TUCSON, Ariz. >>> From Dick Tomey’s home in the upscale La Paloma area, set in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, the views can be breathtaking.
“I’d forgotten just how beautiful the mountains were,” Tomey said of his return to Tucson after a 15-year absence.
This week, however, his thoughts are directed below, about 10 miles in the distance where you can glimpse the lights of Arizona Stadium, the meeting place Saturday of two significant parts of his life, the University of Hawaii and Arizona football teams.
Tomey, 78, invested about a third of his life and most of his head coaching career between them, 10 seasons at UH and 14 at Arizona.
At one time he held the distinction of being the winningest head coach in the history of both schools before being overtaken by June Jones at UH.
Saturday, for the first time, he will be in the grandstands as they collide in a nonconference game.
“I don’t know what it is like for other (coaches) but for me it is very emotional,” Tomey said. “It isn’t about the games it is just thinking about all the people, all the friendships, all the moments we treasure.”
In Arizona Stadium where they once held banners proclaiming, “Aloha Dick Tomey!” and he is still revered as the coach of the Wildcats’ winningest team (12-1 in 1998), Tomey said, “I’m not gonna be phony about it and say, ‘I’m gonna be exactly neutral,’ because when the game starts and and people start doing things and Hawaii makes some plays, I’m gonna feel good about that. That doesn’t mean that I don’t respect all our experiences at Arizona, where they have been good to me.”
But, Tomey said, “I’ve made it clear to the Arizona people that I’m not gonna be neutral in this. I mean, they know that blood is thicker than water.”
It is a reference to his son-in-law, Mayur Chaudhari, who is UH’s special teams coordinator.
UA coach Rich Rodriguez said he’s invited Tomey to view Wildcats practices since moving back to Tucson and, “we talk every week. Dick is great, a great coach and an even better person. I told him to come over any time. He’s won a lot of games and been in the profession for a long time.”
Tomey said he and his wife, Nanci, moved back to Tucson to be closer to their children and eight grandchildren who are living in Arizona, California and Washington, D.C. “Then right after we sold our home in Hawaii, our son-in-law got the job at UH.”
The office in Tomey’s home walks a balance between his UH and Arizona days with about equal mementos devoted to both eras. Mixed in with a picture of John Wooden, who he came to know while an assistant at UCLA, and Bo Schembechler, a mentor of sorts he first worked under as a graduate assistant at Miamo of Ohio, “There are about six or eight of each of Hawaii and Arizona,” Tomey said. Prominent among them is a photo of the 1977 UH Rainbows, his first team at UH.
“That’s a treasure because even though our first team was not our best team, record-wise (5-6), those were the guys who started it for us at Hawaii.”
In many ways it was Tomey’s greatest coaching accomplishment taking over a program in chaos in the summer following the resignation of Larry Price. Tomey inherited Price’s staff but had to re-recruit many of the players back to a program that was barely hanging on to its just-earned Division I status.
In short order Tomey not only made the ’Bows competitive and guided them into Western Athletic Conference respectability but Aloha Stadium came to be “the place” to be on Saturday nights. Between 1980 and 1986, his final season, season turnstile attendance reached as high as 45,673 and never dipped below 42,023.
That rebuilding has given Tomey an empathy for rookie head coach Nick Rolovich, who he has sometimes served as a “second pair of eyes” in training camp and a sounding board since. Tomey said, “I talk to Rolo every week. I tell him ‘it is a process.’ I’m encouraging him to understand it is a process. I’m encouraging him to understand there are no shortcuts and to learn from everything, which is what, I think, they are trying to do.”
Come Saturday, Tomey said, “I don’t think I’m going to be wearing a UH T-shirt in the middle of a bunch of Arizona fans and jumping up and down, but in my heart, obviously I’ll be with (UH).”
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
