As said in the popular Disney film “Lilo and Stitch,” “‘Ohana’ means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.”
Family could be blood-related or adoptive. For the Arizona Wildcats, “Ohana” is the roughly 100 players and dozens of staff members — and the strong ongoing Polynesian influence — that molds the UA football program.
The “Ohana” at Arizona has been the catalyst for the No. 21-ranked Wildcats’ expectations and Big 12 championship aspirations in the program’s first season in a new league under first-year head coach Brent Brennan.
The core of players who helped Arizona achieve its first 10-win campaign in nearly a decade and highest end-of-the-year ranking (11th) since 1998 had every chance to leave after their former leader Jedd Fisch became the head coach at Washington following three seasons in Tucson.
The magic behind Arizona’s historic season — the one that culminated in a win over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl — was in danger. The three-year rebuild from downtrodden team to a nationally relevant program was on the cusp of potentially collapse; the Wildcats faced two transfer portal periods, which gave a chance for supporters of other programs to wave their checkbooks and potentially poach Arizona’s star players.
