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Steve Robinson will have 'voice' at UA

Steve Robinson sat on the Cornell bench at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion on March 18, 1988, a young assistant coach eager to watch the Ivy League champions play No. 1 seed ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The game went about as expected. Lute Olson coached ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to a 90-50 victory, but the 31-year-old Robinson must’ve been awed by the head coaches he saw at Pauley Pavilion that week.

Olson was one of three future Hall of Fame coaches at the Pauley Pavilion regional, joining Jerry Tarkanian of UNLV and Don Haskins of UTEP, along with Seton Hall coach P.J.Carlesimo, who would go on to be head coach of the NBA's Warriors, Trail Blazers and Nets.

That offseason, young North Carolina assistant coach Roy Williams was named head coach at Kansas. He phoned Robinson and offered him a coaching job on the Jayhawks staff.

How did it go? Let’s just say that in January 2002, Robinson coached Florida State to a victory over No.1 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Not bad for the young man from Virginia whose first coaching job was at Albemarle High School, a few miles down the street from the University of Virginia, where Ralph Sampson was in the process of leading the Cavaliers to a couple of Final Fours.

In his coaching career, Robinson has been on the bench with some of the great college basketball players and teams of the modern era, and has collected eight Final Four rings at Kansas and North Carolina.

So when the 63-year-old Robinson hit the job market last spring — Williams retired at North Carolina and new coach Hubert Davis chose to fill his staff with three former Tar Heels lettermen — new ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ coach Tommy Lloyd had a positive instinct.

Hiring Robinson would be a home run of home runs. The issue was that Lloyd’s staff was full. It wasn’t until Jason Terry returned to the NBA for a G League head coaching job last month that Lloyd was able to act on recruiting perhaps the most successful assistant coach in college basketball history to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

It was a lot like UA football coach Jedd Fisch hiring 66-year-old Don Brown as the UA’s defensive coordinator. Get the best man available.

A lot of head coaches don’t pursue the “best man available.� They prefer to surround themselves with old friends, non-threatening personalities, as Sean Miller so often did with Joe Pasternack and Mark Phelps, and Rich Rodriguez did with his old pals from West Virginia.

Lloyd, as Fisch, are part of a new and younger generation of head coaches who see the value of adding expert voices and teachers, rather than to surround themselves with sycophants. Lute Olson did it that way with Jim Rosborough and Dick Tomey did it with Jim Young and Homer Smith.

Lloyd is a connector. The last thing you’d expect him to do is mute Steve Robinson the way Miller did with former Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar.

Robinson is the top recruit of Lloyd’s first year.

Part of the reason Robinson is available, moving almost 3,000 miles from his East Coast home, is that his children are now out of college and working on their careers. His son,

Steve Robinson sat on the Cornell bench at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion on March 18, 1988, a young assistant coach eager to watch the Ivy League champions play No. 1 seed ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The game went about as expected. Lute Olson coached ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to a 90-50 victory, but the 31-year-old Robinson must’ve been awed by the head coaches he saw at Pauley Pavilion that week.

Olson was one of three future Hall of Fame coaches at the Pauley Pavilion regional, joining Jerry Tarkanian of UNLV and Don Haskins of UTEP, along with Seton Hall coach P.J.Carlesimo of Seton Hall, who would go on to be the NBA head coach of the Warriors, Trail Blazers and Nets.

That offseason, young North Carolina assistant coach Roy Williams was named head coach at Kansas. He phoned Robinson and offered him a coaching job on the Jayhawks staff.

How did it go? Let’s just say that in January 2002, Robinson coached Florida State to a victory over No.1 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Not bad for the young man from Virginia whose first coaching job was at Albemarle High School, a few miles down the street from the University of Virginia, where Ralph Sampson was in the process of leading the Cavaliers to a couple of Final Fours.

In his coaching career, Robinson has been on the bench with some of the great college basketball players and teams of the modern era, and has collected eight Final Four rings at Kansas and North Carolina.

So when the 63-year-old Robinson hit the job market last spring — Williams retired at North Carolina and new coach Hubert Davis chose to fill his staff with three former Tar Heels lettermen — new ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ coach Tommy Lloyd had a positive instinct.

Hiring Robinson would be a home run of home runs. The issue was that Lloyd’s staff was full. It wasn’t until Jason Terry returned to the NBA for a G League head coaching job last month that Lloyd was able to act on recruiting perhaps the most successful assistant coach in college basketball history to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

It was a lot like UA football coach Jedd Fisch hiring 66-year-old Don Brown as the UA’s defensive coordinator. Get the best man available.

A lot of head coaches don’t pursue the “best man available.� They prefer to surround themselves with old friends, non-threatening personalities, as Sean Miller so often did with Joe Pasternack and Mark Phelps, and Rich Rodriguez did with his old pals from West Virginia.

Lloyd, as Fisch, are part of a new and younger generation of head coaches who see the value of adding expert voices and teachers, rather than to surround themselves with sycophants. Lute Olson did it that way with Jim Rosborough and Dick Tomey did it with Jim Young and Homer Smith.

Lloyd is a connector. The last thing you’d expect him to do is mute Steve Robinson the way Miller did with former Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar.

Robinson is the top recruit of Lloyd’s first year.

Part of the reason Robinson is available, moving almost 3,000 miles from his East Coast home, is that his children are now out of college and working on their careers. His son, Tarron, a former Tar Heels baseball player, is in the insurance business in Chapel Hill, His daughter, Kiaya, a former volleyball standout at Lenoir-Rhyne University, is a kindergarten teacher in Durham, North Carolina. His son, Denzel, a former UNC basketball player, is a firefighter in Durham.

In the spring of 2017, Robinson was bypassed for a few coaching opportunities during the hiring/firing season. He told North Carolina reporters: “Schools want to hire a young gun,� he said. “My résumé speaks for itself.�

He said that he was comfortable remaining on Williams’ staff, saying "Roy gives me a voice.�

At ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, that type of “voiceâ€� from the bench will be something new since Rosborough worked for Olson 15 years ago.

Long-ago baseball stars get their due

The UA athletic department didn’t create its Sports Hall of Fame until 1976, which was probably 15 or 20 years overdue. One thing the delay did was to create an immediate backlog of deserving athletes and coaches, some of whom got lost in the growing success of UA sports of the 1980s and 1990s.

Finally, thanks to, among others, former UA senior associate AD Rocky LaRose, the UA Sports Hall of Fame will induct 1950s first team baseball All-American Tom Clarkson and 1968 first-team All-American pitcher Tim Plodinec in a delayed Class of 2020 ceremony Friday night at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa.

Unfortunately, Clarkson died of cancer in 2005, and Plodinec, 74, is in ill health and not expected to be able to attend the induction ceremony.

Clarkson, from Chula Vista, California, hit .437 for coach Frank Sancet’s 1957 Wildcats and had a .410 career batting average. He went on to be a tank officer in the 10th Cavalry and become an executive at IBM.

Plodinec, who is from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, went 18-7 with a 2.12 ERA in two seasons as an ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ starting pitcher, 1967-68. He became one of the few players in Major League history to play just one game in the big leagues — a modern day Moonlight Graham — appearing for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1972. Plodinec was an executive for Long John Silver’s after his baseball days.

Ex-Cat Corey Williams inducted into Illinois hall of fame

Corey Williams, a vital piece of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s 1993-96 basketball teams who scored 14 points against Arkansas in the 1994 Final Four, was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame late last month. Now in the insurance business in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and an ESPN and Pac-12 Networks analyst, Williams joined some familiar company in the IBC Hall of Fame. Former ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ forward John Belobraydic (1978-82) was inducted in 2000, as was ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ 1960s letterman Bob Spahn and former UA assistant coach Jim Rosborough, an all-state player at Moline, Illinois, in the late 1960s. The Illinois basketball Hall of Fame is stocked with big names like Isiah Thomas, Quinn Buckner, Ernie Kent, Bob Bender and Ronnie Lester.

Ka'Deem Carey finds legs in CFL

Ka’Deem Carey, a Canyon del Oro High School football standout who led the NCAA in rushing at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ while setting a school record with 4,239 rushing yards, is kick-starting his career in the Canadian Football League. Carey ranks second in rushing in the CFL after three weeks, gaining 251 yards for the Calgary Stampeders. Carey has also caught 11 passes for 53 yards. At 28, after a brief NFL career with the Chicago Bears, Carey returns to action Monday night against Edmonton.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is good, bad for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ans in NFL

Former ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ High and UA defensive back Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles survived the 49ers final roster reductions and is expected to open the season as one of San Francisco’s most important special teams players and nickel backs. Not as fortunate was Salpointe Catholic grad Donovan Olumba, who was released by the Rams in last week’s transactions. Olumba, who has played in one NFL game, for the 2019 Dallas Cowboys, had initially signed with the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats before the Rams offered him a make-good contract this summer.

Mountain View High School and Pima College grad Jeff Cotton impressed the Jacksonville Jaguars with his performances in the preseason and has been placed on the Jaguars’ practice squad, which means he could be elevated to the 53-man roster at any time. Cotton, who played at Idaho, caught three passes for 68 yards in last week’s preseason finale against Dallas. He also caught an apparent 28-yard touchdown that was ultimately reviewed and nullified, with referees saying he briefly bobbled the ball falling on his back in the end zone. Cotton spent some of last season on the L.A. Chargers practice squad.

Leonard Thompson dies at 69

Leonard Thompson of Pueblo High School, Class of 1970, is one of 34 high school football players from ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to play in the NFL. He ranks near the top of those 34, catching 277 passes for the Detroit Lions for 4,682 yards over 12 seasons. Thompson died in Phoenix last week. He was 69. After a breakout year as a Pueblo running back and sprinter, Thompson played two seasons at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Western College and then spent two years at Oklahoma State, where he was more of a ball-carrier (871 yards) than a receiver (five catches). But the Lions used him as a split receiver and Thompson flourished. After his career, he was part of a group that bought KSUN-AM radio in Phoenix, which he made his home.

Bourguet plays in season-opening win

In ASU’s season opener, a 41-14 victory over Southern Utah on Thursday, former Marana High School record-setting passer Trenton Bourguet got some extended playing time at quarterback in the second half. Bourguet completed 3 of 5 passes for 38 yards and seemed to cement his No. 2 status on the depth chart behind Jayden Daniels. Bourguet wears jersey No. 16, worn by 1997 Rose Bowl quarterback Jake Plummer.

The Sun Devils have now used four ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ prep football players at quarterback through the years: Sunnyside’s Bobby Valdez in 1989 and 1991; CDO’s Jason Verdugo, 1993-95; and Sahuaro’s Aaron Dumsch, 1998. Of the group, Verdugo played the most, throwing for 196 yards and two touchdowns. Verdugo has been the athletic director at Hamline University in Minnesota since 2011 and in 2019 was named the NCAA Division III AD of the year.

Sahuaro's Nate Renfro could stick in NBA

Nate Renfro, who led Sahuaro High School to a 23-6 finish in the 2014-15 basketball season, put himself on the NBA radar as part of the San Antonio Spurs summer league team in August. He averaged 7.8 points and 22 minutes per game for the Spurs and is expected to be part of San Antonio’s G League team in Austin in 2021-22. Renfro, who was a three-year starter for the San Francisco Dons, is a 6-foot-8-inch team-first player who can do a little bit of everything, the type of player Spurs coach Gregg Popovich seems to deploy each year. Renfro is 24.

Omni ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ National honors Christa Johnson

It was nice to see members of the Omni ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ National Golf Club to stage a special dinner for nine-time LGPA Tour winner Christa Johnson last week at the club. Johnson, who was an ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ All-American in 1980, finished seventh in the recent U.S. Senior Women’s Open, earning $28,876, an event won by fellow ex-Wildcat Annika Sorenstam. Johnson, 63, has made ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ her home for 40 years. She won the 1984 and 1991 LPGA Tour events at Randolph North.

My two cents: Recent trends hurt high school football

Little by little over the last decade, high school football in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has changed so significantly that it’s hard to recognize from earlier generations.

Much of it relates to the struggle and diminishing enrollments of many TUSD schools, the growth of Phoenix suburban schools and those who have benefitted from open enrollment. For example, the schedule of games next Friday includes only one game involving two ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ teams: Pueblo at Rincon/University. Once a big-level school, Catalina will play the small-town Miami Vandals, a school near Globe.

The other ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ teams will play Buckeye Verrado, Mesa Eastmark, Gilbert American Leadership Academy, Suprise Willow Canyon and Apache Junction, among others.

In a year that 2005 state champion Palo Verde has canceled its varsity season because of a lack of numbers, the future of high school football here looks to be one where only a handful of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ suburban schools compete at the highest level, and where long-time rivalries vanish. I liked it a lot better when the Sunnysides and Flowing Wells were in the hunt for state championships.