WSR Gridiron Report

In basketball it was in the 1951 season against LIU not cocunting games where my mother carried me in her arms. Football it was the 1952 game against ASC at Tempe and baseball the first I remember was a no hitter at Hi corbett in 1956, but Ilikely went earlier than that because I weent to HiCorbett for spring training in 1954 by bike and played pickle with played pickle with the players and had a shirt autographed by Bob Feller somewhere. Brad that makes you younger than my son. I remember the 1952 game was in a freezing rain and i sat in the South End Zone with Chick Hawkins and the Knot HOle Gang.

Jim

My First UA game was in LA at USC either 86 or 87. My Grandfather had season tickets for nearly 70 years, from the time he was a freshman at USC until he Died at Age 95 in 2008. Everyone in my family went to USC until I went to Arizona. I had no idea my family would move to Tucson a year later. It was Larry Smith's first game against Arizona. I remained loyal to USC for years until it become clear I would stay in Tucson for my undergrad. Then I defected which caused me good natured trouble with the family. So those games that we Beat USC are really special to me. The frist Game I remember rooting for Arizona was the Miami game here, 92 or 93 I think, I went with a school group or something. When I saw the way Miami was behaving I started to root for AZ.

Good for you Daleks. At least we got something back for Larry. He broke my heart because he's been my all time favorite UA coach since JJones was hanging out with Coach G.A. Tex Oliver, prolly our best overall winning % coach. Just kidding, I know you don't go back before the Comet Jim.

My first football game was at the 1966 UA-tempe state game. Wildcats lost 20-17 in a helluva game. I frankly do not remember seeing Paul Robinson even on the field that night nor do I remember him having any meaningful time at all that year. I do recall Brad Hubbert being a big time 225 lb fullback/tailback who also did a great job protecting Mark Reed that night. I loved the student section with their chant, 1-2-3, beat tempe! It was a great statement of the difference between the University of Arizona and ole Frank's desert scummies. It was funny, I still remember and if anybody knows how to check it I'd love to verify that I'm right but I say Reed was like 23-37 that night for like 203 yards. He was mobile, scrambling around and finding guys including Jim Greth and Fritz Greenlee, both transfers from the AFA. I lived in Long Beach at the time and visited my parents in Phx for that whole week and my then girlfriend and later wife and I drove down. She had never seen a UofA game (from Idaho) but had already been inculcated into the special lore and allure.

I also remember the first time I saw the UofA stadium was in 63, when our football team came down to play Salpointe with a big moose named Herbie Jones. We had a DT that our coach, who was on UA's FB team as a center in 56, moved to RB in the week of practice leading up to that game so we'd be used to a back weighing over 200 pounds. Funny, our lines probably averaged around 175 or so then. Anyway, our coach made sure we had the bus drive through to see the stadium early in the afternoon before Salpointe creamed us 35-0. I had one reception in the opening drive; we marched right down the field, and stalled at about the 5, and then did nothing the rest of the game.

I believe it was the next day after a late bus ride back to Phx that I woke up in time to watch the Cats play Oregon on ABC regional and we were down 28-0 when Ricky Harris started running wild with YAC and returning kicks and we got a couple onside kicks and put a scare in them losing 28-12. Sorry for being so long; sure it's boring so I'll shut up now.

Arizona vs N Texas, 2002. It was a struggle to win...smdh...MACKOVIC#$!?!

RICYK

http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/arizona/1966.html
Check it out

1914, a 34-0 shutout of the Territorial Normal School. We later lost to Occidental College, but the student newspaper said we "fought like Wildcats"....

Mine was probably somewhere around '93/'94, so I guess I was probably nine or 10 years old. Perhaps a look back at the old schedules could confirm it, but I have flashes of memories of games against Pacific (when their kick returner stepped over and back of the goal line for a safety), Oregon (barefoot kicker comes to mind), and UCLA (afternoon game, we sat pretty high up on the east side. I believe the Cats won them all.

Now I feel the need to do some research to figure this out! Cool idea Brad.

Freshman year back in 97 when UofA beat sdsu. I followed that up by checking out UofA's upset of Stanford if i remember correctly..

jj....The third thing to go is the memory.....

Zip: Thanks. Although it didn't give the game by game stats for Reed, just looking at that roster brought back some interesting memories. For instance, we've all heard by now, I'm sure, the rumor that Nwoko will move to LB, and many are wondering how he will do. On that team we had a DB, who was a pretty tough cookie and a starter, named Phil Albert. Phil just happened to have been our starting QB the year before for the Cats. And that's not the only QB moving to a position of frontline combat in our history. I'm sure Jim remembers Brian Linstrom, a highly regarded QB from Creighton Prep in Nebraska who played as a sophomore and then found himself at TE after Bill Demory came on in 70.

The only big time player to really stick in the pros from the '66 team was Bill Lueck who had a brother, Fred Lueck who preceeded him by a year or two. Bill was a first round pick of the Packers in 68 and and played there for a long time. His career started right at the end of Jerry Kramer's career. Fred also played in the NFL as well as Canada, but I don't know the teams. They also had an older brother, Bob, who played for Kush in the early 60's.

Paul Robinson was a 1000 yard plus running back two or three times at Cincinnati. I believe he was the first rookie to run for 1000 or more yards in the AFL.

Brian Linstrom was a big slow guy that everyone liked and had a great sense of humor. I'd enjoy knowing what happened to him in later life.

Nogie: That year (78) Larry Heater worked for me in the summer and used to baby sit my kid for me a couple of times over at the College Inn on Speedway. It was a big deal for my kid; he really liked Heat, but his favorite player was always Oscar Harvey the WR. Oscar and Heat came over for inner one day and for some reason my 7 year old just bonded with Oscar Harvey. Heat gave me tix for me and my wife to watch them play at the big house and it was a game to remember. We lost but scared the hell out of them in very similar fashion to when we played them back there in 70. They thought both times they were going to come out and just blow us out and by game's end they were talking about maybe seeing us in a bowl later.

My two unforgettable memories from that 78 game at UM: First we had a blocked punt or something and Michigan got the ball on about our 4 yard line and everybody was expecting them to just mash it in. But big ol Brian Wunderli and the rest of the DL manhandled their offensive front and I think they had to settle for a FG, but I know we kept them out of the end zone. Second memory was these 3 or 4 guys sitting right behind us in what served as the Arizona section. We were next to Oscar Harvey's family and I looked around and asked them if they were UA alums from the midwest because I sure didn't recognize them from any of the games in Tucson. "No, we're from Columbus and have an off week so we came up to root against Michigan," was the answer. Now that's a rivalry.