My brother Andy and I have been around Arizona athletics almost 50 years, dating to the early 1970s, when we attended games at the brand new McKale Center, the older Arizona Stadium (before the eastside higher-level expansion) and Wildcat Field when baseball was played on campus in front of crowds in excess of 9,000.
We have followed Arizona closely with all of its legendary coaches and players, historic victories and disheartening losses, triumphs (The Streak against ASU) and the tribulations (the probation of the Arizona football program in 1984 and 1985 and Ben Lindsey).
We have come to know Arizona personalities like super fan Ooh Aah Man, and favorite players such as Bob Elliott, Pete Williams, Matt Muehlebach, Corey Williams, A.J. Bramlett, Bennett Davison, Ricky Hunley, Julius Holt, Randy Robbins, Jay Dobyns, David Adams, Brandon Sanders, Robbie Moen, George Arias, Kenzie Fowler, Kim Conway Greene, Adia Barnes, Felecity Willis and so on.
I started reporting on Arizona athletics in the late 1980s with the Arizona Daily Star. I covered women’s basketball and baseball and branched out to softball and men’s basketball, including being there every step of the way when Lute Olson coached the Wildcats to the 1996-97 NCAA title. I have reported on teams coached by some of Arizona’s finest, including Olson, Sean Miller, Jerry Kindall, Mike Candrea, Larry Smith, Dick Tomey, Dave Rubio, Joan Bonvicini and now Barnes.
I also was fortunate to interview the late Freddie “The Fox” Snowden years after he would take me and my brothers into the locker room to get autographs from his players when I was around 7 years old.
Andy began working on the sports desk at the Arizona Daily Star in the early 1990s and later wrote columns for the now defunct TucsonCitizen.com. He became the definitive writer of Southern Arizona youth and high school sports about 12 years ago with TucsonCitizen.com. He has grown in that capacity with AllSportsTucson.com over the last decade and has reported on many athletes of various sports who have gone on to excel at Arizona.
Andy and I will regularly tape video podcasts about local sports. In this one, about Old School Wildcats, my brother and I talk about our earliest memories of Arizona athletics:
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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