UA Football Stadium
Apr 25, 2019 7:00 AM
Offsite Visit
UA Football Stadium

Chuck Cecil and Richard Marnell re: UA Football Program

7AM - We will meet in the Lohse Room at McKale Center. From the ticket office on the south side of McKale, enter the glass doors on the left.  Go to the elevator and go up to the 3rd floor.  The Lohse Room will be on the left as you leave the elevator.  Food will be provided. 

Our speaker at McKale will be Chuck Cecil, former UA football player and Senior Defensive Analyst for UA Football.  After a short talk at McKale, we will have a tour of the football facilities.

You may park outside of McKale at the parking meters or the Cherry Avenue garage to the west of McKale.

Chuck Cecil - A 15-year coaching veteran in the National Football League, Cecil stepped aside from on-field coaching duties and joined the Wildcats for the 2017 season. He was retained by new head coach Kevin Sumlin in January of 2018. His role includes assisting Sumlin and the defensive staff in areas of overall organization, scouting, film breakdown, analysis and other game preparation responsibilities.

A two-time First Team Academic All-America selection (1986-87), Cecil played for Arizona from 1984 to 1987, first under the late Larry Smith and then under former head coach Dick Tomey for his final year. He began as a recruited walk-on from Helix High School in San Diego, Calif., and finished his UA career as one of the Pac-10's noted and fearless safeties before later being inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009.

A consensus All-American in 1987, Cecil was the Aloha Bowl MVP and a two-time first-team all-conference selection, plus earned second-team honors as a sophomore. He was named Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year in 1987 and Pac-10 Player of the Week on three occasions.

Today, Cecil holds the Arizona career record with 21 interceptions and among those returned one 100 yards for a touchdown against Arizona State in 1986, a play that likely rests atop many UA partisans' choice as the single-most electrifying and revered moment in UA football history.

After his storied collegiate career, Cecil was selected by the Green Bay Packers in the fourth round of the 1988 NFL Draft. He played in Green Bay through the 1992 season, before moving on to the Phoenix Cardinals in 1993 and later the Houston Oilers for the 1995 season. The safety finished a seven-year professional career with 461 tackles, 16 interceptions and one touchdown.

Cecil accepted his first professional coaching job in 2001 with Jeff Fisher and the Tennessee Titans, where he served as a defensive assistant and quality control coach for three seasons. He was promoted to coach the safeties and nickelbacks from 2004-06, before taking over as defensive backs coach in the 2007-08 seasons. Later, Cecil was named defensive coordinator for the Titans in 2009-10. The next stop in Cecil’s career took him to St. Louis, again working under Fisher. Cecil was the Rams’ secondary coach for five seasons.

Cecil is married to Carrie Gerlach Cecil, a native Arizonan who has established a successful communications career creating literary, television, film, online, business and live content. The couple met in their time at UA and have one daughter, Charli. They are heavily involved in community service, including hosting the Cecil Family Golden Hour Golf Classic for the UMC Level One Trauma Center in Tucson, Arizona and raise monies for Eve’s Angels, and Ordinary Hero, among other organizations.