Fifty years later, the memories of the road to Omaha are still fresh in the minds of the players who experienced making history at the University of Arizona.
On Thursday, March 19, team members of the 1976 Arizona Baseball National Championship team, the first team to win a national championship in school history, got together to reminisce and share their stories with All Sports Tucson.
Enjoy reliving the experiences from the players’ perspective.
How coach Jerry Kindall and his staff put the pieces together for the run to a National Championship as told by the players
Bob Chalk and his parents got a home visit from Jim Wing one of Arizona’s assistant coaches at the time. Wing told Chalk’s parents that the program really liked their players to get an education and had a person on staff that made sure players went to class because if they didn’t go to class they didn’t go on road games.
Chalk was invited to Tucson to meet the existing players and attend a game.
The moment Chalk knew he was going to play at the University of Arizona was a play involving Pete Van Horn’s forehead.
Chalk said, ” The game I went to that night had a little Colorado pitcher that threw bebe’s and Van Horne hit a ball so hard off of his forehead it went into the dugout and I said, ‘this is the team I’m playing for, I don’t care about any others’.” With that, Van Hornes bad luck turned into good luck for Arizona.
Chuck Zopfi had verbally committed to Pepperdine and was pitching on the same American Legion team that Les Pearsey was on. Pearsey had already signed his letter of intent to Arizona.
Kindall was attending the game to watch pitcher Tim O’Neil who was playing on the opposing team.
After Zopfi pitched a great game, Kendall approached him and told said he was so sorry that he wasn’t looked at earlier in the season and he understood that he had committed to Pepperdine. Zopfi let him know that he was waiting for his letter of intent to come in. Zopfi remembered that Kindall was shocked that he hadn’t signed his letter of intent yet and immediately asked if he could have a home visit.
At the home visit Kindall offered Zopfi a scholarship and after all of the formalities of signing the letter of intent Kindall asked ” I have one more questions, how’s your grades” Zopfi showed Kindall his grades and the deal was done.
Pete Van Horne was at baseball practice when he was introduced to Kindall. Van Horne’s coach was Kindall’s team member on the national championship team that Kindall played on at Minnesota and wanted Kindall to take a look at Van Horne.
At the time Van Horne wasn’t sure if he was going to play baseball or football since he had more football offers.
After a home visit, Van Horne was offered a spot on the Arizona team but he wanted to visit Arizona before he made the final decision.
As Van Horne remembers, “Marvin Thompson was the guy who took me around. Marvin was a straight guy. Not always, but he was when we got here. He was a heck of a baseball player. He took me to the Green Dolphin. Watching this madness going on around me he goes ‘hey, you want a beer’ and I go, ‘this is a fools trap, absolutely not Marvin, I think I’m good here tonight’.” Van Horne signed his letter of intent on that visit and the rest is history.
Tucson’s own Ron Hassey didn’t have to travel to see Arizona’s facilities or know that Arizona was the team he wanted to play for. Hassey was born in Tucson and played his high school career at Tucson High School.
When Kindall came to see him on a home visit, Hassey’s dad knew how to play his cards to ensure his son put on a Wildcats uniform.
Here is how the home visit went in Hassey’s own words.
How was Tucson High’s Ron Hassey recruited to Arizona by coach Jerry Kindall? I’ll let him tell you about it. Such a great story! pic.twitter.com/t0O57Vfxu1
— Lori Burkhart (@loriburkhart) March 31, 2026
Dave Stegman was playing high school baseball in California and thought he would end up at Santa Clara where his brother played football or San Luis Obispo but didn’t get offers from those schools. His offer came from Kindall at Arizona.
Kindall was out in California recruiting Roy Howell. Howell was the 4th overall pick in the 1972 draft by the Texas Rangers.
After taking Howell and his family out to dinner, he made a visit to the Stegman household. After talking for a while, Kindall told Stegman he had a scholarship if he wanted it. Stegman’s reaction,”It about floored me. I just looked at my parents and said, ‘of course’ and that’s where I ended up.”
While the facilities may not have been state of the art at the time, Kindall and staff were good at selling the baseball program to recruits putting together a championship team that would lay the foundation for those that came after them.
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