Woody Hayes, legendary football coach for The Ohio State University, was (in)famous for his 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense. But before he put The Buckeyes on the map, he must have visited what is now this desert oasis referred to as “the Valley of the Sun.”
For a long time, there wasn’t much around except snakes, scorpions and spring training. For how long? Well, Super Bowl XLII will be played nearby Sunday, and America’s greatest party is older than professional sports here.
Not until the Suns joined the NBA in 1968 did this region sample big-game hunting, unless you consider Cubs pitchers preparing for the regular season by working from the stretch position in the Cactus League the real thing.
Jerry Colangelo, a Chicago guy, became a driving force behind the Suns, then the Diamondbacks, who won a World Series in only their fourth year of existence. For the love of God, it takes the Cubs four years to realize they have to start another five-year plan.
There is also a hockey team, the Coyotes, coached by Wayne Gretzky, and the NFL Cardinals, unofficial hosts for Super Bowl XLII, an annual orgy that could return here every year without any reasonable chance of the Cardinals having home-field advantage. You see, they took the Cardinals out of Chicago, but not the Chicago out of the Cardinals.
Despite a delayed start into the fast lane, Phoenix and environs are doing a fine catch-up job as a mecca for mega-happenings. There are a lot of Taco Bells, ATMs, and if you didn’t see mountains in the distance, you would say the territory will make visitors from New England and New York feel comfortably gouged.
You think the dollar doesn’t go far anymore? Come to a Super Bowl in Phoenix, where only your hotel mattress is cheap. The lone thing in town below a buck is the rapper, 50 Cent. The Motel 6 has been changed to the Motel 299. I’ve heard of tickets being scalped, but rental cars? And if you’re lucky enough to get one, be advised to show up at the airport Monday three hours before flight time.
For an area that used to be a glorified sandbox, the Valley of the Sun is comprehensively contemporary. There’s no inferiority complex anywhere to be found. Or, for that matter, a parking space. Just to prove that no job is too large during Super Bowl week, the Suns are playing to sellout crowds and there’s a golf tournament, the FBR Open, that routinely raises the bar for attendance on the PGA Tour.
Speaking of which, between the football fans and the golf nuts, there might not be any alcohol left in all of Arizona. Residents forever fret about the water supply. Now there could be a Budweiser shortage.
As usual, the media is in high-octane slobbering mode. Super Bowl overkill is such that even the recent success of favorite son Sen. John McCain is being downplayed. And forget comprehensive sports news from elsewhere. Why, the local paper ran NBA results from Wednesday night. Among them: Minnesota 83, Bulls 67. It’s a crazy week, true, but why publish partial scores? Why not wait until the game is over?
Everybody in the desert seems smitten by Tom Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback. No aspect of his life story is spared, including that he was drafted by the Montreal Expos before he opted for semipro football at Michigan. That’s good, because if he had chosen baseball, the Expos would have given him away to the Yankees or Mets or Red Sox anyway.
After Super Bowl XLII, the desert will return to somewhat normal. The Cubs will be back in camp soon. The last time they won it all, Arizona wasn’t a state.