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“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
— Sir Isaac Newton
Instead of standing on the shoulders of giants, I sat by them at Salpointe Catholic High School on Tuesday night.
The names of Julius Holt and Jay Dobyns are among the giants of Arizona football because of their success with the program’s most storied teams.
Arizona has the 12-1 team in 1998 that won the Holiday Bowl over Nebraska. The Wildcats’ Desert Swarm defense became a national sensation in the 10-2 season of 1993.
For my money, the most memorable season in Arizona football history occurred in 1982, when Holt was a senior defensive tackle/linebacker and Dobyns a sophomore wide receiver.
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Former Arizona football player Julius Holt was recently selected as the new Tucson Youth Football commissioner
Jay Dobyns and his son Jack, who will be a sophomore at Chadron State in Nebraska this year (Dobyns family photo)
That was the year Arizona and coach Larry Smith finally sustained season-long success against top-notch programs, proving the Wildcats belonged in the Pac-10 after leaving the WAC only four years previously.
The Wildcats played four Top 10 teams that season, the most in one season in the program’s history, and went 2-1-1 against them. They beat No. 9 Notre Dame at South Bend, Ind., and upset No. 6 ASU, preventing the Sun Devils from winning the Pac-10 and advancing to their first Rose Bowl. That was the first win of “The Streak”, a nine-year unbeaten run against ASU.
“A great year,” Holt said of the 1982 season while watching his son, Justin Holt, practice with the Salpointe varsity. “We were like family. A lot of us are close to this day.”
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Arizona came 30 seconds away from going 3-1 against the Top 10 teams in 1982 but No. 8 UCLA managed a quick drive to kick a game-tying field goal at the end. The lone loss against the Top 10 teams was a 23-13 struggle against No. 1 Washington in Tucson. Iowa, which played the Huskies in the previous Rose Bowl, traveled to Arizona Stadium the following week and prevailed in a nail-biter 17-14.
Another classic game, a 48-41 thriller won by No. 16 USC at Arizona Stadium, occurred in Week 9 of the season.
Arizona finished 6-4-1 overall. The Wildcats were only a combined 20 points from beating Washington, Iowa, USC and UCLA to go 10-1. The only inexcusable performance was a 13-7 loss at hapless Oregon, which did not beat another team that season.
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The next generation of players from the Dobyns and Holt families were on Salpointe’s field Tuesday night. Dobyns threw to his son Jack Dobyns, a former Lancer wide receiver who is a sophomore at Chadron (Neb.) State. Holt’s son, Justin Holt, a Class of 2016 high-profile recruit, practiced with the offensive and defensive lines.
The younger Holt, a proven dominant defensive tackle, is athletic enough to be a pulling guard on the offensive line. With his growing size (he stands at 6’0″ and 295 pounds now) Holt projects to be an offensive lineman, potentially an anchor at center, by the time he plays his first college game in two years.
Justin Holt, son of former Arizona football player Julius Holt, is a high-profile lineman recruit in the Class of 2016 (AllSportsTucson.com photo)
When I took a seat next to the elder Holt in the stands at Salpointe it was like sitting next to a scout and walking encyclopedia of Arizona football. Julius Holt, an active member of the community who recently was chosen to serve as Tucson Youth Football commissioner, talked to me about the strengths of Salpointe’s players. He discussed some of the famous names of Arizona football — Ricky Hunley, Randy Robbins and Vance Johnson — and how he’s kept in touch with them all.
He contacted Johnson, whose near-death struggle with alcohol addiction became public last month, for a friend trying to raise money to help the funding of Cholla High School athletics. Johnson attended Cholla before starring at Arizona from 1981-84.
“I didn’t realize all of that,” Holt said of Johnson’s condition, “but he sounded good to me. He said he wanted to help (Cholla) when he came back to town.”
Dobyns took a seat with us after his tosses with his son, who is headed back to Chadron State on Wednesday to begin preparing for the school year.
Dobyns, a tough guy who infiltrated the Hell’s Angels as an undercover operative with the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, charmed my 9-year-old daughter Mackenzie when he first saw her.
“Are you the cutest girl in school?” Dobyns asked.
“Uh, no,” my daughter said shyly with a laugh.
Dobyns told Mackenzie that if he was a judge she would be the voted the cutest girl at her school without question. He later said she was destined for fashion magazines as a model. Holt, who also has a 10-year-old daughter, told Mackenzie in a fatherly tone, “Listen to your dad and get good grades in school. I’m serious. That’s what you need to do.”
Those few moments Mackenzie shared with Dobyns and Holt will last a lifetime, similar to how their exploits on the football field impacted my life as a youngster growing up in Tucson in the early 1980s.
One generation to the next.
Mackenzie may not know Holt and Arizona upset No. 1 USC and Marcus Allen in 1981. But her impression of Holt and Dobyns carries the same admiration for how much those giants are a significant part of Arizona football history and society in general.
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He also writes articles for Bleacher Report and Lindy’s College Sports.
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