It’s crazy to think how a person you never met could have a huge influence on your life.

It’s spring of 1988 and I’m a high school sophomore. It’s just about that time for me to begin thinking of where I might want to apply to college.

I knew I really didn’t want to go to UW (ironic since I ended up teaching there later), and WSU seemed really really really cold. Since I had grown up in New Orleans, schools in the south seemed like a reasonable option.

Somehow I got tickets to the NCAA Sweet 16 weekend in the Kingdome. My friends and I went to the games, and this school I had never really heard of was clearly the class of the group. Steve Kerr was lighting up threes. Sean Elliott was doing whatever he felt like doing. And leading the whole charge was this older gentleman with white hair named Lute Olson.

I don’t know what it was about that Arizona basketball team that made me look into the school as an option. Why would a New Orleans kid living in the Pacific Northwest want to move to the desert? But something took Arizona from obscurity to a front runner, and it all started with that basketball team. And years and years later, the friends I made there are people I still talk to almost daily.

So RIP Lute Olson. You personally had nothing to do with my life decisions, yet somehow the success of your team got me interested in the school I ended up attending and resulted in me meeting people I ended up having lifelong relationships with. Thank you.