UA has come a long way in 25 years

Arizona Daily Wildcat Dave Sitton

The green Bermuda lawn returns to form on the mall. Thoughts of finally being "finished" after an arduous school year and completing finals are shared by everyone- students and faculty alike.

If that's an apt description of campus life today, I can assure you that it was in fact the way it was 25 years ago, a great tradition at UA.

A tradition that has changed, though, is UA athletics. Today we take for granted postseason play and a seemingly endless trail of championships in softball.

It wasn't always that way, though.

If you don't mind, I'll take you back 25 years to the UA of 1973-74.

The football team went 9-2, finishing unranked with no postseason play.

The basketball team, stocked with Fred Snowden's "Kiddy Corp," had another great year, going 19-7. However, a Western Athletic Conference team with just 19 wins was invited nowhere.

Track and field was a strong program under the late Willie Williams. But like contemporary Tucson, he had traffic control problems. You see, track and field was run at Arizona Stadium where the west side had six lanes and the east side had just four. You can imagine how the 800-meters was run. The facility was better suited for roller derby.

Softball was played in a lot adjacent to the women's gymnasium.

At the time, those wanting to talk about Arizona's national promise in athletics focused on a national champion synchronized swimming team, an appearance by the basketball team in Madison Square Garden and an improbable football victory over Ohio State in Columbus.

It was a different era when Arizona was in the WAC. There were still unpaved parking lots on campus. The football stadium held just over 37,000 and the team practiced where there's now a street, adjacent to Sancet Field.

While the smells and customs of fall, winter and spring on campus have remained constant, the ascendancy of the athletic department over the past 25 years is remarkable.

In the last four years, Arizona has finished fourth, seventh and sixth amongst all colleges in overall athletic excellence in the Sears Director's Cup.

Currently, Arizona is ranked 11th, but with the possibilities of track, golf and softball bringing national championships or at least prominent finishes, Arizona could finish in the top five again.

Hopes of winning a WAC title 25 years ago have given way to an annual Pacific 10 Conference contention and expectations of national championships.

It all began with the baseball team. Under Jerry Kindall the Wildcats won Arizona's first NCAA championship in 1976. They did it again in 1980 and one more time in '86. Baseball set the platform for the transition from the WAC to Pac-10.

The landscape of the university also changed. Arizona Stadium was expanded to 57,000 seats and facilities were developed for softball, swimming and other sports.

Arizona now completes an academic year with almost all of its programs participating in postseason play. It's a truly remarkable feat.

Dave Sitton is the head coach of the UA club rugby team and KTTU's play-by-play announcer for UA men's basketball games.