I know, I know … this is a travel blog. But I have to digress for a moment to write about my home. Here in Phoenix, we’re a few days from something that’s pretty unlikely – watching the Cardinals in the Superbowl.
This post is about two things: Why you should, no matter what, support your home team and uniting the colors of a city’s sports teams.
On the first, let me get something out of the way: I am not a big football fan. But I am a hometown sports fan. Under no circumstances have I ever rooted against a Phoenix team. This includes in hockey, the sport I have followed ever since Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione and Co. defeated the Soviets in Lake Placid. Being born in Chicago, my two heroes were Jim Craig and Tony Esposito. Even after moving to Arizona, I continued to be a Blackhawks fan since Phoenix had no NHL franchise. When the Winnipeg Jets pulled up stakes and became the Phoenix Coyotes, I traded my red for what was then the funky green and maroon of the Coyotes.
I did this not because I’m a traitor or a fair-weather fan. I did it because I am part of something larger: People like each of us are part of Arizona’s identity. If you live here, you are a part of it. You are here because there was an opportunity here that there wasn’t wherever else you’re from (and most of us are from somewhere else). If you fail to support Arizona and its institutions and prefer to pine for your childhood in Green Bay, you are part of the identity problem that plagues young cities. If you want your kids to have the same experience you had growing up in Chicago or New York or whatever frigid industrial wasteland, you need to embrace where you are and quit making excuses you “parents raised me to root for the (insert name of bullet-riddled urban hell here). Get onboard and make your city, wherever that is, like your childhood home was – minus the subzero temperatures, in my case! If you can’t do this, I don’t want to hear any sniveling that your city “doesn’t have a culture.” If that’s true, it’s because not enough people are willing to make that culture happen. Period.
On to the second point … here’s something I really like about Pittsburgh and its sports teams: the unified colors. Every Pittsburgh team is black and white – Pirates, Penguins, Steelers … and, well, I don’t know what else they have. But the major teams are obviously black and yellow. This is an awesome show of solidarity and allows fans to sport unified colors for every sport. If you’re into the Pittsburgh, you’re all about black and gold. That’s awesome, and I’d love Arizona to do the same. I don’t particularly like the orange and purple combo of the Phoenix Suns, the original big-league sports franchise of Phoenix. But it actually has some relevance – those colors come from our sunsets. So it makes sense. I think it’s time for all Arizona teams to sport the purple and orange. And to quit changing their colors and uniforms every three years in a shameless effort to grub for more money from the jersey-buying public (hear that, Coyotes and Diamondbacks?).
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