Goddard filed the suit May 15, claiming Gannett Co. Inc., owner of the Tucson Citizen, and Lee Enterprises, publisher of the Arizona Daily Star, were attempting to silence a news voice in a community in violation of the Newspaper Preservation Act.

Gannett announced that day that it would no longer publish a print version of the Tucson Citizen but would continue a modified Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Arizona Daily Star.

Goddard had sought a temporary restraining order to keep the Citizen printing and force Gannett to sell it but U.S. District Judge Raner Collins denied the request May 19, saying it was unlikely the AG’s case could succeed.

Collins left the door open for Goddard to refile the case but Tuesday’s action closes it.

“At this point, it was highly unlikely that any outcome of the litigation could lead to the reopening of the Tucson Citizen, elimination of anti-competitive activity or a reestablishment of competitive voices in the Tucson newspaper market,” Goddard spokeswoman Anne Hilby said in a news release Wednesday.

A tall, muscular Egyptian is looking for the perfect match.

Ideal person will have a large yard, fun-loving nature and a sense of humor.

The mystery Egyptian is the massive Sphinx, the only statue left at Magic Carpet Golf, 6125 E. Speedway Blvd.

The rest of the concrete giants have found new homes, thanks to Tucson artist Charlie Spillar. Spillar was recently honored by the Mayor and City Council for his statue adoption efforts.

Want to give the Sphinx a whirl?

E-mail Charlie Spillar at cspillar@q.com.

The giant dinosaur was moved last week.

Tucson’s Charlie Spillar may not have parted the Red Sea, but he has moved mountainous structures.

Spillar found new homes for a gaggle of giant golf course statues that were destined for the dump.

Spillar’s efforts have been noticed, now very publicly with a certificate awarded to him by the Tucson Mayor and City Council at Tuesday’s Council meeting.

The structures included a 50,000-pound tiki head, a 17-foot monkey, a 15,000-pound T-Rex, a sizable skull and a behemoth bull. Many went to private homes, others to area businesses.

Artist Lee Koplin created the cement statues more than 30 years ago and they were part of Magic Carpet Golf, 6125 E. Speedway Blvd., which is now slated to become a car lot.

“I did a sculpture that took more than 1,000 hours and it ended up in a landfill,” said artist Spillar, who doubles as the spokesman for the 1920s-era fantasyland Valley of the Moon.

“That’s the main reason I have been trying to save these Magic Carpet Golf gentle creatures from a similar fate.”

_____

I would have loved to have one of the things in my yard but I’m burdened with an HOA.

Any comment from folks who took one of the statues to a new home?

What about from folks who have the statues as a new neighbor?

Would you want to live next to a 17-foot monkey?

New dinosaur owner Steve Kippur of AMCEP Metals makes friends with his new yard mate, a 15,000-pound T-Rex.

The dinosaur was moved last week.

Charlie Spillar's giant buzzard statue took more than 1,000 hours to create and ended up in a landfill.

The end of the print edition was ruled Tuesday afternoon

The Tucson Citizen as we knew it is officially no more.

The print edition, which could have been reinstated if a judge ruled in its favor, was denied Tuesday afternoon.

The idea that the Citizen could come back actually made me a bit giddy. The thought of being back rubbing elbows and ideas with those I miss at this cavernous office was an exciting premise.

It would have also been quite interesting to see, if the judge had ruled to continue the print edition, how one would have been pasted, scrambled and cobbled together for publication the next day.

I figured I get to luck out and sneak a photo of my dog on the cover.

One more question was whether or not my pals who had been laid off would have come back if requested or walked away in a rebellious huff.

Monday’s hearing, which almost put me to sleep, did bring up some interesting information:

• Gannett said issuing a print edition of the Citizen was losing the company $10,000 each day

• The Attorney General’s representative argued that newspapers were worth saving because they print Macy’s coupons

• The judge has a granddaughter he had to pick up from school at 5 p.m. and he seemed like he’d make a cool grandfather.

At least those are the highlights I most remember.

Some former staffers stuck with a measly two week’s severance pay are kind of bummed.

Those who had longer, like photographer Val Canez who worked here for more than a decade, had a different take.

“I’m kind of relieved it’s over,” he said on the phone as he was calling to confirm the judge’s decision.

The saga began back in January when we got the first announcement of pending closure. The suspense dragged on worse than weekends between soap operas.

“It was like one big, long pin prick,” Canez said, “and the pin kept getting deeper.”

What do you think?

Are you relieved the historic saga is finally over?

If the judge ruled it back into print, could the Citizen have regained its former glory?

Should Gannett have sold it for the $200,000 offer, well below the $800,000 it was asking?

Sheeny wagon example, although not all horses are bright blue.

The sheeny man in his sheeny wagon used to be a staple in Polish communities of Michigan.

He would trek down the alleyways with his cart, pulled by a horse if he had the money, or pulled by himself if he did not.

The sheeny man would be glad to collect rags, scraps and odds and ends. Other accounts have him sharpening knives, scissors and tools.

I only know the sheeny man from my mom’s stern admonishments that our car would look like a sheeny wagon if my brother and I kept taping paper on the back windows to block out the sun.

“The sheeny man is going to get you,” was a threat often used, much like the threat of the boogie man is thrown about today.

One account of the sheeny man can be found at wowthathadtohurt.blogspot.com/2007/11/here-comes-sheeny-man.html

The blogger shares her story of how she would sneak things to the sheeny man when he regularly visited her grandmother’s house.

Sheeny men could be of any race, creed or age, although they tended to be older guys with tattered clothing.

I never heard of the word as a racial slur until it was pointed out by a few readers in my school bus commentary (www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/breakingnews/116722.php).

Upon further investigation, I found the word was, in fact, once a derogatory word used for Jews, although that was not the usage I intended.

The word sheeny is of unknown origin and had its heyday as a vulgar term around the turn of the 19th century.

It has since fallen from popularity as a slur, but is still remembered by those who recall the rag men in alleys of Hamtramck and Detroit.

More on the sheeny man: listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/MI-POLISH/2007-05/1178062727

The Citizen staff called area political, business and cultural leaders for their reaction to Friday’s announcement that the Citizen will cease printing a paper. Their comments follow:

“Well, it’s too bad it had to be you guys. I honestly have always thought the evening paper here was far superior to the morning paper.”

Bob McMahon

owner, Metro Restaurants

“It’s a sad day for our region. We’re losing an institution that was a watchdog of our local governments. We’re losing competition between newspapers that led to more aggressive reporting and better information. We’re losing a part of our history and our collective memory. The Citizen and all of Pima County deserved much better from Gannett.”

Ann Day

Pima County supervisor

“The Tucson Citizen is the oldest newspaper in Arizona. It’s a large loss for future readers and for us who have depended on the Citizen every day of our lives.”

Gabrielle Giffords

U.S. congresswoman

“That’s a dark day in Tucson’s history. The Citizen always gave balanced coverage. That has always been very healthy for Tucson. You lose a second voice, a second opinion. Two voices are better than one as far as I’m concerned.”

Jack Camper

executive director, Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

“The presence of two daily newspapers in a city guarantees there will be accurate and objective news reporting. . . . The loss of the Citizen puts the responsibility on the Daily Star to do the task well. ”

Glenn Lyons

Downtown Tucson Partnership

“I just think it’s a real blow to the community, a real loss. I think it will diminish the level of balance and independent journalism that we need to keep the community informed.

“I think the Citizen has always done a good job of digging for the facts and making important information accessible. The quality of the local news reporting at the Citizen has always stood out. It’s a real loss.”

Karin Uhlich

City Councilwoman

As a small nonprofit theatre business owner it was writers like you, Rogelio (Olivas), and Chuck Graham that made a tremendous difference to our organization. The Citizen gave all live theatres in town an equal footing. The Citizen was willing to listen to a small organization in the Tucson arts community by covering or critiquing their next production. I for one, as an executive director of a 25-year-old community theatre, whose members worked thousands of hours to bring theatre to Tucson, will miss the Citizen for its support.

Priscilla Marquez

former executive director of Catalina Players

“Even when I was a reporter and anchor, one of the things I always told students was you don’t get all your news from television. I’m truly going to miss the Citizen. I always looked to the Citizen for clear, straightforward reporting of what was happening downtown.”

Nina Trasoff

city councilwoman

“As a Tucsonan, elected official and a proponent of citizen engagement, I am deeply saddened by the closing of our state’s oldest newspaper and will have the working families impacted by the shutdown in my thoughts during these though economic times.”

Rodney Glassman

city councilman

“Anytime you lose an institution in the media like a newspaper that’s been publishing more than 100 years is sad. There’s bound to be a void in the coverage. I understand the feeling of abandonment of employees, but also in the community, not getting information.”

Richard Elías

Board of Supervisors chairman

“The more media outlooks citizens have the better,” Romero said. “It’s really important that we have different perspectives from different newspapers.”

Regina Romero

Tucson councilwoman

Referring to the Web site, which will offer only opinion pieces: “That’s great. I’ll make sure I pay attention to that.”

“More and more people are getting their news online these days.”

Ray Carroll

Pima County supervisor

The press stands idle moments after the final issue was printed late Friday night.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson late Friday to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen, which was announced by the Citizen’s owners early Friday.

The lawsuit said closing the Citizen stemmed from an agreement between Gannett and Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star, to eliminate competition and increase profits to both companies.

The case has been assigned to Judge Raner Collins, but Goddard said in a phone interview Friday night that his staff could not reach Collins to “express the urgency of the case.”

“Usually there is some district judge to handle emergency motions and we are trying to find one,” Goddard said. “But I’m not at all certain we will be able to find one; it is a small panel in Tucson.”

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for the Gannett Co. Inc., told Citizen employees Friday that the last print edition would be Saturday. Gannett will continue to run a “modified” Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Star, she said.

She said two people accepted positions with www.tucsoncitizen.com but declined to say how many staffers the Web site would eventually hire.

“That’s my starting point,” Marymont said.

A preliminary job description for those hired showed that the site would focus on the “watercooler buzz” of the day.

Staffers would likely link to other Web sites and blogs, offer an opinion and open the discussion to commenters in an online forum. The site would also incorporate social networking, the document showed.

The staff will be responsible for defining the Web site’s form, Marymont said. “I’ve left it to them.”

The recently launched Metromix entertainment hub will continue on a “provisional basis” only, Marymont said.

Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as business partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.

Under the arrangement, Gannett takes the unusual step of partnering with a newspaper publication in which it has no editorial say to retain its profit interest in the operation.

Lee and Gannett will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, just as they did with the JOA, CEO Mike Jameson said. TNI, though, will no longer receive the limited antitrust immunity offered JOAs under the Newspaper Preservation Act.

The 1970 act gives newspapers operating under a joint operating agreement an exemption from federal antitrust laws in the hopes of increasing editorial diversity in cities and towns.

The announcement brings to a close months of uncertainty for the paper. Gannett announced in January that it was offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not its 50 percent share of the JOA. If no buyer came forward, it intended to close the paper March 21.

On March 17, Gannett delayed the closure, saying “viable” buyers had come forward. The paper has operated on a day-to-day basis since.

Marymont informed Citizen employees of the closure at 9:30 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after notifying interim Editor Jennifer Boice.

“This is not about the journalism,” Marymont said. “Do not in any way take this as a reflection on your journalism. You have done outstanding journalism for decades.”

Laid-off employees will receive a week’s pay for every year they’ve worked for the paper up to 26 weeks, with a two-week minimum.

Boice, who has worked at the Citizen for 25 years and was appointed interim editor in July, could not hold back tears when making the announcement

“It’s been a difficult time,” Boice said. “But it’s also been fun. We’ve had people, even when our time was limited, going all out on stories, doing an incredible job of keeping the newspaper not only going, but good. And I am really grateful to all the people here who have put forth their heart and soul and energy in letting us go out with our head held high.”

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community,” he wrote.

Goddard said Hadland’s request was compelling, especially after he spoke with Gannett representatives.

“Their lawyer was unable to tell me how the proposed Web site would serve Tucson as a separate editorial voice,” Goddard said. “We took action because there was nothing in front of us that indicated any commitment to a vigorous continuing presence for the Citizen in some form.”

Reached Friday at his Santa Monica office, Hadland said, “We were, we are and we remain a bona fide buyer. We made a substantial cash offer; we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.”

In addition, Hadland said, he was “amazed” that Gannett was shutting the printed paper and going to an online-only operation because during negotiations, “a printed edition was an absolute requirement of Gannett’s.”

“This is the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed,” said Hadland, who publishes five weekly papers in the Los Angeles area.

Goddard said the arrangement between Gannett and Lee did not, in his mind, “meet either the spirit or the intent of the (antitrust) exemption” granted through the federal act.

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the sale of the Citizen in February, when potential buyers told Justice representatives they were being told by Gannett’s sales broker that the Citizen wasn’t a good deal because Gannett wasn’t selling its interest in the JOA.

Marymont confirmed discussions with Justice were ongoing for the past month, but would not say Justice insisted on having a Web site instead of completely closing the Citizen’s presence in Tucson.

She said Gannett had not determined the length of commitment to the new Web site, and that there “is no legal document” saying the site has to remain operational for a certain time.

“In our conversations with the Justice Department, it was agreed that it was important we sustain a second voice in the community,” Marymont said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Friday that Justice “closed its investigation today and no enforcement action was taken.” She would give no further details.

National media experts had predicted the paper would never sell because, without the JOA, the Citizen was all loss and no profit.

Thus the paper appeared poised to be another casualty of a newspaper industry struggling to survive amid declining advertising revenue and Internet competition.

But the Citizen defied the odds, at least for a while, because of the federal investigation.

At least five people expressed interest in buying the Citizen. All decided against bidding when they couldn’t persuade Gannett to include the JOA in the sale.

The Citizen was started in 1870 as a weekly, the Arizona Citizen, preceding Arizona’s statehood. Its reporters were on the front lines covering everything from the raids of Pancho Villa to the first university-led space mission.

In its last two months, the paper reported on its own predicted demise.

“A newspaper doesn’t close, it dies, and the death leaves a hole in the community,” said Boice.

Associated Press writer Art Rotstein (left) and Tucson Citizen reporter Renée Schafer Horton ask Gannett Co. executive Kate Marymont (right) about the company's decision to close the Citizen.

———

Other troubled newspapers

• Hearst Corp. printed the last edition of Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 16, turning it into an Internet-only news outlet with 20 staff members, down from more than 150.

• E.W. Scripps Co. in February closed the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, one of two daily newspapers in Denver.

• Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle were told in February to prepare for closure or massive layoffs.

• The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

• The Ann Arbor News announced in April it will close in July. In its place, the Web-based media company AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched, publishing continuously online and a print edition twice a week. About 272 employees remain at the News, and experts estimate that will fall to fewer than 50 for the Web venture.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton

A motion for a temporary restraining order is in the process of being filed, said Anne Hilby, spokeswoman for Goddard’s office.

The case has been assigned to Raner Collins, Hilby said, “but we do not yet know if he will rule on it before tomorrow morning.”

“The process has been initiated,” Hilby said. “We will be notified by the court as how Judge Collins will rule.”

Collins could not be reached for comment.

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for Gannett Co. Inc., visited the Citizen newsroom Friday morning to say the paper would print its final issue Saturday, continuing with a “modified” Web site focused on opinion and commentary.

When asked about Goddard’s action, Marymont said she could not comment without seeing the actual filing.

“I have little to say, I’d need to see what was filed and speak with our lawyers,” Marymont said.

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale announced by Gannett in January, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“I am requesting the Arizona Attorney General’s office file a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the Gannett Corporation from closing the Citizen and require Gannett to continue printing the newspaper pending a sale to a qualified buyer,” Hadland wrote. “The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community.”

Hadland has contended from his first bid that Gannett was not serious about selling the paper because it was only offering the name of the paper, its Web site, archives and a subscriber list, but not the 50 percent interest in the joint operating agreement it has with Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star.

The JOA has been in effect since 1940 and allows Lee and Gannett to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers.

Hadland,who said his bid for the Citizen “assests” was $400,000, considers his media company a qualified and viable buyer, something Marymont denied in speaking with employees Friday morning.

“In the end, there was no buyer,” she said.

Hadland said in a phone interview that if a paper goes without printing one day, it loses all value and that is why he urged Goddard to act quickly.

By Carli Brosseau, Renee Schafer Horton

Pressman Tim Torres (left) and pressroom supervisor James "Jimbo" Krakowiak say they'll miss printing the Tucson Citizen.

James “Jimbo” Krakowiak, 56

Print supervisor

37 years at TNI, 15 printing the Tucson Citizen

“Everyone calls me Jimbo,” says Krakowiak, who is deaf and attended the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind. He worked in ASDB’s print shop as a student and discovered “that’s what I wanted to do.”

He started working for the newspaper company as an apprentice when the Citizen was located downtown and the paper was printed on a letter press with lead “plates” that weighed about 40 pounds each.

Now, the printing is done by digital computing; the aluminum plates are slim and weigh about 1 ounce. He worked the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

Krakowiak has been a pressroom supervisor for more than 20 years and the pressmen have learned to use sign language, gestures and facial expressions to communicate.

“He’s an awesome pressman,” said Tim Torres, who accompanied him to Detroit in 1995 to run the presses there during a strike.

Krakowiak said he’s sad the Citizen is closing.

L.G. Ward, 60

Pressman

30 years at TNI, 5 printing the Citizen

“It took me 24 years to get on the Citizen and five years later, they’re taking it away from me,” Ward says. “It’s like losing a relative.”

He works the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. The Citizen was off the presses by 9 a.m., he said.

The remainder of his work day is spent printing sections of the Arizona Daily Star.

Ward started in printing working for a business forms company and got the TNI job through a softball team buddy who recruited him for the team and to TNI.

Ward said the automation of the printing system has made pressmen’s jobs much easier.

Colored inks were loaded onto the presses manually, through hoses and by the bucket. Now the inks are stored a floor below and move through hoses and onto the press.

Also, instead of the toggle switches used to adjust the paper while the presses roll, adjustments occur at the press of a button.

“You don’t just come in and figure it out in one day,” he said.

Bill Navarette, 59

40 years at TNI, 11 years printing the Citizen

Navarette started learning the printing business at Pueblo High School and worked for a local printer, printing the Arizona Daily Wildcat while he was still in high school.

He came to TNI in 1968 and had to learn to adapt to a computerized press when the newspaper moved to 4850 S. Park Ave. and a digital operation.

When the presses began to roll 35 years ago, they printed 1,000 papers a minute.

A 1-ton roll of newsprint is good for about 20,000 copies of the Tucson Citizen. Navarette moves the newsprint onto a trolley, which moves on a track to the presses and loads automatically.

“It’s like I’m losing a friend,” he said about the Citizen closing.

“It doesn’t seem possible. It won’t hit me until I won’t see it anymore.”

Tim Torres, 52

Pressman

25 years at TNI, 2 years printing the Tucson Citizen

Torres remembers his first day as a printing apprentice as “nerve-wracking.”

He had “the first day jitters, like with any job you go into. You don’t want to mess up.”

Since then, Torres has worked as a press operator, foreman and supervisor.

He’s printed both the Arizona Daily Star on the night shift and the Tucson Citizen on the day shift.

Torres enjoys his co-workers.

“The people make it interesting and I have fun on the job,” he said.

Like his co-workers, he said he’s sad to see the Citizen shut down.

Artie Gonzales,

ex-compositor, now a dispatch driver, 37 years at TNI, on the Citizen and Arizona Daily Star

“The Citizen was an icon,” Gonzales said. “I grew up here and used to deliver it when I was in sixth or seventh grade. His after-school route near Tucson High and Roskruge Elementary schools started at around 3:30 and took him about 45 minutes.

When he started at TNI, the paper’s pages were composed with hand-set “hot” lead type and the pages had to be read upside down and backward.

Now the pages are composed on a computer screen, a negative of the page is made and transferred to an aluminum page or “plate.”

It was fun in the old days, Gonzales said.

He’ll miss the editors he worked with in the “back shop.”

“I’ve known these guys for more than 25 years. It’s gonna hurt. You grew up knowing them, joking around with them, telling them stories. The fun’s gone now.”

Gonzales said the end of the Citizen makes him wonder what’s next for him.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” he said.

Tay Bell, 49

Newspaper hawker, 10 years

Bell is an Army Special Forces veteran with a steel plate in his head from a four-wheeler accident. He would rather work than collect disability, he said.

He’s been selling the Tucson Citizen and the morning paper for 10 years at intersections in the county, north and northwest of Tucson city limits.

He’s worked for years with fellow hawkers Manuel Garcia, 53, and “Mo,” who always wore a Stetson and a crisply ironed shirt with his jeans and cowboy boots.

In March, Bell said, Mo told him he was done with selling the newspaper and going off to California to be with family.

“He has an aortic aneurysm,” Bell said. He came by to say goodbye.

The other member of their trio, Garcia, 53, used to work the same intersection at another corner.

Garcia, who had polio and whose legs are bent nearly 60 degrees, stood for seven hours a day, like they did.

But in November, Bell said, a Pima County sheriff’s deputy asked to see their IDs.

Garcia, who came to Tucson in 1990 from Mexico City, didn’t have any and the deputy called the Border Patrol, Bell said. A Border Patrol agent picked Garcia up at his bus stop and Bell presumes he was deported to Mexico. He hasn’t seen him or heard from him since.

Bell said his best tip was $165 from an older man who simply pressed the bills into his hand as he drove by, without a word.

Bell said he will be sorry to see the Citizen stop publishing.

“I’ve always been one to read the Citizen,” he said. “If I read the paper, I read the Citizen.”

Fred Snowden's first recruiting class, known as the Kiddie Korps and featuring five freshman starters, took Tucson by storm.

University of Arizona basketball does not begin or end with Lute Olson, despite the four Final Fours and one NCAA title to his credit.

Olson’s 24 seasons at the helm of UA basketball cast a giant shadow, one that perhaps obscures another principal contributor to all that is Arizona basketball today.

Former UA star and current Wildcat broadcaster Bob Elliott sums it up this way: “If there’s not a Fred Snowden, there’s probably not a Lute Olson.”

Elliott explains that Olson was already a Final Four coach who had his choice of schools to move on to – and that Snowden’s success here showed Lute the possibilities.

“It’s a lot easier to go to a program where the fire had already been lit. . . . Lute knew the fire had been lit by Freddy,” Elliott says.

Snowden is the man who took the Cats from the 3,000 seats or so of Bear Down Gym to brand new McKale Center and its nearly 15,000 seats in 1973.

It was a lot of pressure for a rookie head coach. Not only was he tasked with filling McKale and creating a national reputation for the program, he also had the added glare of publicity that came from being the first African-American head coach in men’s Division I basketball.

Snowden’s first recruiting class, known as the Kiddie Korps and featuring five freshman starters, took Tucson by storm. By the time McKale opened at midseason, Tucson’s love affair with basketball was in full bloom and sellouts were the norm.

“Fred was the catalyst,” says Jerry Holmes, an assistant coach under Snowden.

“The Fred Snowden regime in that time started the tradition of Arizona basketball, without question,” Holmes says.

Success built quickly, as Snowden’s breakneck offense captivated Tucson.

“The community really bought into this team. . . . It was the most exciting time in UA sports history,” Holmes says.

Two members of the Kiddie Korps, Eric Money and Coniel Norman, left early for the NBA, and another, John Irving, transferred. But two of them remained to take the Wildcats to then-unheard of heights: the final eight in the NCAA Tournament and within eight minutes of the Final Four.

That 1976 team, which featured Elliott at center, was led by Kiddie Korps holdovers Al Fleming and Jim Rappis. In what was certainly Snowden’s finest season, his Cats beat John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas in the first round. It was also the first meeting of two black head coaches in the NCAA Tournament.

Next up was Nevada-Las Vegas, ranked No. 3 in the country. The Cats won 114-109 in overtime, propelled by what may have been the finest backcourt performance ever by a Wildcat twosome. Rappis and junior Herm Harris combined for 55 points on 23 of 36 field-goal shooting and 21 assists. They did it without the benefit of the three-point shot.

Then came mighty UCLA in the West Region final, on its home court at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. The Bruins broke open a tie game with eight minutes to go and went on to earn the Final Four berth.

“It was the first team in Arizona history to go to the Elite Eight. That set a benchmark,” says Elliott.

Combined with Olson’s first UA Final Four squad in 1988 and the 1997 NCAA title team, they form a trio of milestones that new UA coach Sean Miller will try to surpass.

“The milestone is to win two national titles. Everything else has been done,” says Elliott.

Fred W. Enke played three seasons for the basketball Wildcats, 1945-48, becoming team captain in the 1947-48 season.