Position in the Spotlight: Phoenix

The Position in the Spotlight series is back, and this weekend we are going to cover Phoenix, Arizona. This one hits a little closer to home for me because I currently live in the greater Phoenix area, so I have had the past 2 years to get a feel for the sports climate here....

Phoenix is a 4-sport market but doesn't quite have the history that most of the other cities that we will be covering that have all 4 sports in town. It all started in 1968 when the Phoenix Suns were reluctantly added to the NBA. Little did the NBA execs know back then that the population of Phoenix would explode throughout the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's. The Phoenix metro area is now almost 4.5 times larger than it was when the Suns began play. The other sports took notice of Phoenix's steady population rise, and by 1998, they had all 4 sports in town. The St. Louis Cardinals NFL team became the Phoenix (now Arizona) Cardinals in 1988. The Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996, and the Arizona Diamondbacks started as an expansion team in 1998. Considering the short amount of time these teams have been in town (and for some, their awful pasts) there has been some success enjoyed in Phoenix, but not nearly to the degree of the other 4-sport towns. The lone championship was won by the Diamondbacks in 2001, when they stunned the Yankees in the World Series. The Cardinals made a surprise run to the 2008 Super Bowl but lost, and the Suns have always been above average but never great, making it the finals in 1976 and 1993 but never winning. The Coyotes have yet to win a playoff series since moving the Phoenix 14 years ago. Phoenix also has Arizona State in bordering Tempe, who have enjoyed some success in baseball and football, and if we include Tucson, Arizona has won a national title in basketball.

Now onto my pick. There is something interesting about living here that is different than almost anywhere else. It is almost impossible to find someone that was born and raised in Arizona. Almost everyone you meet was born and maybe even grew up somewhere else. It's a lot like going away to college, where you meet people from all across the country and world. This leads to some problems with the sports teams. I think they are almost here as a novelty, with the hopes of being a "2nd favorite" team. Sports fans from all across the country moved here with their allegiances to their home town teams, and enjoy the fact that Phoenix has all 4 sports so that they can watch their favorite teams play as visitors. Having half the MLB here for Spring Training every year doesn't help the local teams either. Because of this, my position in the spotlight pick for Phoenix is All of the Other Cities' Position in the Spotlight Picks.

Yes, it really is that strange. People that enjoy sports and aren't there to see the visitors because they grew up loving them tend to pull for the home town team (I do this too), but once their childhood favorite comes to town, they immediately turn into the obnoxious visiting fan. However, its really not that obnoxious, because at almost every game I've been to, probably at least 40-50% of the stadium is doing the same thing. I remember wearing 49ers stuff to a Bears game in Chicago in 2001. Big mistake. I was a little worried about my safety in all honesty. I tried it again this year at a 49ers-Cardinals game. No problems at all. In fact, I was only 6 rows from the field but somehow surrounded by Niners fans. But what about the actual Cardinals fans there? I received no crap or trash talking from them at all. I think they are just used to having their home stadium invaded by visiting fans. I've seen the same happen at D-Backs games and although I haven't been to a Coyotes game yet, I think its very safe to assume the same thing happens there.

One other fun example was on Week 17 of the NFL season last year, I went to a sports bar in my subdivision and so no less than half of the NFL represented there. Yes, 16 teams' clothing being worn in one little sports bar in suburban Phoenix. This would not be too odd of a sight in a college town, but these were adults in the bar, not college kids lost from Tempe. I wrote the teams on a napkin for the day I'd eventually write this post. Here is the list in no particular order:
1. Cardinals 2. Colts 3. Patriots 4. Steelers 5. Saints 6. Browns 7. Jets 8. Ravens 9. Bears 10. Eagles 11. Lions 12. Packers 13. 49ers 14. Broncos 15. Cowboys 16. Redskins

This is not intended to be a knock to Phoenix, its just a different kind of city that is growing rapidly and hasn't developed the kind sports followings that other older cities have. Unless parents and grandparents still hold a strong sports influence over their kids, I think over time the Phoenix teams will become the majority's favorite team.

Proof of this is that it seems like 1 of the 4 teams does stand out as having more followers than the others, and that is the original team in town, the Suns. The Suns have been around long enough and have been competitive enough with hated regional cities like LA that they have a much more loyal following than the other teams in town. So to throw Phoenix a bone, my pick for native Phoenicians is Phoenix Suns (Point) Guard.

The Suns have always based their play around a strong point guard, even in the days before there truly was a position called point guard. Let's start back in 1975 with Paul Westphal. After some success with Boston in the early 70s, Westphal came to Phoenix and helped lead the Suns to the 1976 NBA Finals against his former team. Westphal stayed with the team until 1980, when he was replaced by, this time, a future Boston Celtics star, Dennis Johnson. Johnson led the Phoenix offense until 1983 when he went on to greener pastures in Boston.

Following a return of Paul Westphal and a few years of Jay Humphries (who got indicted in a cocaine trafficking ring...oops....well it was the 80s.) The Suns traded for a rookie that became a franchise player (and the mayor of Sacramento), Kevin Johnson. Johnson was the Suns point guard from 1988-1998, leading the Suns to the playoffs every year but his first, the conference finals 3 times, and the 1993 NBA finals, where they ran into the Michael Jordan buzzsaw.

In 1997, the Suns replaced an aging Johnson with likely future hall of famer Jason Kidd, who led the Suns dynamic offense until 2001, leading the NBA in assists twice during that span.

Kidd was traded to New Jersey in 2001 for another star point guard, Stephan Marbury. Marbury was eventually traded to the Knicks in 2004, and led the NBA in assists that year.

It seems like it might be hard to top 3 great point guards in a row. The Suns outdid themselves again by signing their current face of the franchise, Steve Nash, as a free agent in 2004. Nash came in and electrified a Suns team that just came off an awful season, leading the Suns all the way to the 2005 Western Conference finals and winning the league MVP award in the process. In 2005-06, Nash repeated this act, again leading the Suns to the conference finals and again winning the MVP award. Nash has lead the NBA in assists 4 times since joining the Suns, including this past season, where he led the Suns to yet another Western Conference Finals appearance.

Nash is starting to get a little long in the tooth, but this season proved he still has something left in the tank. Based on an impressive 22 consecutive year run of point guards in Phoenix, Suns fans won't expect anything less than a great player to replace Nash when he eventually retires.

Honorable Mention
Arizona Diamondbacks Ace - The D-Backs have always had strong starting pitching in the front of their rotation. They acquired Randy Johnson in their 2nd year in the league and eventually added Curt Schilling to lead them to their first World Series title in 2001. After Johnson and Schilling left, Brandon Webb stepped up as the team's dominant ace until he was hobbled by injuries. Dan Haren seemed poised to pick up where Webb left off, but he was just traded last week. We'll see if Webb can pick up where he left off when he eventually returns or if the D-Backs can find someone else to lead their staff.

Arizona State Baseball Some Position - This is one of the few places where some people actually care about college baseball. I, however do not, so I don't feel like researching it.

NHL Favorite Team Relationship Status: It's Complicated

There is only 1 sport where I actually switched my favorite team. I was born a White Sox fan. I starting liking the 49ers when they won the Super Bowl on my 2nd birthday. The Bulls won all 6 of their titles when I was between the ages of 8 and 15 (pretty impressionable), and until I decided to go to school at Purdue, I watched college sports for the fun of watching, knowing that I would figure out my favorite team as soon as I chose my college. So what's that 1 sport where I actually switched? Hockey.

Just like the Bulls, the Blackhawks rose up to be one of the top teams in the NHL right in my impressionable age wheelhouse, from about 1988-1993. They had a solid team that was fun to watch, led by guys like Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios, Stever Larmer, Michel Goulet, and later in their run, Tony Amonte and Gary Suter too. At Goalie, the President's trophy winning 90-91 team and the Stanley Cup finalist 91-92 team had one of the best goalies of the era, Ed Belfour. It was a great time to be a Blackhawks fan, even if they were overshadowed by the Bulls during that time.

Then, late owner "Dollar" Bill Wirtz as he was called in the Chicago papers decided he needed to pinch some pennies and made some terrible decisions. The dismantling started in about 1994, when some of the other strong contributors of the previous years' teams started to disappear. At least they had Jeremy Roenick and Ed Belfour to rebuild around right? Wrong. Roenick was traded to Phoenix just before the '96-'97 season and Belfour was traded to San Jose halfway through the '96-'97 season. Instead of rebuilding, over that time period, the Blackhawks made a lot of other questionable moves, like overpaying washed up guys and mixing them with super young guys that never seemed to pan out or were immediately sent away to another team as soon as they showed promise.

In the mean time, because I was such a fan of Roenick with the Blackhawks, I started rooting for the Coyotes too, who were just starting out in Phoenix in 1996. I liked the novelty of a team in a super hot place, their crazy uniforms, and the fact that they had a pretty solid team where the top 2 scorers were both American (Roenick and Keith Tkachuk). In the mean time, the Wirtz family was ruining the Blackhawks, and they went on a run of only 1 playoff appearance in 10 years, not to anyone's surprise. After a year or two, the Coyotes were elevated to my favorite team, almost because I didn't want the Blackhawks' plans on how to run their team to succeed.

So then I went to college. In Indiana. I basically stopped caring about hockey. After college, I lived in Hockeytown USA for a year right after the season was canceled, so I didn't follow hockey then either, and then I moved back to Indiana, where no one cares. So then I moved out to Phoenix in 2008, home of my bankrupt favorite team from what felt like a lifetime ago (even though it was only about 7 years). I was sure they were going to move away, so I didn't want to get involved with them again. I even wrote a guest post about it on Barry Melrose Rocks last year after I won their NCAA tournament pool.

So my "It's Complicated" situation started about a year ago, when I realized that the Blackhawks were actually being run seemingly well and went deep in the playoffs. I actually watched some games and found myself rooting for them again...a team I loved as a little kid but haven't rooted for in 12 years. I figured with the Coyotes moving, it would be easy to be a casual Blackhawks fan again living in a town with no hockey team. Instead, the Coyotes stayed in Phoenix and put together an incredible '09-'10 season. I even watched a few of their regular season games this year, the first time I've done that with any NHL team in almost 10 years.

When this first round of the playoffs rolled around, I noticed I was more interested in watching the Coyotes than the Blackhawks, maybe because they are local and some people occasionally actually talk about them now, or maybe its because I never really "quit" the Coyotes as my favorite team like I did the Blackhawks...I just don't know. So I think that settles it. It may only be because I live in Phoenix, but the Coyotes are my favorite NHL team and I will accept the Blackhawks back as my #2 for nostalgia sake.

Even though the Blackhawks could possibly pull what they did 15 years ago and let me down again, I think this new found love for the Coyotes is even more dangerous. They still haven't won a playoff series since 1987. They still could potentially move away. They could go back to being awful again next year because no one can seem to figure out even why they were good this year. But hey, maybe the owner of my favorite MLB and NBA teams, Jerry Reinsdorf, will buy them and become the first owner to win a title in 3 sports, and I can say I was there with them from the beginning, when the team moved to Phoenix from Winnipeg in 1996.

So since the Coyotes are gone from the playoffs this year, Go Blackhawks, but if they ever meet in the playoffs, I'm going to take the risk and root for the Coyotes. Sorry Blackhawks, you're the crazy ex-girlfriend, but we can still be friends.