Coach James Michael Mielke

One lasting image from my childhood was being in our family’s living room and watching and listening to Sunnyside football coach Paul Petty and boys cross country coach Jim Mielke as they encouraged my oldest brother Hector, who was in traction after suffering a serious back injury in a football practice.

Both men were graceful and respectful to all of us during a difficult time for Hector and our family.

Petty moved to Florida after coaching at Sunnyside and passed away in 2011.

Mielke continued to communicate with Hector through the years, and became more of an inspirational figure after Hector suffered through mental illness.

“With your brother, I have the fondest memories of this young boy,” Mielke told me in a 2021 interview. “He’s a beautiful young man. He got into for whatever reasons a mental situation that he couldn’t control.

“He needed a lot of support and a lot of help. That didn’t change the fact that he was a beautiful young man put on this earth by God. He needed all the respect, trust, support, love and kindness he could get for his life.

“When he was with me, that’s how I treated him. I understood his great value and how lucky I was to have an opportunity to work with him. He came to me and said, ‘Help me be a better me.’ To me, that’s humbling. That’s why God put me here.”

They are together again in spirit.

Coach Mielke — the family always referred to him that way — passed away Tuesday from health reasons.

His death is less than three months after Hector’s passing from kidney failure.

Mielke profoundly impacted runners and youth development in Southern Arizona, much like Jim Reffkin did with tennis at about the same time — from the 1960s through the 1990s. Reffkin passed away last week at the age of 84.

Mielke continued to serve as a mentor to many runners, including those at Sunnyside and Pima, over the last two decades.

For almost 60 years, he coached cross country runners at Sunnyside Junior High School, Sunnyside High School and Pima Community College

He holds the distinction of coaching Sunnyside and Pima College to their first outright championships in any sport.

He led Sunnyside’s boys cross country team to the 1975 state championship and the Pima College men’s cross country team to the 1980 national championship.

“That put Pima on the map,” Mielke said in the 2021 interview. “After that, we just started building and growing and building. The next year, we won the national decathlon championship, our women were second in the nation in cross country, our men’s track team was fifth, our women’s track team was fourth … we were just really moving, moving and moving.”

A native of Waupun, Wis., Mielke moved to Tucson with his family when he was 8 in 1945.

His father served in World War II and was part of the Normandy Invasion. He was injured in Belgium and was sent back home.

“He got his wife and two kids and headed west,” Mielke said. “We came with a trailer and a car and made our way to Tucson, Ariz. He built a ranch house out of an old chicken house. We grew up there.”

Mielke attended Roskruge Elementary as a third grader, old Sunnyside Elementary School for fourth, fifth and sixth grade, and Mansfield for seventh and eighth grade before he attended Tucson High.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Pima College, Center for the Arts Building, 2202 W Anklam Rd.Tucson, on Sunday, November 12, 2023, beginning at 5:30 PM

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.funerariadelangeltucson.com for the Mielke family.