A: I’ve seen tears from basketball players Kenny Lofton to Aaron Gordon, and a flood of weeping softball souls from Danielle O’Toole to Jennie Finch.
But until UA quarterback Khalil Tate broke down after losing at USC last week, I had witnessed tears of sorrow from just one UA football player: All-American cornerback Darryll Lewis.
The 1990 Jim Thorpe Award winner was crushed by ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s 1990 loss against a ghastly Oregon State team that would finish 1-10. The No. 21 Wildcats arrived in Corvallis looking to the next week’s colossal game at USC. The UA’s two starting receivers, Terry Vaughn and Jimmy Butler, were not allowed to play because they missed a team meeting the night before the game — a meeting held in the same Oregon hotel at which they slept.
Talk about sleeping on an opponent.
A day later, when the door creaked open to the UA’s old and moldy locker room in the basement of Gill Coliseum, Lewis, sitting in the first chair by the door, was sobbing.
A week later the Wildcats shocked USC 35-26 in Los Angeles. Crazy game.