Room 249-D at McKale Center has no windows and therefore no view, but for 30 years it has been home to three of the most visionary figures in UA history: football coaches Larry Smith and Dick Tomey, and Hall of Fame golf coach Rick LaRose.
Smith departed in 1986, Tomey left in 2000 and a few months ago LaRose took one last look at 249-D and shut out the lights.
Quietly, when McKale Center was all but deserted over the Fourth of July, 31-year-old Jim Anderson put a key in the door and took up residence in the historic place.
"No one needs to tell me how much work I've got to do and no one's going to outwork me," he says now. "I'm not a guy who's going to spend much time at a desk."
Anderson is one of two new head coaches at Arizona in 2012-13; the other, Rich Rodriguez, pledges to change the culture of UA football. Anderson isn't quite as dramatic.
When he arrives at work via National Championship Drive, he can't help but see the 1992 NCAA championship banner.
"The tradition here is powerful," he says. "I get the message."
When LaRose's '92 team won the NCAA title, keyed by U.S. Amateur finalist Manny Zerman and future PGA Tour heavyweight Jim Furyk, it looked to be the first of many.
And although UA men's golf remained prominent for another 15 years, college golf became so strong at the top - who isn't good these days? - that the handoff from LaRose to Anderson was a bit awkward.
Anderson inherited a team ranked No. 61 nationally, a franchise ranked behind such undistinguished golf schools as North Texas and Tennessee-Chattanooga.
But Arizona's reputation remains fixed at the elite level.
"We didn't even advertise for an assistant coach but we got more than 35 applications, most from top-level people," says Anderson, who was voted the NCAA's 2012 assistant golf coach of the year at Texas A&M. "That tells me our name still registers."
In attempt to replace LaRose (whose teams finished No. 3 nationally in 2000, 2001 and 2004), UA athletic director Greg Byrne had a uniquely qualified search committee, both formal and informal.
His father, former Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne, introduced the two at his father's retirement press conference in Texas. If you can't trust a father's recommendation, what can you trust?
Moreover, former Oregon State and Arkansas golf coach Mike Ketcham is Arizona's associate AD for major gifts. Ketcham keyed the coaching search and when he also recommended Anderson, it didn't take long to finish the deal.
"Mike told me they'd get back to me in 24 hours," Anderson says with a smile. "I didn't take my hand off the phone the next day."
Restoring Arizona as a national golf power won't be any easier for Anderson than it will be for RichRod to get Arizona's football program back in the bowl business. The NCAA allows men's golf a mere 4.5 scholarships per school. Not only must you work tirelessly, your evaluation skills must be unerring.
"College golf has changed dramatically," says Ketcham. "When Mike Holder was the dean of the nation's golf coaches at Oklahoma State, he told me he had gone to the U.S. Junior nationals in the mid '80s to recruit and there were only two or three other coaches there.
"In my last year as a coach, at Arkansas in 2006, I went to the U.S. Junior and there were more coaches than players. It's a global game. ... Everybody has good players. He'll get them for us."
For example, Anderson took a recruiting trip to Europe for boys championships.
Anderson grew up the son of a South Dakota golf pro. He had modest golf skills but a healthy desire to excel. At every important turn, he has turned a bad situation in to a good one.
He was a walk-on at New Mexico who bit by bit became a lineup regular and, later, the Lobos' assistant coach. While at UNM, Anderson met Lobos softball player Nita Gonzales and he says now, smiling at the memory, liked her more than she seemed to like him.
"Nita transferred to play at Colorado, near her hometown," he says. "I helped her move after I graduated, on the way to South Dakota for the summer, but I still didn't think she was interested. Ultimately, I moved to Boulder, got a job in a restaurant and stuck with it. Finally, we clicked. I don't quit easily."
Now, Jim and Nita Anderson have a 7-month-old daughter, Jolee.
It's that kind of determination that should serve Arizona well as it prepares to open the season Sept. 10 at the Itani Collegiate in Pullman, Wash. It'll be the first time since 1979 that someone other than Rick LaRose has coached the Wildcats.
"What I like about Jim is that he has a humility about him; he's passionate but he's also a listener," says Byrne. "He's not afraid to take on this challenge. He knows that we should be good. "
Inside room 249-D, the climb back to the top begins now.
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