JAMES S. WOOD / ARIZONA DAILY STAR 2008

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Jim Napier was the Tucson Toros' starting catcher in the franchise's inaugural game played April 10, 1969, at Hi Corbett Field. He can still name the Game 1 lineup, player by player, and remembers that Tucson wasn't overly supportive.

A crowd of just 2,116 attended that long-ago game, about 5,000 shy of '69 capacity.

"This is just a big, old college town,'' he says now. "And many people consider it too hot for summer baseball. Those are two big obstacles.''

After a 28-year career in the minor leagues as a player and manager, Napier worked for the California Department of Corrections near Bakersfield, his native turf, and retired to Tucson in 2003.

Napier says he attends "one or two'' Sidewinders games a year and adds with a laugh, "I even have a lifetime pass that gets me two free tickets and free parking at any game, anywhere.''

Napier won't be in attendance when the Sidewinders close down Tucson's 40-year run in the Pacific Coast League on Monday at Tucson Electric Park.

"My church, the Central Church of the Nazarene, is taking about 30 people up to Phoenix to watch the Diamondbacks that day,'' Napier said. "Maybe that has been part of the problem with minor-league baseball in Tucson. The Diamondbacks have a large following and it has cut into the Sidewinders' attendance. And the Diamondbacks give you 50 percent off when you have a group of any size."

In effect, the Sidewinders have competed against the D-backs as much as the inherent variables of summer heat and the transient population demographic of Tucson.

Whatever the problem with the Toros/Sidewinders over 40 seasons, it will be interesting to see how many people care to attend Monday's final game. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter. It's over. Few tears will be shed.

On a September day in 2000, I happened to be taking the same Tucson-to-L.A. flight as UA softball coach Mike Candrea. I was bound for the Sydney Olympics. He was off to do some recruiting.

It was not much of a stretch to guess that Candrea would be asked to be the next Olympic coach.

"This job is full-time and then some," he said that day. "I don't know where I'd get the time to coach the national team, but I would love to have the opportunity to see if I could make it all work."

Oh, did he make it work.

Candrea last week announced he has left the USA softball Olympic program because, well, it no longer exists. He did so in the wake of the extreme disappointment of a silver medal performance in Beijing.

No one has put that loss to Japan in a better perspective than USA pitcher Jennie Finch, who wrote on her Web site last week that she recently remembered looking at Candrea at the 2004 gold medal ceremony in Greece. His wife, Sue, had died a month earlier. He was hugging his son and daughter.

"They were missing their mom and wife; this really put things in perspective for me," Finch wrote. "Life isn't about medals or what color medals, it is how you play the game of life."

The latest Dick Tomey pupil to follow the old coach and become a coach himself is 1997 UA All-Pac-10 defensive lineman Joe Salave'a. In fact, Salave'a has become the defensive line coach for Tomey at San Jose State. At 33, Salave'a might qualify to be the next on Arizona Stadium's Wall of Fame. He played eight full NFL seasons and parts of two others. The UA mandates that its former football players play 10 NFL seasons to qualify. … I long assumed that the personable Ted Kissell, who coached Tucson High School to a pair of state tennis championships and later became an assistant athletic director at the UA, would be a candidate to be Arizona's next athletic director. But Kissell, 62, announced last week he is retiring after 17 years as Dayton's athletic director. He had a good run in Dayton, raising the annual athletic revenues from $3 million to $13 million. … UA women's basketball coach Niya Butts is playing host to her first potential high school recruit here this weekend. The Georgia-born, Tennessee-bred Butts is recruiting heavily in California and learning the landscape as she goes. "I always make sure my rental cars have the 'never-lost' computer," she said with a laugh. "You can get lost in California in a hurry."

One of the few cheering for the Idaho Vandals on Saturday was Sam Merriman, a standout linebacker for Vern Friedli at Amphitheater High School in the late 1970s. Merriman played at Idaho from 1980-82 and set a school record for tackles, 519, that still exists. He later played five years for the Seattle Seahawks. Sam's grandfather, Harry Wheeler, was the last captain of the Arizona Rangers. His late father, Jack, owned an automotive repair business on Irvington Road for about 50 years. …A few weeks after shoulder surgery, former PGA Southwest Section chapter champion Wade Dunagan shot a spectacular eight-under par 64 in the outright section championship at Oro Valley Country Club. He finished fourth. Typically modest, the former UA golfer and director of golf at TPC Sawgrass said, "I didn't mean to." Dunagan is in his first year as executive director of the WGC-Accenture Match Play championships in Marana. … Good to see former Sabino High right-hander John Bannister pitching effectively again. After missing the '07 season with Tommy John surgery, Bannister is with the Texas Rangers' Class AA affiliate in Frisco, Texas. Last week he was assigned to the Arizona Fall League, which is typically reserved for players considered leading prospects. Former UA standouts Jason Donald and Bill Rinehart also will play in the Fall League.

In his first year out of football in almost 15 years, former Sabino High School defensive back Quinn Gooch of BYU is busy with, what else, football. He is post-game radio analyst on BYU games and also writes an insightful blog at deepshadesofblue.com. A knee injury late in the '07 season cost Gooch a shot at the NFL. … New Pima College basketball coach Karl Pieroway has completed his roster, including two recruiting coups: former Rincon guard Terrance Hill and ex-Sierra Vista Buena shooter Shannon Doctor, who started at Western New Mexico in 2006-07. It is a promising start. … Arizona Icecats hockey coach Leo Golembiewski begins his 30th season when practice opens this week at the Tucson Arena. More than 70 players turned out for the Icecats' first official meeting last week, which included players from 16 states. Golembiewski's 30th season begins Oct. 10 in a Philadelphia tournament. … Former UA and CDO baseball slugger C.J. Ziegler is leading the Arizona Rookie League in RBIs on the final weekend of the regular season. Ziegler is hitting .268 with seven home runs and 43 RBIs.

Salpointe Catholic grad Tyler Graunke, a senior quarterback at Hawaii, returned to practice last week but did not accompany Hawaii to Saturday's blowout loss at Florida. Graunke missed the first three weeks of training camp while completing academic work. … Desert View High School grad A.J. Willis had a nice debut in college football Thursday. He rushed for 54 yards and scored a touchdown as Fort Hays (Kansas) State routed New Mexico Highlands 44-0. … Do not look for ex-Marana QB Robert Rowe in the lineup at UNLV this year. Rowe is "grayshirting'' for the Rebels, which means he is not participating in football until the winter semester, thereby preserving a year of eligibility. … Matt Lohmeier, one of the top players of the Dick McConnell basketball years at Sahuaro, accepted a basketball scholarship at Air Force and then decided to concentrate on academics and real life. That decision has turned out productive. Lohmeier, 26, completed an LDS church mission and graduated from the Academy. He is now stationed at Vance AFB in Oklahoma and recently finished pilot training. His first assignment is to be an instructor pilot.

Since returning to power, Lute Olson has lost three elite-level players — Brandon Jennings, Emanuel Negedu and Jerryd Bayless — and added three relatively obscure replacements.

Since 1985, players with low national rankings such as new Wildcat guards Kyle Fogg and Garland Judkins and last week's addition, Tucson power forward Darnell Shumpert, would likely have not been recruited by Arizona or by any Top 25 program.

More puzzling, last week the UA gave a scholarship to a Texas point guard, Reger Dowell, who is similarly unheralded.

Perhaps the new foursome will be late bloomers. Perhaps Olson can rediscover the coaching touch that helped him do so well from 1985 to 2005 and win with this rare type of Arizona scholarship player: those available far after the fall and spring signing dates.

For 20 years, the four latest Wildcats would have been regarded as practice fodder and roster fillers. Now it is hoped they can help the Wildcats avoid another second-division finish in the Pac-10.

Two questions: Have the Wildcats done anything to cut into the gap between them and UCLA and those in the Top 25? Is the future for UA hoops suddenly promising?

Stay tuned.