I once cheered for the Bulls, but the Suns became my soul.
It’s the offseason. A time for reflection, renewal, and remembrance. How did we get here? Why are we fans? We’ll discuss that and more throughout the summer. A couple of our writers have shared their stories. I guess it’s time for mine.
It’s been a joy hearing the origin stories of our Phoenix Suns fandom. Writers from across the globe contribute to this site, from the bustling streets of New York to the calm coasts of Australia, from the historic charm of England to the crisp winters of Massachusetts. And somehow, all of them found their way to a team rooted deep in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. The reasons vary, but each story carries its own kind of magic.
Mine? It’s not magical. It’s not exotic. But it’s unique in it’s own right.
As I sit here writing, I glance out my window and see Good Samaritan Hospital, the very place I was born. A stone’s throw away from where the Suns used to lace them up at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. I’m what you’d call a classic case of regional loyalty. Born in Phoenix, bred on Suns basketball. But my geography has a wrinkle.
At age three, my family packed up and moved west to Los Angeles, more specifically, the San Fernando Valley. My father, who had spent his college years surfing and studying at Loyola Marymount (fun fact: today is the feast day of St. Ignatius Loyola), made the call. He double-majored in economics and theology.
That era left its mark on him, however. By his mid-20s, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, agoraphobia, and bipolar disorder. Life wasn’t easy for him. Or for us.
But even in the chaos, there was a pull. A return. He met my mother back in Phoenix, and in the fall of 1985, we chased a fragile version of hope to the City of Angels. A family of five, dragging roots across the desert floor to Southern California.
It was there, in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, that I grew up and first fell in love with sports. My earliest memories are sun-soaked and bathed in Dodger Blue, sitting in the bleachers at Dodger Stadium during that magical 1988 season, a season that ended with a championship and forever etched itself into my soul. t’s why, even now, decades later, I still bleed Dodger Blue.
Saturdays in the fall belonged to Notre Dame. That came with the territory of being raised in an Irish Catholic household. The golden domes gleamed on the screen, the fight song echoed through the living room, and with each game, I felt tethered. To my father, to his father, to something generational and sacred.
As for the NFL, well, I started off a Buffalo Bills fan. My mom’s from Buffalo — she moved to Phoenix in the ‘50s — and my grandfather was a diehard Bills guy. It was easy to root for them as a kid. They won. Well, enough to get your hopes up, just enough to shatter your heart into a million little pieces. That’s the magic and curse of the early ‘90s Bills.
By 1995, I’d had enough heartbreak. That was the year we moved back to Phoenix, and the year I gave up the Bills. I traded in the heartbreak of Buffalo for the masochism of the Phoenix Cardinals. Local pride. New start. Same losing. But it was ours.
Basketball? Basketball is a different story.
Growing up in Los Angeles while knowing I was born in Phoenix and came from generations of Phoenicians, I always felt a deep pull toward the teams from Arizona. There was a sense of belonging, a quiet loyalty passed down through bloodlines and distance. But when I trace the origin of my basketball love, the memories don’t begin in the desert.
They begin in the heart of LA, in the 1980s. It was a city gripped by the glamour and flash of Showtime. You’d think that would be the foundation, the spark. Yet it wasn’t. My father, never one to conform, had no patience for Magic Johnson or the off-court promiscuity. So our living room turned its gaze elsewhere.
It turned toward a player who didn’t need theatrics. A player who soared through the air with something more than athleticism. Michael Jeffrey Jordan. My dad told me to pay attention, to remember what I was seeing. Because it wasn’t normal. He said I might never see another like him.
So while I had a Suns hat and cheered for Phoenix when I could, they were more like extended family: familiar, meaningful, but not central. The Bulls became the team that raised me. Their games were everywhere. Jordan’s intensity shaped the way I saw the sport. That affinity remains, grounded in the awe I felt as a child and carried forward through time.
Even now, I revisit it. I recently finished watching The Last Dance again, and it still hits with the same force. That series doesn’t feel like a documentary. It feels like walking through the halls of my basketball memory, room by room, moment by moment, tracing the footsteps of what made me fall in love with the game.
So I know what you’re wondering. 1993? NBA Finals? What about that?
Photo by Lutz Bongarts/Bongarts/Getty Images
For me, it was a win in every direction. I adored Michael Jordan and the Bulls, but when Charles Barkley arrived in Phoenix, my attention shifted toward home. Suddenly, I had a reason to speak up in playground debates about hometown teams. No longer was I the kid from Arizona clinging to a team that hovered beneath the national spotlight. With Barkley in the Valley, the Suns had arrived.
At the time, I was living in Simi Valley, California, in a modest three-bedroom house tucked into a quiet suburban street. We didn’t have a basketball hoop, but that didn’t stop me. I remember drawing a square on the side of our garage, exactly ten feet up, and that became my “hoop”. That square took more shots than I can count. And while Jordan remained the mythic figure on my bedroom posters, when I stepped outside with a ball in my hands, I was Kevin Johnson slicing through imaginary defenders or Dan Majerle rising up from deep at that crooked chalk box.
When the 1993 Finals came around, we had Pizza Hut’s Bigfoot pizza on the table and excitement in the air. I didn’t feel the weight of the moment. When John Paxson, who went to Notre Dame mind you, hit that shot, there were no tears or disappointment. There was no heartbreak. In my young mind, the Suns had arrived, and greatness would follow them for years to come. The loss didn’t sting because I believed there would be more chances, more runs, more magic. That was the innocence of it. The belief that the story was only beginning.
Then Jordan retired, and with him, so did my love for that team. The connection faded. My loyalty, my passion, every ounce of basketball energy I had was now reserved for the Phoenix Suns. That shift became permanent.
It was the summer of 1994, six months removed from the Northridge earthquake that had rattled more than my walls. Something in me changed that year. That summer, I felt my first real heartbreak as a Suns fan. Not disappointment. Heartbreak. The kind that sits with you, heavy and personal.
By the summer of ‘95, we were back in Phoenix. A full circle moment. Jordan returned that March, but the magic felt distant. The mythology had cracked.
I was walking the halls of Creighton Middle School now, attending my first public school, and my identity had shifted. The Suns weren’t a team I liked. They were my team. I became consumed by them, dreaming about games, talking matchups at lunch, wearing my socks high like Elliot Perry, grinding it out on the rough blacktop courts with other kids who shared the obsession.
Sure, I still admired Jordan. I watched him reclaim his throne and win three more titles. Of course I did. But they didn’t feel like mine anymore. The Bulls had become that team from the East, polished, powerful, and ultimately the ones who had denied Phoenix its crown. And that alone made it hard to cheer. That reverence I once had had been replaced by something else. Respect, maybe, but colored with resentment.
The rest? As the saying goes, that’s history. I’ve lived and died with this team since 1995, though the connection began long before, back in 1988 when I first became aware of the orange and purple. Kevin Johnson was my first favorite Sun, the spark that lit the fuse.
Then came the Seven Seconds or Less era, perfectly timed with my twenties. Bar nights, packed patios, and that wild electric sense of community that only sports, drinks, and shared hope can create. Those teams weren’t just fun, they were life-affirming. Shawn Marion became the guy for me, supplanting KJ with his unorthodox game and relentless motor. That group made it cool to be a Suns fan again. They made us believe.
And now? I write about this team regularly. I think about them more than I probably should. And I’ve made peace with the reality that this love, no matter how loud or loyal, is never going to be reciprocated. That’s the nature of sports. It’s a one-way relationship. Beautiful, brutal, irrational. Still, we show up. We always do.
Some of us are here because of the colors. Some because of the players. Some because this team is tied to where we’re from. But all of us are here chasing the same thing: that feeling. That rare, fleeting moment when it all clicks, when the suffering turns into something magical. When we can say it was worth it.
I’m lucky, in a way. I got to feel what it’s like to win it all when I was a kid, watching Jordan and the Bulls win rings. And maybe, in some twisted cosmic trade-off, becoming a lifelong Suns fan is my penance.
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