the WNBA-leading Minnesota Lynx, who have four regular-season games remaining. McDonald's highest salary in her five WNBA seasons has been $89,303, over a stretch in which she played for Atlanta, Indianapolis and Las Vegas. The No. 3 overall draft pick in the 2021 WNBA Draft, McDonald has averaged just 8.3 points in her career. It's strange, but the two women drafted before McDonald in 2021 — Texas center Charli Collier and Finland's 6-foot-5-inch Awak Kuier — have also struggled to be full-time WNBA players. Collier has started just 18 games, and Kuier has averaged just 17 minutes per game.

– The First Tee of Tucson has an impressive link to the PGA Tour Champions; since 2014, Tucson's youth golf program has sent 13 players to the Champions Tour's PURE Insurance Open, which will be played again next weekend at Pebble Beach, an event won by Jim Furyk and Bernard Langer, among others. This year, the Champions Tour invited First Tee of Tucson player/coach Preston Flores, a senior at Salpointe Catholic, to play in the amateur part of the three-day tournament. The First Tee of Tucson instructs about 900 girls and boys each year at seven Tucson golf courses; Flores teaches and plays at Fred Enke and Randolph golf courses. Says First Tee executive director Judy McDermott: “The kids love Preston. He is like the Pied Piper of the First Tee.”

– There are 17 ex-Arizona Wildcats on NFL opening day rosters this weekend. How good is that? It is eighth in the Big 12. Utah leads in NFL players with 30, followed by TCU's 29 and Texas Tech's 22. The fewest: Kansas State currently has seven NFL players, Kansas has 10 and ASU has 13, tied with Colorado and UCF. There are 11 quarterbacks from Big 12 schools in the NFL, although only two are starters, Iowa State's Brock Purdy at San Francisco and Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes at Kansas City. 

– How's this for a not-so-good comparison? The UA has two graduates who own professional sports franchises: Class of '73 grad Arte Moreno owns the Los Angeles Angels, and Class of '74 grad Woody Johnson owns the New York Jets. Moreno's Angels are completing their 11th consecutive losing season. Johnson's Jets are coming off 13 seasons in which they have lost 11 or more games, including the last six seasons in succession. Johnson bought the Jets for $643 million in 2006; Moreno bought the Angels for $184 million in 2003 and has apparently agreed to sell his club for $4 billion to Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke.