Online Now 284

WSR Gridiron Report

On this Board 109
Record: 765 (9/29/2012)

Online now 272
Record: 7245 (2/26/2012)

Boards ▾
Reply

What was your first game?

  • Just wondering what everyone's first UA game was. Mine was November 15, 1980 against Pacific. Cats won 63-35. I don't remember much, I was 7, but I do remember being under cover in the seats by the Wildcat club. I remember my dad calling Pacific the pumpkin heads and I thought that was really funny.

    Editor-In-Chief of Wildcat Sport Report and co-host of the Arizona football and basketball pre and postgame shows on 1290 KCUB.

    BradAllis

  • 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

    jjones163

  • I came in for a visit my senior year in high school in 1966. LaRue was the coach. They beat Iowa State. Marc Reed, Brad Hubbert, Bill Lueck and Paul Robinson were the stars. For some reason I remember Charlie Duke, the middle linebacker, as having a good game. That was LaRue's last year. Darrell Mudra was the coach when I got here as a freshman.

    rdotrbennett

  • 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.

    A Rose Bowl before I die Please!!!!

    King of Daleks

  • I guess I am a reallyold fart. However Geronimo was before my time.

    Jim

    jjones163

  • 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.

    This post was edited by rickyk on 7/16/2012 at 2:07 AM

    rickyk

  • 1961, Eddie and Touchdown Twins in the late fourth quarter drive that won the game against New Mexico (8-1-1 capped with the win at Tempe behind The General's running - only saw the highlights on the Bernie Perlin show). I sat in the knothole section for a quarter against UNM with my grandmother, the first of many games she took me to. Been hooked ever since.

    This post was edited by catnaz on 7/16/2012 at 7:25 AM

    catnaz

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

    Wildcat_Brad

  • http://www.arizonawildcats.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/history.html

    WOW... I'm so ols I cant remember. but it was in Bear Down around 1970... Maybe 72
    Football was A game that I was toooo drunk to remember..but we lost. That would be 1971. Have to look it up and see what was the first game of the season in 71

    Also...did you know that AZ first TV game was in 1953

    Snicker...and we beat assu 35-0

    Mrzipityduda

  • RICYK

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

    Mrzipityduda

  • New Mexico St in 1994 we won 44-0. It was my freshman year. SI cover year. First loss of the season was the worst as it was against Colorado St. But my first game in which i saw Arizona may have been 1985 in Boulder. Growing up I went to as many CU footgames as i could. So I may have been there but can not remember. Parents had season tickets since before i was born till the late 90's. They had a great kids club called Ralphies stampeders. When I first started for $25 you got to go to 4 football games(usually OCC games and 1 conference game, Games that usually did not have huge ticket draws), and all the mens and womens basketball games, a t-shirt and a birthday card from Ralphie. We had our own section so parents would send us there then go to there seats. It was almost like day care for them lol Last I heard about the club was it was double the price and no football games and only a few basketball games.

    CatsinCO

  • 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"....

    This post was edited by RBob1 on 7/16/2012 at 11:00 AM

    RBob1

    RBob1

  • Mine was 88, the year we moved here, against WSU and Arizona won 45-28. Who said Tomey's teams couldn't play offense?

    One of the most amusing games was a 23-3 win over UCLA in 1992 in which Donahue had to kick a FG in the closing minutes to avoid a shutout, which would have been their first in hundreds of games. That was the year of the birth of Desert Storm and our defense just strangled them. Opposing teams scored only 118 points for the season.

    The game was amusing because close by, an offensive guard from the previous year sat next to us and called every single offensive play for one quarter. OK, it may have been predictable, but they still couldn't stop us.

    This post was edited by Steve Buchanan on 7/16/2012 at 9:42 AM

    Steve Buchanan

  • 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.

    God Hates Arizona Football.

    EricWKayUA

  • Yup, it must have been Pacific on 9/11/93. Cats won a Tomey classic, 16-13, later beat Oregon 31-10 (miss those days), and beat UCLA at home in October '94, 34-24.

    God Hates Arizona Football.

    EricWKayUA

  • 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..

    Time to nut up or shut up

    TewaWildcaT

  • RRob hyou are older than dirt.

    Jim

    jjones163

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

    RBob1

    RBob1

  • Yes but you fremember older events like they were yesterday but what happened earlier today not so clear.

    Jim

    jjones163

  • 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.

    rickyk

  • It must definitely be Kansas State 1978. Arizona won 31-0. I was a freshly hatched freshman. Tony Mason was coach. Bob Davie happened to have been the Arizona linebackers coach at the time. Also, it was Arizona's first year in the Pac10.

    In addition to K-State, Arizona played Iowa, Michigan AND Texas Tech that season.

    Notable players then were Hubie Oliver, Jim Krohn and Larry Heater. One player I got to know somewhat because of my living arraingement at Kaibab-Huachuca (Huachuca #145 buzz-2) was Tim Haynes.

    Student tickets were only two dollars.

    I don't remember any of the games that season except the home ASU loss. I remember that game taking place over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I had invited a friend from Brooklyn, New York to spent T-Day in Nogi and we and other matriculating Nogalians came up for that game.

    It was a different world back then, the drinking age was a rarely enforced 19. After every game, some dorm or frat house would host a 50 kegger afterwards. Golden Eagle distributors were in on that. When the Arizona Marching Band would play the Budweiser jingle "....when you say Bud you've said it all" the band was awarded a keg for consumption after the game.

    Likely the reason I don't remember much about the entire season.

    One thing I cannot erase from memory however, is my "Matric Number".

    NogalesJerry

  • rickyk said...

    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.

    rdotrbennett

  • Hubie Oliver...."Rock Man"....he had almost NO body fat. One day after practice I asked him to sign a head photo for a little kid who had asked me to get it. We talked for a few minutes and as we parted I clapped him on the back with my hand. It was inhuman. It was like touching a boulder. Two weeks later they played Michigan, I still remember Hubie taking Michigan's all-everything Mike Jolly head on and driving him backward IN THE AIR four yards with Jolly hanging on to Hubie's helmet for dear life.

    No belief in moral victories, but the Michigan crowd gave the guys a huge ovation at our end of the stadium as they walked off the field. Pretty cool.

    RBob1

    RBob1

  • 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.

    rickyk

  • For those that are interested, you can jog your memory of past games by googling "Arizona Historical Scores" and you can find any game any season any score. But just the seasons and the scores and records. No game stats, but that may be all you need.

    I'd give the link now but I'm on the IPad and it's a bit more difficult.

    Steve Buchanan