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USA250: 10 greatest college athletes from Arizona - This list highlights the top 10 collegiate athletes from Arizona and Arizona State universities.
- The athletes represent a wide variety of sports, including football, basketball, golf, baseball, softball, and wrestling.
- Notable names on the list include Phil Mickelson, Barry Bonds, Tedy Bruschi, and Jennie Finch.
Some of the greatest athletes in modern sports history began their dominance in Arizona.
So it shouldn't be surprising that many of those athletes including Phil Mickelson, Barry Bonds, Tedy Bruschi and more were equally dominant in college.
Hence, their inclusion on this list: the top 10 collegiate athletes in Arizona state history.
It's a listing that, despite including only entrants from Arizona and Arizona State, features a wide variety of sports, including football, basketball, men's golf, baseball, softball and wrestling.
PROGRAM RANKINGS: Top 25 | Big Ten | SEC | ACC | Big 12 So, who all has made the list? Here's a look at the top 10 greatest college athletes in Arizona state history, part of USA TODAY Sports' USA 250 initiative: Barry Bonds, Arizona State Bonds was a three-year standout at Arizona State, where fellow Baseball Hall of Fame member and distant cousin Reggie Jackson once played.
Despite being disliked by teammates, his talent was undeniable (as evidenced by coach Jim Brock overriding a near-unanimous vote to kick him off the team for breaking curfew): He ranks third in school history with 45 home runs and among the top 10 in hits (247), slugging percentage (.616) and total bases (438).
A 1985 All-America selection, Bonds was also part of Sun Devils teams that made the College World Series in 1983 and 1984.
In his latter trip to Omaha, Bonds tied the NCAA record with seven consecutive hits, eventually being named to the all-time CWS team in 1996.
Phil Mickelson, Arizona State Before he was one of the best golfers in the world, Phil Mickelson was the face of amateur golf in the United States, dominating the college ranks from 1989-92.
A 16-time tournament winner, Mickelson was a four-time first-team All-America selection, the first amateur golfer to win consecutive NCAA titles since Southern California's Scott Simpson in 1976-77 and, with his third consecutive individual title in 1992, tied Texas' Ben Crenshaw for the most individual titles in NCAA history.
A three-time winner of the Haskins Award and Nicklaus Award, Mickelson also helped lead the Sun Devils to their first men's golf title in 1990.
Perhaps his greatest amateur achievement was winning the Northern Telcom Open in Tucson, Arizona, in January 1991, making him just the sixth amateur to win on the PGA Tour.
Terrell Suggs, Arizona State Terrell Suggs' talent was evident from the moment he stepped foot at Arizona State in 2000, when he became only the second true freshman in school history to start a season opener.
In just two seasons, he already ranked in the Sun Devils' top 10 with 34 tackles for loss and 20 sacks.
Suggs raised the bar for all future pass-rushers in 2002, setting the official NCAA single-season record with 24 sacks and notching a nation-leading 3112 tackles for loss, earning unanimous All-America honors and the Bronko Nagurski, Lombardi and Ted Hendricks awards He finished his career with 163 tackles, 44 sacks, 6512 tackles for loss, 14 forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, two interceptions and nine passes deflected.
Tedy Bruschi, Arizona A member of Arizona's famed "Desert Swarm" defense, Bruschi became one of the great pass-rushers of the game playing for the Wildcats from 1992-95.
Bruschi's impact on Arizona can't be overstated: As a sophomore in 1993, he led the Pac-10 with 19 sacks in the first 10-win season in Wildcats history.
He then followed that up with a consensus All-America season in 1994, a year in which he led the team with four interceptions.
Bruschi became a unanimous All-America selection in 1995, a year in which he saved his best performance for his final game, taking part in four sacks to tie Alabama's Derrick Thomas with 52 career sacks.
Bruschi's career tackles for loss and sacks cost opponents four-and-a-half football fields worth of yardage: 454 yards.
Jake Plummer, Arizona State A four-year starter, Jake Plummer's Arizona State's career is more memorable for the heights he helped lead the Sun Devils to than statistical dominance (though he did leave school with several school records).
Plummer had a spectacular 1996 season in which he finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting and led Arizona State to the best season in program history: an 11-1 record, Pac-10 championship and Rose Bowl berth (where a 20-17 loss to Ohio State likely kept the Sun Devils from claiming their first national title).
Among the Sun Devils' victims that season was top-ranked Nebraska, whom Plummer led a 19-0 upset against to snap the Cornhuskers' 26-game win streak.
Rob Waldrop, Arizona Rob Waldrop was so good at Arizona that, on a 1993 team that featured a fellow future College Football Hall of Famer in Bruschi and his 19 sacks, Waldrop still was the clear best player on Arizona's defense.
That year, Waldrop was the cornerstone of an Arizona defense that allowed a Pac 10-record 30.1 rushing yards per game.
That year, he claimed the Outland, Nagurski and Bednarik trophies while claiming the UPI Lineman of the Year.
A consensus All-American in 1992 and unanimous All-American in 1993, Waldrop ended his career with 171 tackles, 2212sacks and 45 tackles for loss.
Dan St.
John, Arizona State Among Arizona State wrestling legends, Dan St.
John stands out as the program's all-time record holder in wins (147), dual wins (71) and single-season wins (45).
His storied career saw him amass a 147-17-3 record over four seasons (including 40-plus wins every year from 1988-90), a span in which he was a three-time All-American.
He is the first Sun Devils wrestler to win consecutive NCAA championships, doing so at 158 pounds in 1989 and again at 167 pounds in 1990.
Jennie Finch, Arizona During her four-year career at Arizona, Jennie Finch became one of the most dominant pitchers in NCAA softball history, dominating her way to more accolades than can easily be counted.
She left the Wildcats in 2002 after winning her second consecutive Honda Sports Award as the top softball player in the country, leading Arizona in career strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched and tied for no-hitters (eight).
She also finished in the top 10 in home runs, RBIs and walks.
Other accolades for Finch include an NCAA-record 60 consecutive victories over three seasons and four trips in a row to the Women's College World Series, where she amassed a 7-2 record and a 1-0 shutout vs.
UCLA in the 2001 championship game to lead Arizona to its sixth program title.
Laura Espinoza, Arizona College softball fans heard Laura Espinoza's name a-plenty in the leadup to the 2026 postseason and Women's College World Series, as Oklahoma's Kendall Wells and UCLA's Megan Grant approached her NCAA-record 37 single-season home runs.
They finally eclipsed her seemingly impassable mark in, but only after she enjoyed the record for 31 years.
Espinoza's mark of 85 career home runs, an Arizona record when she left after the 1995 season, has since been passed over by several Wildcats.
But there's something to be said about being among the nation's first sluggers with the advent of the NCAA's now-iconic fluorescent yellow softball.
Sean Elliott, Arizona A Tucson native, Sean Elliott emerged from his four-year career at Arizona as the greatest Wildcats men's basketball player of all time.
He followed up a Pac-10 Freshman of the Year campaign in 1985-86 with consensus All-America seasons as a junior and senior, the latter of which saw him earn the Wooden Award, in which he averaged 22.3 points per season.
Elliott never averaged fewer than 15.6 points per game in Tucson, and scored 19.2 ppg for a career, breaking Lew Alcindor's (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's) Pac-10 scoring record.
He was also a key member of the 1987-88 Wildcats team that made the program's first-ever NCAA Final Four appearance.