Don Bacon, member of Tucson High School’s state championship baseball and basketball teams in the early 1960’s, and a prominent figure at Sahuaro High School for several years, passed away Saturday at age 82.
Bacon never recovered from a stroke he suffered a month ago.
“We lost a legend,” Sahuaro girls basketball coach and athletic director Steve Botkin stated Saturday. “A wonderful man who would do anything for anyone. He was a great friend, and I will truly miss him dearly.
“I will cherish all of the things he did for Sahuaro High School and all the time we got to spend together.”
Bacon was inducted into Sahuaro’s Hall of Fame in 2003 because of his influence on students.
“Coach Bacon’s a second father to me,” former Sahuaro football coach Scott McKee, now the head coach at Canyon del Oro, said earlier this month. “In my time that I was down there, there was nobody that could come to me with an issue that didn’t have to see him first.
“He took care of me like I was his son. He would take my truck, he would gas it up. He’d put food in there. … He helped me with anything that I needed. The man’s heart is enormous. His pride for the school is amazing. He volunteered there for 20 years to keep the grounds clean and do all the fields. That’s a first-class man.”
Bacon remained at Sahuaro until recent years, volunteering his time as an assistant coach with the softball team, serving as the equipment manager for the football team and helping Botkin with the girls basketball team, home and away as a positive reinforcement.
He volunteered about three to four hours daily during the school year, assisting the groundskeepers.
“One of the first things I did when I was hired as the athletic director (in 2017) is I met Don at Home Depot and we bought a weed whacker,” Botkin said in a 2020 article in AllSportsTucson.com. “He said, ‘I’ll start cleaning.’ He mulled retirement previously, but he told me, ‘After they hired you, I wanted to get this school back to the grounds that we all can respect and what we were used to in the past.'”
Bacon maintained the softball field on his own — “I don’t want anybody else doing that softball field but me,” he told me in the 2020 article — and Botkin boasted it was one of the best fields in Arizona. Bacon took scissors and clips with him to trim the grass around the infield. He was that detailed.
He also helped stripe the football field the day of the games. He was seen off Camino Seco mowing the grass in front of the school.
Opportunities to become the softball head coach at Sahuaro developed but he was content with being at more of a personal level with the students as an assistant.
“He is super supportive and tries to go to every game,” Lisa Moore, mom of high-profile basketball player Alyssa Brown, said in 2020. “If he can’t, he will text throughout the game for updates, even when he was out of state. He’s really a great guy. We love him.”
Bacon was a catcher and outfielder who furthered his career at Phoenix College after graduating from Tucson in 1962.
While with the Badgers, he was a teammate of Eddie Leon, who was a year behind him. Leon went on to be a star infielder at Arizona who was drafted in the first round by Cleveland in 1965 and Minnesota in 1966 and finally signed with Cleveland after the Indians drafted him in the second round after his senior season with the Wildcats in 1967.
“Eddie and I are good friends. As a matter of fact, Eddie and our old teammate at Tucson, Jesus Pesqueira, we all go to Angels games because (owner) Arte Moreno went to high school with us,” Bacon said five years ago. “When we need tickets, we call him and he gets us seats right beside him.”
Bacon had the opportunity to be a rival of Leon at Arizona State. Bobby Winkles, the Sun Devils’ coach, offered him a scholarship after he and Pesqueira were part of the Phoenix College team that won a national championship in 1965.
It turned out the championship game on June 2, 1965, at Grand Junction, Colo., was the last game Bacon played.
“My dad got very sick and with my large family, I was the oldest one at home,” Don said. “That summer after we won the championship, I got a job with Sears in the warehouse. They liked me so they said, ‘Hey, you’re going to have a future, so we want you to work at our new store that was opening up.’
“I had a scholarship offer from ASU but I couldn’t go back to school because I had to go to work and support the family. I never did go back.”
The Rev. Joy Bacon of the Mt. Olive Church of God in Christ passed away at age 50 on Jan. 20, 1967. Mt. Olive later became the Bacon Memorial Church of God in Christ and is now known as the Trinity Hope Church of God in Christ.
One year after his dad’s passing, Don became a father himself with his daughter Shawn’s birth.
Don worked with Sears for 35 years until 2000, well after his three kids graduated from Sahuaro. He first met Botkin when they worked at Sears more than 30 years ago. Botkin worked in the warehouse and Don in appliances when Botkin attended Arizona after graduating in the same class as Shawn at Sahuaro in 1986.
“His sons were amazing football players,” Botkin said. “I remember going to football games at Sahuaro just to watch them play and I was amazed. We had a great relationship back in the late 1980’s. Over time, it’s gotten stronger and stronger. He’s one of my closest and dearest friends for sure.
“He’s told me numerous times, ‘You know coach, I was thinking about retiring and one of the main reasons I’ve stayed is I know what this school means to you and it means the same to me.'”
Shawn, a 1986 Sahuaro graduate, is a resolution specialist for Progressive Insurance.
Omar, a former Sahuaro star running back, went on to a stellar career at Utah before playing with the New York Giants. He runs his own personal training business in Colorado Springs, Colo., called CO One Step Ahead.
Shawn also lives in Colorado Springs with her three kids. Omar has four children.
The oldest son Barry, also a running back great with Sahuaro who went on to play at Arizona State, lives in Phoenix and has worked as an emergency medical technician supervisor with a background as a firefighter. He is presently a fire engineer.
The Bacons are to Tucson much like what the Robinsons (with the accomplished Cleo, Paul and Jerry) and the Batistes (Ernest, Joe, Frank and Fred) have meant to Tucson. The Robinsons (1960’s) and Batistes (1930’s and 40’s) were headliners locally in track and football. The Robinsons and Bacons are in fact related.
Don was the first cousin of Cleo, Paul and Jerry. Cleo, a longtime college football referee, is the grandfather of former Salpointe running back standout Bijan Robinson, who is now with the Atlanta Falcons. Jerry became the president of the San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce and Paul is a former Arizona football player who made it to the NFL.
The Robinsons’ father Leslie (who changed his last name from Bacon to Robinson) and Don’s father were children of farm workers from Crockett, Texas. They moved to Tucson in the late 1940’s with the hope of working their way out of poverty during the Jim Crowe era.
Joy, who became a minister, and Don’s mother Lillie settled in the Sugar Hill neighborhood, less than a mile from Arizona’s campus. It was a place where African-Americans could buy a home between World War II and the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960’s.
Lillie lived to be 104 years before passing on Nov. 11, 2017.
“Sugar Hill is where I got to know my wife Quillis,” Don said. “I met her when I was playing basketball at Tucson High and she was going to our rival, which was Pueblo. Her aunt lived down the street from us. I lived on Waverly Street at Sugar Hill.
“One day, I was out in the yard. I knew her aunt and I saw them come by in a car. I was like, ‘That’s that girl who I used to try to see.’ That’s how I started going around with her. … After Tucson High, I went to Phoenix College and I later found out her family was going to move to Los Angeles. The only way I could keep her was to marry her, so we got married.”
Don became part of the Sahuaro family when his daughter started to attend the school and was welcomed by softball coach Billy Lopez as an assistant. When his sons played football for the Cougars between 1987 to 1994, he served as an assistant under Howard Breinig.
When Don retired from Sears, he was approached by the late Joan Richardson, then the principal at Sahuaro, to become the school’s dropout prevention specialist. Richardson received favorable reports from Lopez, members of the football staff and faculty about how Don related to kids. She also witnessed that connection.
The first thought Don had was not having a college degree because of what happened to his dad when he was about to attend Arizona State.
“I told her, ‘Well, I let all my (academic) stuff go bad. I’m not gonna go back to school to renew all that stuff,'” Don said. “She told me, “No, I’m gonna rewrite it so you can do this job.'”
Don held the dropout prevention specialist position not only at Sahuaro but also Sabino and Santa Rita for 15 years.
“I remember once that our dropout rate was less than 1 percent,” said Botkin, who has coached the last 24 years at Sahuaro and has served as the athletic director since 2017-18. “It was crazy. One year, 99.8 percent of our students graduated and stayed in school over a four-year period. It was nuts. We didn’t lose kids.
“He would go to their houses to make sure they were okay and figure out why they weren’t going to school and come up with a plan for them.”
Growing up in a large family with very modest means, a son of a minister and grandson of farm laborers, Don was not one who lived a life with excuses. His mom stressed values and integrity and getting ahead for the good of all with a strong work ethic.
When dealing with kids, Don carried on those ideals of high expectations achieved through sincerity, diligence, kindness and faith.
“I remember a mom telling me one time about her daughter who was a good student and she met this guy and he drug her into nowhere,” Don said. “Finally, one day, the mom said, ‘Coach Bacon, what did you tell Amanda? She got rid of this mood that she had and she is doing so well in school.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s between me and Amanda. As long as she is doing well, let’s just let it go at that.’
“Things like that make me feel good. I want to reach the next kid.”
Don’s impact went beyond the students at Sahuaro and his own kids and nine grandchildren.
“Through sports, parents and coaches would meet me, and get with me to turn kids around,” Don said. “The coach at Cholla, we were out there playing them one day and he said, ‘Coach Bacon, after the game can you just talk to my kids and let them know what it takes to be a winner?’ I said, ‘Are you sure you want me to talk with your kids?’ He said, ‘Yes sir.'”
He had a gift of being able to reach kids despite being almost 60 years their elder.
“The softball players, I talk to them as if they are my daughters,” Don said. “If they need discipline, then I will discipline them and I’ll tell them what they need to do. I tell them, ‘If you can’t do this, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be in the program. This is what I’m looking for.’
“For a football player, it’s a different thing because I call those guys knuckleheads and knotheads. Knuckleheads is one thing and knotheads is another thing. They all understand that. They just believe in me.”
Many students asked him for letter of recommendations for scholarships even though he is frank with some of them, telling them he will stay honest in the letter. “I don’t put something there that’s not supposed to be,” he said.
Don also motivated the athletes physically, often taking part in running the mile with them despite his age. He had a daily routine waking up at 6 a.m. to jog at least a mile until the last few years. That activity strengthened his ability to perform various manual labor jobs around Sahuaro, helping to maintain the softball and football fields.
Don and his siblings carried out the will of their parents Joy Sr. and Lillie to build hope especially in the toughest of times, from moving to Tucson in the midst of civil-rights movement.
Marshall, Homer, Forest and Larry are Don’s siblings who have passed away. Joy Jr., Jay, Tommy Charles, Lela, Eva and Delphine remain.
“Think of all the grandkids and the cousins, not only our family but also the Robinsons, who are Bacons, too. Leslie Robinson had 13 kids himself,” Don said. “That’s a lot of support right there.”
The mark of Joy Sr. and Lillie has now been passed to three generations.
“My dad influences me by just being in his presence. In fact, I think he influences anyone that really spends time with him,” Omar said in 2020. “What do I mean by that? I challenge my athletes and clients to chase greatness in everything they pursue.
“When I think about it, it’s exactly what my dad taught my brother and I from a very young age. Perfection is what I think fuels him. It doesn’t matter if it’s football, taking care of the lawn, catching the football with your hands versus your body, or simply being on time. Just knowing that alone drives me to be on point when I’m around him and when I’m not.”
Funeral services are pending.
All Sports Tucson sends its deepest condolences to Bacon’s family and friends and the young people who were so positively touched by his presence and words.
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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 in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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