Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category

Don’t forget: For all the links, Twitter feeds and news feeds related to Arizona and its opponents, go to Morales’ site WILDABOUTAZCATS.NET. No other Arizona sports Web site is like it!

DEFENSE

No. 1: CHUCK CECIL, safety (1984-87)

The Minnesota Vikings better hope that Paul Wiggin, a personnel consultant with the team, has a better grip on player evaluations than what he showed with Chuck Cecil in 1983. The Arizona football program is thankful that Wiggin, the Stanford head coach at the time, allowed arguably the baddest of the badasses in Wildcat history to come to Tucson.

Wiggin did not offer a scholarship to Cecil — 6-feet and a scant 150 pounds out of San Diego Helix High School — and that helped fuel the fire for the “Heat-Seeking Missile” to succeed with the Wildcats. Wiggin reportedly told Cecil he was too small for major college football.

Cecil, who put all his suitors on hold while awaiting Wiggin’s decision, opted to follow the advice of former Arizona assistant Moe Ankney and walk on to the Arizona program. Cecil’s wait for Stanford cost him a chance for a scholarship with Arizona as a freshman because the Wildcats used their allotment of grants.

“He and his parents took a gamble,” Ankney told the Toledo Blade in 1987 when he prepared to coach against Arizona as the Bowling Green head coach. “They paid for his first year of college and I made a commitment to them that I’d get him grant-in-aid as soon as possible.”

Cecil, a three-time Pac-10 All-Academic selection as a safety, dedicated himself to earn that scholarship but his goals went far beyond that. A bookworm does not get the nickname “Heat-Seeking Missile”, given to the vicious-tackling Cecil by a North Carolina assistant coach after the Cats beat the Tar Heels 30-21 in the 1986 Aloha Bowl, their first bowl win in 65 years.

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Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category

Don’t forget: For all the links, Twitter feeds and news feeds related to Arizona and its opponents, go to Morales’ site WILDABOUTAZCATS.NET. No other Arizona sports Web site is like it!

OFFENSE

“Every Saturday a kid who barely weighs 170 pounds dripping wet goes over the middle for us. I know this Jay is a tough, reckless, S.O.B. After games, he looks like he’s been run over by a train. I personally think he enjoys taking the defenses’ best shot just so he can get up and laugh at them.” – former UA coach Larry Smith, as quoted by the Arizona Daily Wildcat in 1984.

No. 1 JAY DOBYNS, wide receiver (1982-1984)

Most people know about Jay Dobyns as a badass off the football field as an undercover agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Dobyns was also every sense of the word while with the Wildcats.

Dobyns was a favorite target of quarterbacks Tom Tunnicliffe and Alfred Jenkins, especially over the middle of the field in traffic. Tunnicliffe and Jenkins knew that chances were if they threw in Dobyns’ direction, he had the hands and the toughness to secure the ball despite being defenseless against eager tacklers.

Dobyns also played hurt on many occasions. One time, after severely bruising a thigh, he was on crutches the day after the game. However the day after that, on Monday, he tried to jog off the pain. The coaches were amazed that Dobyns even tried to work his way back so fast. He was held out of the following week’s game as a precaution, much to his frustration.

“Jay was a leader on my teams,” the late Smith, Arizona’s coach from 1980-86, is quoted as saying on Dobyns’ Web site. “He is a leader in our community, and he was a one of those players that becomes special to a coach because he did everything asked of him to win.”

A Sahuaro High School grad, Dobyns played a year at Arkansas before transferring back to Tucson to play for his hometown team. He was a three-year starter. He became an All-Pac-10 honorable-mention selection in 1983 and 1984, and was named to the Arizona Daily Star’s All-Century team for Arizona as wide receiver in 1999.

In 1979 at Arizona Stadium, his spectacular touchdown catch in the back of the end zone, managing to keep his feet inbounds, proved to be the winning score against top-ranked UCLA.

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Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category

Don’t forget: For all the links, Twitter feeds and news feeds related to Arizona and its opponents, go to Morales’ site WILDABOUTAZCATS.NET. No other Arizona sports Web site is like it!

DEFENSE

No. 2: RICKY HUNLEY, linebacker (1980-1983)

Not too long after Ricky Hunley traveled west from Petersburg, Va., in 1980, he became the most talented and athletically gifted badass to play for the Wildcats.

As a freshman inside linebacker, Hunley recorded a team-high 14 tackles in the UA’s 23-17 win over No. 2 UCLA in Tucson. The previously unbeaten Bruins had a chance to be the top-ranked team in the country because No. 1 Alabama was upset earlier in the day.

Hunley sacked UCLA quarterback Tom Ramsey on key third-down plays in the third and fourth quarters to stave off the Bruins. Ramsey, rattled by Hunley and Arizona’s pressure, passed for only 58 yards in the second half.

He was one of 11 children who grew up in the Hunley household, which included younger brother Lamonte, who also became a standout linebacker with the Wildcats. Lamonte was only a year behind Ricky, so Arizona fans were treated to three seasons of the Hunley brothers wreaking havoc as on Pac-10 offenses.

When Arizona was ranked No. 3 by the Associated Press in 1983, Ricky’s senior season, Sports Illustrated described the brothers as, “Fire and Smoke, Mean and Nasty, Gotcha Now and Getcha Later.”

“I want to run through people,” Ricky told SI. “I want a hit you’ll hear for days. I dream, I mean dream, of hitting a wide receiver in midair. Something hellacious. If a team has no business on the field with us, I want to let ‘em know it.”

Oh, they knew about it, all too well.

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