An Interesting Fact about Lute Olson's Wildcats...

Ok, so the inevitable has happened in Tucson. The Silver Fox, The God of Tucson, The immovable hair, whatever you want to call him but Lute Olson has retired from coaching the Arizona Wildcats.

The track record is there, he is in fact one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game of Basketball. He finished with a record of 781-280...19 games short of reaching the pennicle of 800 wins.

One national championship, four NCAA Final Four appearances, 11 Pac-10 Championships, and has had a ton of players play at the next level in the NBA.

Some of the players include...

Mike Bibby
Steve Kerr
Damon Stoudamire
Salim Stoudamire
Gilbert "Agent Zero" Arenas
Jason Terry
Richard Jefferson
Luke Walton
Miles Simon
Jerryd Bayless

Those are indeed some of the great names. But a point of question came to my mind when thinking about all of the great players who have graced the Arizona name on the front of a basketball jersey under Lute Olson.

How many players has Olson had of a Latino decent? In doing my background checks and research I only found two, and one of them was a walk-on.

Jesus Verdejo was a freshman playing for Olson in 2004 when he elected to transfer to the University of South Florida to get more playing time. Verdejo was Puerto Rican and even prides himself on being a Gold Gloves winner in his native country.

The other player, walk-on Phil Torres (who I even played Intramural basketball with, the guy can shoot). Phil was a nice guy but rarely saw the floor in his walk on capacity.

Could that really be it? But then again how many Latino players have graced the hardwood in America. Brook and Robin Lopez were standouts with Stanford last year and should see some success in the NBA and I have already talked about players such as Eduardo Najera in one of my blogs.

At the end of the day, did Lute Olson fail to make his team diverse or did he fall into the trap of trying to win no matter what? If he did, it worked. Here's a tribute to Lute Olson's career.

Hall of Fame

It's a good time to be a University of Arizona sports fan right now. The football team that has givin it's fans years of dissappointment and sadness is currently 5-2 and tied for first place in the Pac-10 Conference.

S0me new faces have emerged from the team and the 5-2 record is the best start that Arizona has had since the 2000 season. It all leads up to this week and Arizona's homecoming week.

The Wildcats will take on the No. 5 USC Trojans in a battle for first place in the conference. Arizona has won its last three previous homecoming games, all coming against top 10 nationally ranked teams.

While football continues to make some buzz around Tucson, the start of the pride and joy of Arizona is upon us. Arizona Basketball.

Official practices started this past Friday and the first exhibition game will take place on...

Another important part of Homecoming week is the induction of the latest class into the Arizona Hall of Fame. Great names will be a part of the 2008 class including swimming superstar Amanda Beard and Wildcat basketball great Jason Gardner.

But one thing that Arizona does well is recognize team acheivments. Along with the great names, the 2008 Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving teams will be recognized as well.

Both of the men's and women's teams won the National Championship earlier in 2008 and one thing about many swimming teams in this nation is the diversity that comes along with the make up of the team.

The Men were led by swimmers such as Jean Basson who is from Johannesburg, South Africa and Nicolas Nilo who is from Bello Horizante, Brasil. For the women, swimmer Leone Vorster from Pietersburg, South Africa help made the team a champion.

Record Breaker...

This season when you think Kansas City Chiefs, you probably think "bad football team". Ok, so I'm from Denver and I had to throw that one in there.

But the Chiefs are a dismal 1-4 and on Sunday had one of their worst loses in franchise history, loosing to the Carolina Panthers 34-0. However, not everything was a loss for the Chiefs on Sunday.

Tight End Tony Gonzalez passed another milestone. Gonzalez now has 10,075 career receiving yards which is the most ever by a tight end in the NFL.

The Mexican-American, Huntington Beach, Calif. bread player already owns the record for receptions by a tight end (841) and career touchdowns by a tight end (68). All this and passing the great Denver Bronco, Shannon Sharpe.

Check out this video of him inviting everyone over for Thanksgiving dinner, even my Broncos.



All of this could not have happened to a better person. Gonzalez is considered one of the players with great character in the league and this summer even saved someones life.

In July of this year while eating at a restaurant in his hometown of Huntington Beach a man at the next table began to choke. Gonzalez waisted no time and administered the Heimlich Maneuver and saved the man's life.

Turns out that the man was a San Diego Chargers fan.