I don’t have to tell you how important you are to our football team this week when we take on Utah, Saturday at 7:00. We need you LOUD as we open Pac-12 play, and remember to wear GOLD!  Ticket sales have already surpassed the Illinois game and are heading higher. As I mentioned last week we have successfully reached out to our 73,373 students on campus for record-breaking a ticket numbers, so all kinds of good Sun Devil things going on around campus. See you in the Arena for the Devil Walk at 4:30 this week and remember we are honoring eight great Sun Devils who are set to enter our Sun Devil Hall of Fame. If you can’t make it to the game it will broadcast on the Pac-12 Network which you can see if you have providers like Cox, Comcast, Time Warner or Dish, but unfortunately, not DirectTV or Charter. If you’re not getting Pac-12 Network and you’d like to see all the great Pac-12 programming call your provider. 

Breaking Baseball News
The road to Omaha begins on Feb. 15 at Packard Stadium. Coach Esmay’s team plays 22 games against teams that advanced to the 2012 NCAA Tournament. Quality road trips include three games vs. Tennessee (Feb. 22-24) and Wichita State (April 2-3). The Coca-Cola Classic at Surprise Stadium is Feb. 28-March 3 as a host of quality teams roll into town, including 2012 CWS participant Arkansas and Oklahoma State. Season tickets are on sale now; call 480-727-0000. Please join me in congratulating Sun Devil baseball staff member Armando Flores, who received The Victoria Foundation’s Edith Sayre Auslander, Outstanding Support of Hispanic Issues in Higher Education Award, earlier this month. Armando has been with us for six years and we feel lucky to have such an important member of the Phoenix community representing the Maroon & Gold.

Super Smart Sun Devils
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State, is one of the best in the land. 50% of Barrett students turned down Ivy League schools. In our words these are first-team classroom All-Americans. Guess how many Sun Devil student-athletes are part of the prestigious program? If you said nearly 40 you are correct.  Click here to read about our top student-athletes and the tremendous opportunities that exist at Barrett. Don’t forget, ASU has the second most number of Academic All-Americans in the Pac-12 over the last 10 years.

Wrestling’s Got It Going On
A lot of great events and notable happenings going on with wrestling. A big thrill for me is that 2013 NFL Hall of Fame nominee Curley Culp will return to the Valley for the program’s golf outing on Oct. 5 at the Legacy.  Curley remains one of my favorites dating to his Houston Oiler days. We added Sun Devil Aaron Simpson to our staff  and I’m jealous because he has more than 19,000 Twitter followers due to his UFC success. I hope he starts retweeting some of my material. Coach Charles also added Lee Pritts to his staff. Keep in mind this date as well: Oklahoma State comes to Tempe on Jan. 27, 2013. We plan to see you at Wells Fargo Arena real close to the mat.

How Do Swimmers Get In Shape?
The Sun Devil swimming and diving teams get into shape by spending a lot of time out of the pool. Check out this video of their dry land training. After watching it you will see why the women placed 12th at the NCAAs last year, their best finish in seven years.

Sun Devil Three Dot Data
Coach Graham and Coach Mickelson are on the cover of a local golf magazine… the football game at California next weekend (Sept. 29) will be televised by FX and kick at 1 p.m. … Congrats to Melissa Luellen and the women’s golf team for winning the Dale McNamara Invitational earlier this week. The tournament is named after Melissa’s mother who was the golf coach at host team Tulsa for many years. … Coach Jason Watson’s volleyball squad gets a Sun Devil shout out for Gilbert High School product, Macey Gardner, who is the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week… Don’t forget Pat’s Run is set for April 20, 2013… Here is the weekly video interview with Coach Graham and Tim Healey… If you are picking up tickets at will call on Saturday, remember you can print your tickets from home or park at Sun Devil Stadium early in the day. Veteran’s Way is open until 2PM, so if you want to pick up tickets at will call drive and park in front of the ticket office and avoid the long line…

We look forward to seeing you Saturday in GOLD at the Devil Walk and in Sun Devil Stadium! This is our last home game for nearly a month so make a lot of noise.

Go Devils!

Vice President for University Athletics