From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
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From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
I was going thru some boxes today and found a magazine called "Off The Glass" and the cover has Anthony Cook with the title called "Raising Arizona." The date is January 10, 1988. I don't have a scanner so I took pictures from my phone. The quality is not that great but I took 11 pictures to get the entire story. I also took the 5 pictures they had, including the cover.
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Re: From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
Sorry guys, it says the board attachment quota has been reached. I can't post the story that I saved to my computer.
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dirtbags
Re: From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
thanks for sharing this -- maybe an admin can up the attachment limit? or maybe upload the pics to imgur.com?
would love to see the article. sounds like it went to print just months before the 'cats took the conf title and went on their FF run. kudos to bob cohn, good call.
would love to see the article. sounds like it went to print just months before the 'cats took the conf title and went on their FF run. kudos to bob cohn, good call.
Re: From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
I typed the article on word and here is the entire story.
A New Power Emerges in the West-by Bob Cohn
Let history record that the breakthrough occurred during the last week of November 1987 in Anchorage, Alaska, over the span of two games in three days. It was then that the University of Arizona shattered the barrier that separates the very good teams from the dominant college basketball powers.
Some Midwestern and Eastern snobs might have been shocked as the Wildcats destroyed Michigan and outclassed Syracuse in winning the Great Alaska Shootout. Arizona? The Pac-10? A Western team? Surely the earthquake that rocked Alaska during the tournament had somehow altered the natural order of things.
Surely not. Arizona was deeper, more experienced and, ultimately, better than the high-ranked, higher-hyped opponents. The players and coaches knew it. Or strongly believed it, at least. Those familiar with the personnel, depth and experience knew it, too.
Then the Cats delivered the exclamation point, the definitive in-your-face message to anyone who believed Alaska might have been a fluke. They traveled to Iowa City and beat previously unbeaten Iowa, 66-59.
“They can’t say nothing anymore,” UA center Tom Tolbert said of the non-believers.
The victory was Arizona’s third against teams ranked in the top 10. The Cats were ranked No. 2 in the AP poll following the Iowa game, their highest ranking ever. They now seem certain to go higher, maybe even to N0. 1. They had met every available challenge and still were ready for more.
“Hey, bring them all on,” said Tolbert, who had 18 points against the Hawkeyes, including eight straight in the second half. “I think we can play with any team. If I went out on the court against any collegiate team in the country, I’d expect to win that game.”
Opponents still were trying to mess with the Cats’ minds, however. In Alaska, much was made of guard Steve Kerr, who usually is all-business, pointing and jawing back at Michigan tough guy Gary Grant in the process of outplaying him. Kerr said his exchange of gestures and words with Grant were erroneously interpreted.
“It wasn’t like a one-and-one confrontation,” he said. “He was talking to me at the beginning of the game, which isn’t unusual. He was trying to intimidate me, saying stuff like, ‘Don’t put it on the floor, I’ll take it from you.’
“We pulled ahead and I hit a couple of three-pointers. I pointed at him and said, ‘Keep talking.’ It definitely was a result of heated competition. But I met him before the game and he seemed like a nice guy.”
At Iowa, Kerr found Hawkeyes guard Jeff Moe to be a pretty glib fellow. Kerr held up his end of the conversation and also pumped his fist at the floor several times after hitting a key three-pointer at the end of the first half. From then on, the capacity crowd booed Kerr every time he touched the ball. Kerr was so rattled he finished with 15 points(hitting 4 of 8 three-pointers), 6 assists and no turnovers, playing all 40 minutes.
“I’m somebody , who, if a guy talks to me, I’ll talk right back,” Kerr said. “I saw him(Moe) pumping his fist last year, so I did a little myself.”
“There’s nothing more fun than going into the other guy’s arena. They’re all yelling at you and you come out with a chin up. They leave with heads drooping and tails tucked between their legs.”
“Sometimes, it doesn’t even require an opponent’s gabbing to get the Cats going. Before playing Syracuse, Sean Elliott, the 6-8 junior forward with all the right moves, was quoted as saying the Orangemen front-line was “suspect.” That became wallpaper for the Syracuse locker room and center Rony Seikaly said it made him mad. Arizona won, anyway. Elliott, meanwhile, had assumed the standard position of claiming his remarks were taken out of context. But he defended the gist of what he said.
“That got kind of mixed up,” he said. “Seikaly and I are good friends and in no way did I want to create any problems between us. Half the statement was true and half of it was false. What I remember saying is, ‘Yes, we do have a better front line than they have.’ And I think that’s true. I’m not being cocky….But I never said any one is suspect or that we’d go after anyone. I don’t want to put the image across as a player who talks a lot of stuff in the papers. That’s not my style.”
Following Alaska, a few skeptics still remained. True, Elliott has received the Dick Vitale Seal of Approval (Vitale gushed over Elliott so much that adoption seemed imminent) but it was Vitale’s own employer, ESPN, that called the victory over Syracuse ‘the upset of the week.” What upset?
“People like North Carolina and Syracuse get a lot of publicity,” said Elliott, who grew up in Tucson and decided to stay home. “Seikaly is a great player, no doubt about it, but I think Tom Tolbert is a good player. [Forward] Anthony Cook is a good player. And I’m a good player. And we showed it. We outscored them and outboarded them.”
Except for Elliott, the prototypical modern-age swingman who can do everything, none of the Wildcats turned up on anyone’s preseason all-American team. Still, the talent is exceptional.
The Cats are a little of this and a little of that. Tolbert, a 6-7, 240-pound senior, is a junior-college transfer who can score and whose rebounding and defense is improving. Cook, a sinewy 6-9 junior, is a shot-eating defensive specialist ( 4 blocks, 13 rebounds against Iowa) who is gaining confidence in his scoring ability.
Senior guard Craig McMillan, a 6-6 streak shooter, was the first so-called blue-chipper signed by Olson, Kerr, whose story has been well-documented, has not just survived incalculable personal difficulties, but defeated them. Junior guard Kenny Lofton, a starter last year in Kerr’s absence, has flourished as a tempo-changing sixth man. Reserves Joe Turner, Jud Buechler and Harvey Mason comprise a solid bench. In fact, Turner, a 6-7 senior, was the real hero of the Syracuse game. Replacing the foul-plagued Tolbert in the first half, the unsung Turner outshone Seikaly and another marquee name, Derrick Coleman.
The victory over Iowa was perhaps the biggest for UA coach Lute Olson, who left the brutal winters and fishbowl existence in Iowa in 1983 for the warmth and potential of Tucson. It was Olson’s first return to Carver-Hawkeye Arena, known as the house that Lute built during his nine-year run as Iowa coach.
In a tribute to both the impact of Olson on the Iowa program, and the class of Hawkeye fans, Olson got a one-minute standing ovation and was greeted by chants of “Lute, Lute,” when he appeared on the floor.
Olson had tried to downplay to the Cats the significance of his homecoming, but it was futile.
“I didn’t fool them for a second,” he said. “I think they knew maybe this was a game their old coach wanted to win more than some others.”
With the Pac10 championship seemingly a lock, Arizona’s biggest tests would continue to be outside the conference. In late December, the Cats played host to maybe the toughest four-team holiday tournament anywhere, inviting Michigan State, Duke and Florida. But whatever the result, this is a team that knows itself, and where it’s headed.
“We’re very confident,” Kerr said. “That’s one of the things that’s going to make us a better team. I don’t think we have any doubts about our ability and potential. We can’t get overconfident, but I don’t think we will. So many good teams will be coming after us.”
Kerr missed last season after suffering torn ligaments during the World Championships in Spain in the summer of 1986. The effect of his loss was more than even Olson anticipated. Missing Kerr’s leadership and court sense, not to mention his three-point shooting ability, Arizona went 18-12, blowing second-half leads in eight games. The Cats couldn’t even make it to the finals of the Pac-10 tournament, falling to Oregon in a huge upset. Then they lost at home to Texas El-Paso in the first round of the NCAA West regional.
Kerr dedicated himself to rehabilitating the knee, although the injury was so severe at the time that his future was in doubt. Some called the injury a tragedy, but Kerr knew the real meaning of the word. During his freshman season, Kerr’s father, Malcolm, the president of the American University in Beirut, was assassinated by terrorists. Two days later, Kerr played against Arizona State and scored 12 points.
So what’s a little knee injury? Kerr worked and worked and is back, feeling no after-effects and providing the missing piece to the puzzle. Olson said it is “the stability that he gives us, and the confidence that his teammates and the staff have in him. You don’t see panic situations.”
Such was the case against Syracuse, when the Orangemen came back from a 12-point halftime deficit to go ahead by one with 5 minutes remaining. Last year, Arizona likely would have let the game slip away. This time, with Kerr on the floor, the Cats held steady and overwhelmed the Orangemen down the stretch.
But Kerr is reluctant to give himself credit.
“I think I’m a reason, but it also helps that the other guys on the floor are a year older and a year wiser,” he said. “I just try to stay calm and keep my composure. Like people say, a team is a reflection of the coach and Coach Olson is as cool as a cucumber. I’m the same way.”
Elliott says the Cats’ main attributes are “depth and maturity.” The difficult non-conference schedule also will help, especially in maintaining a keen edge for the NCAA Tournament. After Olson’s first Arizona team went 11-17 in 1983-84, the Cats won 21, 23 and 18 games, earning a tournament berth each year. Whatever the reason-a tough first-round draw, the soft Pac-10 schedule-Olson’s postseason record at Arizona is 0-3.
But that should change, along with the perception of the entire Arizona program. Yes, there is an intruder in the midst of the Kentuckys, the Indianas, the Georgetowns, the North Carolinas. Like it or not, that is no mirage in the desert.
A New Power Emerges in the West-by Bob Cohn
Let history record that the breakthrough occurred during the last week of November 1987 in Anchorage, Alaska, over the span of two games in three days. It was then that the University of Arizona shattered the barrier that separates the very good teams from the dominant college basketball powers.
Some Midwestern and Eastern snobs might have been shocked as the Wildcats destroyed Michigan and outclassed Syracuse in winning the Great Alaska Shootout. Arizona? The Pac-10? A Western team? Surely the earthquake that rocked Alaska during the tournament had somehow altered the natural order of things.
Surely not. Arizona was deeper, more experienced and, ultimately, better than the high-ranked, higher-hyped opponents. The players and coaches knew it. Or strongly believed it, at least. Those familiar with the personnel, depth and experience knew it, too.
Then the Cats delivered the exclamation point, the definitive in-your-face message to anyone who believed Alaska might have been a fluke. They traveled to Iowa City and beat previously unbeaten Iowa, 66-59.
“They can’t say nothing anymore,” UA center Tom Tolbert said of the non-believers.
The victory was Arizona’s third against teams ranked in the top 10. The Cats were ranked No. 2 in the AP poll following the Iowa game, their highest ranking ever. They now seem certain to go higher, maybe even to N0. 1. They had met every available challenge and still were ready for more.
“Hey, bring them all on,” said Tolbert, who had 18 points against the Hawkeyes, including eight straight in the second half. “I think we can play with any team. If I went out on the court against any collegiate team in the country, I’d expect to win that game.”
Opponents still were trying to mess with the Cats’ minds, however. In Alaska, much was made of guard Steve Kerr, who usually is all-business, pointing and jawing back at Michigan tough guy Gary Grant in the process of outplaying him. Kerr said his exchange of gestures and words with Grant were erroneously interpreted.
“It wasn’t like a one-and-one confrontation,” he said. “He was talking to me at the beginning of the game, which isn’t unusual. He was trying to intimidate me, saying stuff like, ‘Don’t put it on the floor, I’ll take it from you.’
“We pulled ahead and I hit a couple of three-pointers. I pointed at him and said, ‘Keep talking.’ It definitely was a result of heated competition. But I met him before the game and he seemed like a nice guy.”
At Iowa, Kerr found Hawkeyes guard Jeff Moe to be a pretty glib fellow. Kerr held up his end of the conversation and also pumped his fist at the floor several times after hitting a key three-pointer at the end of the first half. From then on, the capacity crowd booed Kerr every time he touched the ball. Kerr was so rattled he finished with 15 points(hitting 4 of 8 three-pointers), 6 assists and no turnovers, playing all 40 minutes.
“I’m somebody , who, if a guy talks to me, I’ll talk right back,” Kerr said. “I saw him(Moe) pumping his fist last year, so I did a little myself.”
“There’s nothing more fun than going into the other guy’s arena. They’re all yelling at you and you come out with a chin up. They leave with heads drooping and tails tucked between their legs.”
“Sometimes, it doesn’t even require an opponent’s gabbing to get the Cats going. Before playing Syracuse, Sean Elliott, the 6-8 junior forward with all the right moves, was quoted as saying the Orangemen front-line was “suspect.” That became wallpaper for the Syracuse locker room and center Rony Seikaly said it made him mad. Arizona won, anyway. Elliott, meanwhile, had assumed the standard position of claiming his remarks were taken out of context. But he defended the gist of what he said.
“That got kind of mixed up,” he said. “Seikaly and I are good friends and in no way did I want to create any problems between us. Half the statement was true and half of it was false. What I remember saying is, ‘Yes, we do have a better front line than they have.’ And I think that’s true. I’m not being cocky….But I never said any one is suspect or that we’d go after anyone. I don’t want to put the image across as a player who talks a lot of stuff in the papers. That’s not my style.”
Following Alaska, a few skeptics still remained. True, Elliott has received the Dick Vitale Seal of Approval (Vitale gushed over Elliott so much that adoption seemed imminent) but it was Vitale’s own employer, ESPN, that called the victory over Syracuse ‘the upset of the week.” What upset?
“People like North Carolina and Syracuse get a lot of publicity,” said Elliott, who grew up in Tucson and decided to stay home. “Seikaly is a great player, no doubt about it, but I think Tom Tolbert is a good player. [Forward] Anthony Cook is a good player. And I’m a good player. And we showed it. We outscored them and outboarded them.”
Except for Elliott, the prototypical modern-age swingman who can do everything, none of the Wildcats turned up on anyone’s preseason all-American team. Still, the talent is exceptional.
The Cats are a little of this and a little of that. Tolbert, a 6-7, 240-pound senior, is a junior-college transfer who can score and whose rebounding and defense is improving. Cook, a sinewy 6-9 junior, is a shot-eating defensive specialist ( 4 blocks, 13 rebounds against Iowa) who is gaining confidence in his scoring ability.
Senior guard Craig McMillan, a 6-6 streak shooter, was the first so-called blue-chipper signed by Olson, Kerr, whose story has been well-documented, has not just survived incalculable personal difficulties, but defeated them. Junior guard Kenny Lofton, a starter last year in Kerr’s absence, has flourished as a tempo-changing sixth man. Reserves Joe Turner, Jud Buechler and Harvey Mason comprise a solid bench. In fact, Turner, a 6-7 senior, was the real hero of the Syracuse game. Replacing the foul-plagued Tolbert in the first half, the unsung Turner outshone Seikaly and another marquee name, Derrick Coleman.
The victory over Iowa was perhaps the biggest for UA coach Lute Olson, who left the brutal winters and fishbowl existence in Iowa in 1983 for the warmth and potential of Tucson. It was Olson’s first return to Carver-Hawkeye Arena, known as the house that Lute built during his nine-year run as Iowa coach.
In a tribute to both the impact of Olson on the Iowa program, and the class of Hawkeye fans, Olson got a one-minute standing ovation and was greeted by chants of “Lute, Lute,” when he appeared on the floor.
Olson had tried to downplay to the Cats the significance of his homecoming, but it was futile.
“I didn’t fool them for a second,” he said. “I think they knew maybe this was a game their old coach wanted to win more than some others.”
With the Pac10 championship seemingly a lock, Arizona’s biggest tests would continue to be outside the conference. In late December, the Cats played host to maybe the toughest four-team holiday tournament anywhere, inviting Michigan State, Duke and Florida. But whatever the result, this is a team that knows itself, and where it’s headed.
“We’re very confident,” Kerr said. “That’s one of the things that’s going to make us a better team. I don’t think we have any doubts about our ability and potential. We can’t get overconfident, but I don’t think we will. So many good teams will be coming after us.”
Kerr missed last season after suffering torn ligaments during the World Championships in Spain in the summer of 1986. The effect of his loss was more than even Olson anticipated. Missing Kerr’s leadership and court sense, not to mention his three-point shooting ability, Arizona went 18-12, blowing second-half leads in eight games. The Cats couldn’t even make it to the finals of the Pac-10 tournament, falling to Oregon in a huge upset. Then they lost at home to Texas El-Paso in the first round of the NCAA West regional.
Kerr dedicated himself to rehabilitating the knee, although the injury was so severe at the time that his future was in doubt. Some called the injury a tragedy, but Kerr knew the real meaning of the word. During his freshman season, Kerr’s father, Malcolm, the president of the American University in Beirut, was assassinated by terrorists. Two days later, Kerr played against Arizona State and scored 12 points.
So what’s a little knee injury? Kerr worked and worked and is back, feeling no after-effects and providing the missing piece to the puzzle. Olson said it is “the stability that he gives us, and the confidence that his teammates and the staff have in him. You don’t see panic situations.”
Such was the case against Syracuse, when the Orangemen came back from a 12-point halftime deficit to go ahead by one with 5 minutes remaining. Last year, Arizona likely would have let the game slip away. This time, with Kerr on the floor, the Cats held steady and overwhelmed the Orangemen down the stretch.
But Kerr is reluctant to give himself credit.
“I think I’m a reason, but it also helps that the other guys on the floor are a year older and a year wiser,” he said. “I just try to stay calm and keep my composure. Like people say, a team is a reflection of the coach and Coach Olson is as cool as a cucumber. I’m the same way.”
Elliott says the Cats’ main attributes are “depth and maturity.” The difficult non-conference schedule also will help, especially in maintaining a keen edge for the NCAA Tournament. After Olson’s first Arizona team went 11-17 in 1983-84, the Cats won 21, 23 and 18 games, earning a tournament berth each year. Whatever the reason-a tough first-round draw, the soft Pac-10 schedule-Olson’s postseason record at Arizona is 0-3.
But that should change, along with the perception of the entire Arizona program. Yes, there is an intruder in the midst of the Kentuckys, the Indianas, the Georgetowns, the North Carolinas. Like it or not, that is no mirage in the desert.
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Re: From 1988, an article on "Raising Arizona"
Seeing Georgetown listed as an elite team is akin to watching an old TV show and they use the word gay to refer to being happy. How times have changed.
Thanks for sharing this, brings back a lot of childhood memories.
Thanks for sharing this, brings back a lot of childhood memories.