Gary Lewis, a former standout basketball player at Sahuaro High School under legendary Dick McConnell, is the new Director of Interscholastics for the Tucson Unified School District after serving most recently as the athletic director at Tanque Verde High School.
The TUSD school board on Tuesday night approved the hire of Lewis, who is knowledgeable of the district as a Class of 1981 graduate of Sahuaro and a physical education teacher, basketball coach, athletic director and administrator at Tucson High School for more than 27 years.
“I think each step of the way as I’ve gone through my journey has been to try to have an impact on a grander scale,” Lewis told AllSportsTucson.com. “The move from Tucson High to Tanque Verde (in 2019) was my first move in administration, so I was grateful for that opportunity.
“But this one is an opportunity to get back to where I started, through TUSD. I know as a large district (with nine high schools), it comes with the potential for more problems, obviously, but athletically, it’s an opportunity to try to act on my vision as what I’ve seen happening over youth athletics and high school athletics over the years and hopefully just kind of bring some, in my opinion, some civility back to the whole process.”
TUSD has developed a reputation of not providing the resources necessary for all of its high schools to be competitive.
An example is the long-standing struggling football programs at Rincon/University, Santa Rita, Catalina and Cholla. Those four programs are a combined 30-140 this decade.
“As an athletic administrator, you’ve got to make sure that you’re supporting all the programs equally without favoritism,” Lewis said. “That’s always going to be an issue no matter what. It’s been from the beginning of time.
“With TUSD, I see the opportunity to get all the schools on the same page and be rooted in a respect for each other. I want everyone to be obviously competitive, but instead of being to the point where you have these hated rivalries, you have situations that you build a common respect for each other. Everybody’s trying to win and everybody’s trying to win championships. There should be an inherent respect for each other as we go through this journey.”
Lewis has built a positive reputation among Southern Arizona coaches and administrators for his work at Tucson and Tanque Verde.
His background includes excelling on the basketball court at Sahuaro and advancing to Texas A&M, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Secondary Education and Teaching. He had a five-year career as a point guard with the Aggies from 1981 to 1986.
After a stint of playing professionally in France, he returned to Arizona to begin his teaching and coaching career with stops at Sahuaro, Catalina Foothills, Tucson and Tanque Verde.
He earned a Master’s degree in Coaching and Athletic Administration from both Concordia and Grand Canyon.
“You’ve got to find ways to reach out to kids, to reach out to parents,” Lewis said of his objective of changing the competitive mindset of TUSD schools. “There’s just this whole transformation I think that needs to occur to get back to just parents enjoying their kids participating in sports and understanding that there’s still a small percentage of kids who go on to play (in college).
“We have to figure out, how do we impact the lives of those kids who their last competition will be their last game in high school? So making sure that all of our coaches understand that, that those kids leave with some tools that will help them, whatever their future endeavors are.”
Lewis mentioned his first order of business will be to visit each of the nine high schools and make sure he opens a line of communication while meeting with administrators, coaches and athletes.
“I want to kind of get the feel for where they’re at and where they need help,” he added.
He is taking over a position in which former Arizona basketball star Desiree “Dee-Dee” Wheeler had for three years (June 2020 until her resignation effective April 12, 2024) before returning to Chicago to be with family. Wheeler replaced longstanding athletic director Herman House, and after she resigned, House returned to the position in an interim role.
Lewis pursued the vacancy for the purpose of impacting impressionable youths in a grander scale than operating at one high school.
“We’ve been blessed with our first grandchild — I’ve got a 2-year-old grandchild — and I’ve got another one on the way,” Lewis said. “As I see the way things have evolved over time, I just want to see if I can impact in a positive way the future for the next generations. It’s a tall task, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
“I think this is a great position for me to be in, to start trying to implement some of the things that I’m thinking about.”
Although he is no longer coaching, Lewis continues to carry with him in his administrative role the principles of life expressed to him by McConnell.
“The way he treated people, the professionalism that he always exuded, are things that will always stick with me,” Lewis said. “What’s kind of funny, it’s not just Coach McConnell. I mentioned something at the board meeting tonight about people that impacted my life throughout being in TUSD, and I’m actually having lunch tomorrow with my former fourth and fifth grade teacher who also went on to be one of the interim superintendents for TUSD — Roger Pfeiffer.
“We’re talking fourth and fifth grade, and he had that kind of impact on my life in such a way that I remember how he treated everybody right with kindness and with humility. … It’s a relationship that was built so long ago, but it has stayed strong through the years. A lot of people don’t understand the potential influence they have on our youth. They need to use that stage appropriately.”
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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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