Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns have brought this town to life, giving everyone a sense of self-worth. It’s almost a cult following, and anyone who criticizes the Suns is considered evil or a crackpot.
One day during the season, the Suns opened their doors for a practice session, with the price of admission a can of food for the homeless. More than 20,000 people showed up, and traffic around the America West Arena, home of the Suns, was tied up for hours.
But this era of excessive good feeling will most surely moderate if the Bulls destroy the Suns in the NBA finals.
That will be too bad, of course. But things will never go back to the old days.
For years, this was a nesting place for crooked politicians, land swindlers, Mafia retirees, golf hustlers and senior citizens roaming the roads in oversized trailers.
The only politician of truly national status was Sen. Barry Goldwater. The Republican senator even ran for president once. And later, he went to the White House to tell Richard Nixon it was time to pack and get out.
Now retired, Goldwater seems to take on a different controversial issue each week. His opinions are fired off like those of a columnist trying to attract attention.
Last election, Goldwater even endorsed a Democrat for Congress. In typical Goldwater fashion, it was someone he’d never even met.
Over the years, though, the truly powerful people here have tried to keep their names out of the paper.
Kemper Marley Sr. was such a man. He kept behind the scenes while he built an empire of $50 million.
Marley controlled the liquor business throughout the state. He also owned vast amounts of farmland for which he never paid the full tax load.
When Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was killed by a car bomb in 1975, Marley’s name came up prominently. Bolles had written many unfavorable articles about Marley.
It wasn’t until last month that Max Dunlap was convicted for the murder. Dunlap was a longtime Marley confidant who had been forgiven Marley loans totaling more than $1 million. In court testimony, the prosecution’s star witness had Dunlap admitting that the bombing was done to please Marley.
Every powerful person in Arizona is somehow connected to every other powerful person.
When Marley was buried last year, Barry Goldwater was in the front pew of the church that was packed with mourners.
At the funeral, they played a song made famous by Frank Sinatra: “My Way.” Since that time, an engineering building on the University of Arizona campus was named in Marley’s honor.
The town’s most recent tranformation was brought about by the construction of a new downtown arena for the Suns, which seats 19,023 fans. It has been packed for every game of this, its first season.
Before the construction of what fans call “The Purple Palace,” the most interesting downtown landmark was the office building used in the Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho.”
It was from this building that Janet Leigh departed with stolen money on her way to the Bates Motel and her death in the famous shower scene.
The surrender to basketball fever here has been total. Some season ticket holders sold their tickets to the opening game against the Bulls for an amount equal to their total season’s bill for next year.
The engine behind all this is Jerry Colangelo, a workaholic who was born and raised in Chicago Heights. He is now the owner of the Suns.
Colangelo is the uncrowned monarch of the town and head of a kind of secret society of elders called The Phoenix 40. They meet once a month at the Phoenix Country Club to decide what’s best for the city. There are no women or blacks in the group.
Barkley, formerly of Leeds, Ala., is Colangelo’s crown prince. Barkley’s oversized portrait, his bald head shining, looks out from the sides of city buses as well as walls of buildings in various parts of the city.
Barkley speaks on local television every day. And no one can remember when his picture wasn’t on the front page of the two daily newspapers.
Before the ascension of the Suns, the front pages were dominated by foibles of the two sitting senators, Dennis DeConcini and John McCain.
There was also the problems of Gov. J. Fife Symington III, who is still under investigation by the FBI for fraud.
Before that, there was the rollicking administration of the clownish Evan Mecham.
Several months ago, Symington, a professed millionaire real estate man, admitted that he was broke.
“All my assets are gone,” he said at a news conference.
Symington, who ran for office on the basis of his business expertise, recently was forced to bow out of a downtown shopping center development. He couldn’t pay the bills. He left owing millions of dollars in debts that he signed for with his own name.
The Mecham years
Before the success of the Suns blinded the idiosyncrasies of the local pols, this was a town dominated by political strife.
It’s hard now to re-create in the mind’s eye the torrid hostility that prevailed when Evan Mecham reigned at the state capitol, just 2 miles down the road from the Suns’ new home. It seems a thousand years ago.
Mecham was a bad-tempered car dealer who cavorted around in a very bad toupee that did not always sit straight.
The first thing Mecham did when he got into office was to cancel the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
The second was to change the make of car the governor drove. Mecham switched to a Pontiac that he obtained through his own auto dealership.
Mecham was impeached by the legislature and sent packing long before his term was scheduled to end. His term was a trip from one blunder to another.
His rescinding of the King holiday cost Phoenix its date to host the 1993 Super Bowl.
In this town, such events are coveted greatly. It is always assumed by the locals that a sporting event is some great prize that will turn this town into the Paris of the Southwest.
But with Mecham in the governor’s office issuing unconscious racist statements, tourists and promoters began to avoid the place as if it were Johannesburg.
“What’s wrong with pickaninny?” Mecham would ask.
To the leader of a gay movement, Mecham once suggested: “If you really have 5,000 gay members, bring them on down to the state capitol. I want to talk to them.”
But recently, the Martin Luther King Day was approved by the voters after a vigorous campaign. Now the Super Bowl is scheduled back here in 1996. The NBA all-star game is coming in 1995.
`I certainly hope so’
If Mecham was big news, so was Charles Keating. The 6-foot-7-inch convicted swindler and hotel builder left his mark here. Keating dominated this town for a decade while becoming one of the most celebrated figures in the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
Keating spent more than $1 million to buy state politicians with his campaign contributions. He is now in prison after being convicted in Los Angeles of defrauding elderly bond holders out of millions of dollars.
For years, Keating was the largest single contributor to our two Arizona senators, the five congressmen, the governor and the state’s attorney general.
“Do you think your campaign donations influence those people?” Keating was asked one day at a news conference.
“I certainly hope so,” Good Time Charlie replied.
DeConcini was so close to Keating that he brought his entire Washington staff to help celebrate the opening of Keating’s sumptuous Phoenician Hotel.
McCain frequently flew on Keating’s private planes to vacation with Keating in Bermuda. McCain’s wife was involved in business deals with Keating.
Until now, the Suns have won so regularly, there is no energy left to spend on the wounds of the past.
The thing you must realize is how tightly people here have tied themselves to the fortunes of the Suns.
Nothing else matters. Bosnia. Bill Clinton. The deficit. Forget it.
Two sensational murder trials are being held simultaneously right now. In one, a teenager is being tried for the execution style murder of nine Buddhist monks. In the other, an 11-year-old girl is before a judge for shooting her stepmother to death so she could get money for cosmetics.
Nobody cares.
The Indian tribes are battling the legislature to gain the right to have unlimited gaming. It’s an issue that could change the state’s future.
Nobody notices.
All anyone cares about is what the talk-show hosts continually call “Our Phoenix Suns.”
There is a huge gorilla on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown as a tribute to the Suns’ mascot. Signs that proclaim “Go Suns” are in the windows of office buildings all over town. They are on practically every automobile.
A sense of identity
Thousands of people now depend upon the Suns for a sense of identity. It gives them something to talk about when people call from back home.
After all, this is a place that was dragged into the 20th Century by air conditioning. It has been given a jump start into truly modern times by the arrival of Charles Barkley.
Suns fans are both over-enthusiastic and unsophisticated. All season long they have known only success. Now they stand to have their hearts broken.
There was always a standard answer as to how they liked living in Phoenix.
“Weather’s great. You get to play golf all year round. The car never shows rust.”
“But how do you really like it?” comes the question.
“Hey, we’ve got the Suns! We’ve got Charles Barkley. This is the place to be.”
