Lute Olson is synonymous with Arizona men’s basketball. Before he arrived from Iowa in 1983, the program was a doormat and had no national following, but within a few seasons he had the Wildcats in the Final Four and turned them into one of the sport’s perennial powers.
A lot of people in Tucson got to know Olson over the years, but maybe none as well as longtime local sportswriter Steve Rivera. He began covering Olson’s teams back at the Tucson Citizen, traveling with them to all three Final Fours including the 1997 national championship, and the two remained friends after Olson retired in 2008.