As a junior last season, CDO's Kenzie Fowler won the Gatorade National Player of the Year award. She is a senior this season, and has committed to the UA.

JIM DAVIS / ARIZONA DAILY STAR 2008

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For college sports recruiters, Tucson's class of 2009 might be as skilled as it has ever been. Canyon del Oro softball pitcher/hitter Kenzie Fowler is viewed by some as the nation's top player. You could make a strong case that Sahuaro breast stroker Caitlin Leverenz is the nation's leading high school swimmer.

Given that, here is one man's list of the 10 Tucson-area athletes who will be most coveted by Division I recruiters in the 2008-09 school year.

1. Fowler. Already the Gatorade national player of the year as a junior, bound for Arizona.

2. Leverenz. It's likely Stanford and USC, Pac-10 schools with a history of star breast strokers, will be the finalists for her signature.

3. Adam Hall. The Palo Verde defensive back/receiver has already been offered scholarships by Arizona and USC. His athletic skills are remarkable; Hall was the state runner-up in the triple jump and a starter on the Titans basketball team.

4. Herbie Behm. If all goes according to form, the Catalina Foothills swimmer will be among the 10 or 15 most-sought male swimmers in the class of '09 and one of the leading freestyle sprinters in the country.

5. Pat Tunnell. The volleyball setter at Salpointe could be the leading volleyball player in Tucson in more than a decade.

6. Jake Fischer. A linebacker from Ironwood Ridge, Fischer reminds some of former UA All-Pac-10 linebacker Marcus Bell. In his last two years, he has 265 tackles and surpassed 100 as a freshman in 2005.

7. Colin Anderson. He is being pursued by soccer heavyweight Portland. The Rincon midfielder scored 15 goals and had 17 assists as a junior on the 5A-II state runner-up team.

8. Michael D'Arrigo. The star goalkeeper for the state championship Catalina Foothills boys soccer team was one of 134 high school players at the Olympic National Development Camp last winter.

9. Katie Asher. She has committed to Oklahoma State. The CDO third baseman hit .477 in a state championship season and was named a NFCA/Louisville Slugger second-team All-American.

10. Ryan Retz. With 10 homers and a .475 batting average as a junior, the CDO outfielder/pitcher seems to be the next in the dazzling line of Dorado baseball standouts.

Arizona Wildcats assistant head football coach Tim Kish is the son of a distinguished coach. His father, Mike Kish, not only coached ex-UA head coach Jim Young at Van Wert (Ohio) High School but also Jack Nicklaus at Upper Arlington High School in Columbus, Ohio.

When Nicklaus came to Tucson a year ago to continue work on the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, site of the 2009 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championships, he invited Tim Kish to join him.

"All he wanted to do was talk about my dad and how much he meant to him,'' the UA linebackers coach said. "Most people don't remember that Jack was a very good high school basketball player. He averaged about 20 points a game for my dad's team that went 22-1 when Jack was a senior (in 1958).''

A World War II naval veteran, Mike Kish died last September. He was 86. He completed his remarkable career as a coach and administrator at Otterbein College in Ohio.

Former Sahuaro High School and Pima College all-conference infielder Jared McDonald was the offensive star of the ACCAC season, hitting .467 with 11 home runs. He signed a letter of intent with Michigan State. But after MSU coach David Skewe left the Spartans in June, McDonald asked for and was granted a release. A week ago, he was set to sign with Top 25 powerhouse Wichita State or North Carolina State, but at the last minute ASU's Pat Murphy offered a scholarship and McDonald will now play for the Sun Devils, probably as a second baseman. McDonald's negotiations with the Cubs, who drafted him in June, also broke down. … Former UA pitcher Eric Berger won't be pitching in the New York-Penn League All-Star Game this week. The lefty instead was promoted to the Class A South Atlantic League (a Cleveland affiliate) last week after producing a 2.12 ERA in eight Class A Short Season league starts. But his UA teammate, former CDO outfielder T.J. Steele will be in the All-Star game Tuesday. Steele is hitting .283 in his first summer of pro ball for Tri-City (N.Y.), an Astros affiliate. … Best off-field story of the week from the Beijing Olympics. While watching swimming action at the "Cube,'' former UA All-American Lacey Nymeyer was sitting in an area in which most of the NBA Olympic basketball players sat. One of them sat immediately next to her. She didn't know who he was, so she took a picture and later asked someone to identify the mystery basketball player. It was LeBron James. When you are a 3.75 GPA student and training for the Olympics, you don't watch much NBA. … UA men's golf coach Rick LaRose suffered a major personnel injury last week. His 10-year assistant, Jon Knauer, left Tucson to become head golf coach at Texas-San Antonio. In 2006, Knauer was named the NCAA assistant golf coach of the year. … Lute Olson's home basketball schedule for the preseason NIT is now definite. Arizona will play host to Florida Atlantic in the Nov. 17 opener. A day later, it will play the winner of the UAB-Santa Clara game.

Don't expect either of Arizona's first two football games, Aug. 30 against Idaho and Sept. 6 against Toledo, to be televised. With season tickets sales down about 13 percent from 2007, the UA is hopeful more fans will buy walk-up tickets if neither of those games is televised. Currently, the only Tucson game scheduled for Fox Sports Net Arizona is the Oct. 18 Cal at Arizona game. … With such a light schedule, UA football and basketball TV play-by-play man Dave Sitton has been hired by ESPN to broadcast next Sunday's rugby showdown between Team USA and Munster, the European champion from Cork, Ireland. ESPN Classic will air the game at noon (Tucson time) from Hartford, Conn. Sitton has been the TV voice of USA Rugby since 1981. … Former UA track and field coach Dave Murray received the long-deserved notice last week he will be inducted into the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame. Murray, retired and living in Tucson and coaching Olympic 10,000-meter runner Abdi Abdirahman, will be honored Dec. 17 in Phoenix. He was Pac-10 cross country coach of the year eight times, and his list of distance runners in the UA sports Hall of Fame is amazing: Thom Hunt, Joan Hanson, Aaron Ramirez, Matt Giusto, Marc Davis, Brenda Sleeuwenhoek, Amy Skieresz, Martin Keino and Abdirahman. Since he retired, the UA distance program has struggled mightily. … UA senior swimmer Jean Basson had a better Olympic performance than any of his fellow South Africans who won the 2004 Athens Olympic gold medal in the 4x100 relay. Basson was fourth in the 200 freestyle, finishing .83 of a second from a bronze medal. He projects as a leading contender for NCAA men's swimmer of the year in 2009, along with the UA's Canadian Olympian, Joel Greenshields, who was similarly outstanding in Beijing.

UA baseball coach Andy Lopez was at work early Saturday. "I have to set up a pitching rotation for the fall," he told the Star's Ryan Finley.

Ace Preston Guilmet and third baseman Brad Glenn will return for their senior seasons after failing to come to terms with the Oakland Athletics by Friday's deadline. Guilmet undoubtedly will anchor the Arizona Wildcats' young pitching rotation, while Glenn — a power-hitting corner infielder — will hit in the middle of the order.

"What a shot in the arm for our team," Lopez said. "I never thought we'd get them back."

The A's took Glenn, a designated hitter/third baseman, in the 17th round of June's amateur draft; Guilmet was selected five rounds later. Lopez said bad luck kept both of them from being taken higher: Glenn struggled early in the 2008 season, and Guilmet faded toward the end after developing a "dead arm."

"In a twisted way, we may have caught a break with that," he said.

With Guilmet and Glenn, the Wildcats again figure to be an NCAA tournament contender. On form, junior pitcher Jason Stoffel and Guilmet could form the Pac-10's top 1-2 pitching punch.

When UA football coach Mike Stoops says his club's 72-hour experience at Fort Huachuca "exceeded expectations,'' he was being modest.

Everything about the Cochise County visit was superb: the first-class turf facilities, the dorms, the delightfully cool weather, the feeling of being welcome and the overall cleanliness and positive vibes of Fort Huachuca.

What's more, the UA did not have to pay for its lodging or to use the field. It paid incidental costs for cleanup and for its meals, and for the buses necessary to take 125 people out of town. But it would have had to pay for meals and buses in Tucson anyway.

Former UA football coaches Larry Smith and Dick Tomey often remarked how much they enjoyed the bonding at Camp Cochise, the weeklong football retreat seven miles from the Mexican border near Douglas.

Camp Huachuca was better in every aspect. Expect Stoops to possibly extend to five days the UA's camp at Fort Huachuca next August.