Mountain View football coach Matt Johnson approached us about an interview series idea with former coaches in Southern Arizona who are legendary not only for their success but also for how they helped develop young athletes as players and as people in society.
Some of the legends who will join us for the interviews and story telling will be longtime Amphitheater High School football assistant Ed Roman (who coached with the late Vern Friedli for 36 years), Pueblo football coach Saturnino “Curly” Santa Cruz, Sunnyside football coach Terry Seward, and local football coach and administrator Larry McKee.
This discussion will broaden to more coaches, including those in other sports, as the school year progresses.
Southern Arizona Coaching Memories is a series within our new All Sports Tucson Talk podcast. All Sports Tucson will regularly produce podcasts involving local and high school sports and other athletics in Southern Arizona.
Coming up after this podcast is a discussion with Roman, who was known for his aggressive, blitzing defenses at Amphi. Johnson said Roman was the original “Dr. Blitz” before new Arizona assistant Don Brown became known by that nickname.
For any input on guests or if you have feedback about the shows, please email me at jmorales@allsportstucson.com.
Please click on the following player to listen to our interview with Johnson:
AllSportsTucson.com's Andy Morales and Javier Morales preview 2A through 6A state playoff tackle football games involving Southern Arizona teams and talk about Marana alive in the flag football playoffs and Mica Mountain playing in Saturday's 4A state championship match.
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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. He became an educator five years ago and is presently a special education teacher at Gallego Fine Arts Intermediate in the Sunnyside Unified School District