Wildcat Wednesday - 10/20/10 - University of Arizona Athletics

Oct. 20, 2010

FOUR AND COUNTING FOR PRESTIGOUS NATIONAL HONOR

Former swimmer Justine Schluntz, currently studying at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, joined three other Wildcats in being named NCAA Woman of the Year on Sunday night. I attended the ceremony and was as infused with pride as anyone there, including Justine. It's an incredible accomplishment for a student-athlete to win the honor, and for UA to have four is beyond incredible. What a marvelous punctuation point for the University of Arizona during a week, Homecoming, where we will celebrate Women's Sports Legacy. Justine, Tanya Hughes (1994), Whitney Myers (2007) and Lacey Nymeyer (2009) help define that rich tradition with their Woman of the Year honors, but there are countless others whose contributions we cherish. As I mentioned in last week's email, many of those women will be honored this weekend at the Women's Sports Legacy brunch on Saturday at 10 a.m. For more information, please call 520-621-2331.

ARIZONA SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Among the many Homecoming events this weekend is the induction ceremony for the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame class of 2010. It includes diver Claire Febvay, golfer Natalie Gulbis, swimmer Bob Jackson, basketball's Richard Jefferson and Luke Walton, and swimmers Emily Mason, Jessica Hayes, Sarah Tolar and Jenny Vanker. Congratulations to each and thanks again for representing the University of Arizona in such outstanding fashion. The Hall of Fame was chartered in 1976 with an inaugural class of 18 individuals and one national team champion. Since, it's grown to a group of about 300 individuals and national-champion teams and relays. Needless to say, the UA athletics tradition is an amazing body of work.

STUDENT-ATHLETES STEPPING ASIDE

One of the best things about being a student-athlete is the first half of the hyphenation, and a couple of familiar UA students are vying for some crowns this week during Homecoming. Jordan Mara of the track team is a finalist for Homecoming King, while volleyball's Paige Weber and cheerleader Rosette Abud are finalists for Homecoming Queen. Good luck to each in this fun student activity. The winners will be announced at the Homecoming Bonfire/Pep Rally Friday night at Old Main and will be recognized during halftime of the football game. They deserve a hand from our (hint) CAPACITY CROWD of Wildcat faithful.

WILDCAT WALK

Don’t forget to come out to the Wildcat Walk and welcome our football team off the bus on Saturday. Because of the 7:15 p.m. kickoff, the Wildcat Walk will take place at 5:30 p.m. Hope to see you there.

SPEAKING OF ALUMNI...

Any Wildcat letterwinners out there who would like to re-connect with the University, please do so. We need you, notably for our A-Club letterwinners' groups, but we also need you to keep the University close to your heart because it helps all the current Wildcats understand the breadth of our heritage and history. Join us for Homecoming this weekend. Bear Down! Here's the letterwinners home page.

PAC-12 NEWS ON TAP

Commissioner Larry Scott of the Pacific-10 Conference will be holding a news conference late tomorrow morning in San Francisco to outline some of the particulars for the Pac-12 Conference. Stay tuned to your local and national media for news coming out of this event.

LET'S GET RED AND BLUE

Both the men's and women's basketball squads are working hard toward season openers in a couple of weeks and everything coaches Sean Miller and Niya Butts tell me about their progress sounds promising. The Red-Blue Game for the men's basketball team is at 1 p.m. this Sunday in McKale Center. There still are inexpensive tickets available for this preview look at the 2010-11 squad - $6 if you purchase them in advance; $10 at the door. As a reminder, your men’s basketball season tickets do not include tickets to the Red-Blue Game, so season ticket holders must purchase tickets. Seating is first-come, first serve. If you can't make the Red-Blue Game, it will be shown live on All-Access through our website, with Brian Jeffries and former Wildcat Matt Muehlebach of IMG calling the play.

SPECIAL DELIVERY

The women's basketball team personally delivered season tickets to a few lucky season ticket holders last night. Here is a link to some videos documenting the evening. The men's team will be doing the same thing tonight. The fans that were selected for these special deliveries were season ticket holders who renewed online on the first day of renewals. We've talked in the past about improving our customer service and this is a small part of our efforts to do so.

ON TOP OF THE INCAN WORLD

Here's a snapshot of UA alums Carlos Rivera, Gracie Quihuis and Alfonso Fajardo displaying the colors near Machu Picchu in Peru. Awesome! Anyone have something from Giza? The Great Wall?

WILDCATS WEAR THEIR COLORS

As always I encourage you to wear your red and blue this Friday and Saturday, but this weekend Wildcats can also wear silver and sage as part of our University’s celebration of its 125^th anniversary. When you wear your colors, be sure to email pictures of yourself to facebook@arizona.edu so that we can spotlight you on our Arizona Athletics Facebook page.

NOTES...

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of long-time UA administrator Billy Joe Varney, who passed away last week. Billy Joe was one of my 10 predecessors, serving as acting director of athletics for several months in mid-1982... The UA office of External Relations will be handing out '125' tattoos at Homecoming this week in honor of the university's 125th year, and External Relations wants anyone who wears one to send a photo back to uaweb@email.arizona.edu... Support the UA Twirlers, who are one of 15 finalists to be on the cover of TWIRL magazine, by “liking” their photo on Facebook. They are currently in 3^rd place and could use our votes… The women's cross country team performed extremely well at the pre-national meet in Indiana last weekend, finishing second in a field of 38 teams in what turned out to be a two-team battle with Florida State. Keep up the good work, ladies, with the Pac-10 Championships on tap for the end of this month. The men's team struggled in Terre Haute but was without ace Stephen Sambu... The women's soccer team battled hard in a narrow loss at Arizona State last week, with the first full point in the State Farm Territorial Cup Series going to ASU... There are less than 300 tickets remaining for the Homecoming football game against Washington on Saturday at 7:15 p.m. Help us sell out our third home game this season and impress our national TV audience!

Bear Down with Pride,

Greg Byrne
Director of Athletics
University of Arizona
uofaad@arizona.edu