The truth, the whole truth, half-truths, shades of the truth and other items admissible as sports news:
• The only thing Mike Stoops lost in the 2010 football season was his contract leverage. Had the Wildcats beaten USC and ASU, winning nine games, he surely would've forced director of athletics Greg Byrne to re-do his contract with some significant financial increases. Now it becomes a very public waiting game.
• Has anyone in college sports, now or ever, received more attention, publicity and praise for a team that went 15-25 when he played than Washington quarterback Jake Locker? Just asking.
• The three most potentially troublesome issues of Tucson's 2011 sports calendar:
1. Will UA sophomore pitcher Kenzie Fowler be able to regain her speed and command after being targeted for illegal pitches at the 2010 Women's College World Series? Odds: 75 to 25, positive, that she'll be pitching for the national title again in Oklahoma City.
2. Will CDO tailback Ka'Deem Carey choose to play at Arizona, or at a rival such as USC or ASU? Prediction: I've got a not-so-good feeling about Carey, who had a series of discipline issues at CDO and has not yet qualified academically to play in the Pac-12. If he ever becomes a Pac-12 starter I'll be the first to congratulate him, but also the first to admit surprise.
3. Will the UA athletic department plunge into the red after a home football season that includes two probable and unattractive Thursday night games (UCLA, NAU), a late-season date with not-so-powerful Utah and a dreadfully conceived Thanksgiving weekend game against Louisiana-Lafayette? Comment: Fewer people will attend the Louisiana-Lafayette game than at anytime at Arizona Stadium since 1967.
• Here's proof of the recuperative powers of life:
On Jan. 1, 2011, Lute Olson was pictured by ESPN at halftime of the Rose Bowl game, sitting in an aisle seat, row 5, at the 50-yard line. Resplendent in a TCU-tinted blazer, Olson looked like some sort of well-preserved movie star.
Ten years to the day earlier, on Jan. 1, 2001, Olson's first wife, Bobbi, died of cancer.
• I walked off the field at the Alamo Bowl, by chance, directly behind Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen and UA offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh. The two ex-Iowa Wesleyan teammates chatted all the way to the locker room area.
I thought then: Bedenbaugh is gone; he'll almost surely join Holgorsen's West Virginia staff. In 2012, after Holgorsen serves a year as head coach-in-waiting, he becomes the Mountaineers' top man. Bedenbaugh, who won't have play-calling duties there, becomes a comfy fit as offensive coordinator.
The loss of Bedenbaugh is twofold: He was probably Arizona's most diligent recruiter, dogged, and he is an offensive line coach of NFL quality. Bedenbaugh told me in August that the UA's four redshirting linemen were a more potentially capable group than any he had ever coached.
At least he won't leave the cupboard bare.
• In the Pac-10 years, Stoops has become the seventh coach to spend at least seven seasons after inheriting a foundering program. He is 40-45. Here's how he stacks up to the others at the seven-year point:
All of the coaches except Tedford coached in the Rose Bowl at some point, and all of them had seasons in which they won at least 10 games.
The point seems to be that if you can survive seven seasons, good things will follow. Price finished his eighth season with four consecutive losses, 5-6 overall, and barely avoided being fired. A year later the Cougars were in the Rose Bowl.
• In a game given to excess, TCU's perfect 13-0 season was understated and embraceable. Ordinarily, the Horned Frogs would inspire a series of copycats - perhaps the Oregon Ducks could add a hint of purple into one of their uniform combinations - but that's not going to happen.
Coach Gary Patterson didn't outspend anybody. The Horned Frogs coaching staff is proof you don't need to pay $600,000 a year to a celebrity coordinator such as the overrated Norm Chow at UCLA and Nick Holt at Washington.
In their last jobs before they arrived at TCU, the nine Horned Frogs assistants coached at: Western Michigan, SMU, Illinois State, Baylor, Southwest Texas State, Wake Forest and McKinney (Texas) High School. Two of them have not coached anywhere except TCU.
• The Oregon Ducks will play their first basketball game at Matthew Knight Arena on Jan. 13. Typical of the Ducks, they aren't going to be predictable. The court surface at the $220 million arena is covered with paintings of green pine trees.
Let's hope this is the first and only one of its kind in college hoops. Let's hope that Arizona doesn't soon adorn McKale Center's surface with paintings of towering green saguaros or that Washington doesn't paint huge cloud formations on the floor at Bank of America Arena.
Contact columnist Greg Hansen at ghansen@azstarnet.com or 573-4362.
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