Softball
Longtime assistant coach Larry Ray announced his retirement Tuesday after 21 seasons at the UA.
Ray, 62, wasn’t with the team for the final three weeks of the season after his April 29 arrest on domestic violence charges.
“I’m proud of my contributions to the University of Arizona softball program for 21 years, and all the experiences and challenges have prepared me well for my next coaching endeavor,” Ray said in a statement.
Ray assumed head coaching duties in 2004 and 2008 while head coach Mike Candrea coached Team USA in the Olympics.
“Larry Ray has given our softball program and the University of Arizona many great years of service and commitment,” Candrea said in a statement.
Ray came with Candrea to the UA before the 1986 season, but left the school after the 1995 season to become the first head coach at the University of Florida. Ray returned to Arizona in 2002.
— Alex Williams
Women’s basketball
Former UA star and assistant coach Sue Darling has been hired as the head coach at NAU, the school announced Monday.
Darling is the second assistant coach on head coach Niya Butts’ staff to earn a head coaching job after Chance Lindley was hired at the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2011.
This is Darling’s second head coaching stint after holding the head job at Air Force from 1998-2001. She had coached at the UA since 2008 as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator and directing player development.
“We are extremely happy for Coach Darling,” Arizona head coach Niya Butts said. “I think she will do a great job at NAU.
Certainly we will miss her, but understand she is ready to start her own program over there.
— Alex Williams
Football
Arizona added a quarterback to its previously thin depth chart Sunday, as Tommy Woodson of Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pa., verbally committed to the Wildcats.
Last season, Woodson threw for 1,177 yards and 11 scores. He carried 43 times for 160 yards and two scores in a spread offense, similar to what Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez utilizes.
“They were the first to give me a chance,” Woodson told the Pittsburgh Review-Tribune. “It was just the feeling I have about Arizona and the coaching staff.”
Arizona was the first school from a BCS conference to offer Woodson a scholarship. Woodson is the second quarterback to commit to the Wildcats for the 2013 class, joining Anu Solomon from Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas, who committed last month.
Solomon passed for 3,059 yards and 43 touchdowns, with just three interceptions last season, and rushed for another 402 yards and six scores.
— Cameron Moon
