ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥

The Sun Devils have held training camp at Camp Tontozona almost every year since 1959, but it’s not like the old days under Frank Kush when the Sun Devils would stay 11 to 14 days, practicing two and three times a day. Almost no college football team has two-a-day practices any more.

I bring this to your attention because it has now been 25 years since ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ last staged a week of football training at Camp Cochise, seven miles north of Douglas at Cochise College. The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ began Camp Cochise under coach Darrell Mudra in 1968 and, after a four-year hiatus under coach Tony Mason, 1977-80, made Camp Cochise home until Dick Tomey left Tucson in 2001. His successor, John Mackovic, terminated Camp Cochise by saying “I don’t believe isolation is necessary to build team chemistry and bonding.â€�

Mackovic was fired after 2½ seasons.

Since then UA coaches Mike Stoops and Rich Rodriguez sometimes staged two-day workouts at Fort Huachuca, but it wasn’t the same. Not even close.

Today, ASU is the only Power 4 conference team to hold an out-of-town camp. Smaller schools have also ended out-of-town camps. In recent years, UTEP ended its week-long camps held in Socorro and Ruidoso, New Mexico, for almost 20 years, and UNLV stopped making the annual trip to Ely, Nevada, to practice at 6,300-foot elevation at White Pine High School.

With no two-a-day practice sessions, coaches believe they can beat the heat, even in August. And it’s not like it’s getting cooler. The Oregon Ducks practiced in 101 degree heat on Aug. 10 and 104 on Aug. 11. Emerging Big 12 power Texas Tech worked out in temperatures of 100-plus from Aug. 5-10. ASU’s four-days in Payson included three days at 100 degrees.

But because almost every Power 4 school has an indoor training facility, the heat isn’t a factor like it was in the 1950s when ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ coach Bob Winslow took the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ to Sierra Vista for a week-long training camp. This month, UA stages morning practices from 9:50 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. at the Davis Sports Center. It takes every fourth day off. It also holds two practices a week under the lights at ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Stadium from 7:20-9:50 p.m.

It’s a cake schedule compared to UA football teams of the 1900s. Camp Cochise, which was usually 8 to 12 degrees cooler than Tucson during the Larry Smith and Tomey days — with far more monsoon activity and clouds — is no longer necessary.

Looking back, the 20 years I spent at Camp Cochise, lodging in the old Motel 6 in Douglas, were among the most memorable days of my career. Others from the Tucson and Phoenix media corps have told me the same thing. The nights in Bisbee, often spent sitting alongside UA assistant coaches at one of the many old-style saloons in Brewery Gulch, were can’t-miss sessions. Every year the media played an early-afternoon basketball game against UA coaches, including Tomey and Hall of Famer Jim Young, who played man-to-man defense like an NBA All-Star. The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ staged pool parties (no booze) at the Cochise College aquatic facility and got to know one another, rather than go their separate ways on the UA campus scene. Isolation worked.

Tomey’s enduring quote about Camp Cochise is: “This place is perfect. It’s so peaceful here. You can see stars and galaxies at night. I always look forward to the week here.�

The two most successful decades of football in ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ history were the 1980s and 1990s. The ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ were ranked in the AP’s Top 25 in 11 of those years and regularly contended for the Rose Bowl. Since shutting down its Camp Cochise excursions, the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ have been an also-ran, firing four coaches, watching attendance plunge, finishing in the AP Top 25 just twice.

Perhaps there’s a reason that the UA’s good, old football days at Camp Cochise were so successful.