link The Suns renamed US Airways Center's renovated media facilities as the Al McCoy Media Center on Wednesday. The timing was appropriate, because McCoy later departed with the team for Sacramento, where the Suns open preseason play tonight against the Kings, and only McCoy's voice on KTAR-AM (620) will bring the game to Valley fans. The sentiment was appropriate, because McCoy has spent 35 years touting the Suns' accomplishments. The reverse was due.</p> </p> Honoring McCoy is not an end-of-the-era sign, because his work has no end in sight. Suns President and Chief Operating Officer Rick Welts said McCoy, the dean of NBA play-by-play announcers, often re-evaluates his situation during postseason meetings, saying, "Maybe two more years." "We don't have meetings anymore," Welts said. "We're hoping Al is going to do this another 20 years." The Suns' affection and respect for McCoy was apparent in the center's renovation, which was sponsored by KTAR, the station that christened its new all-sports format this year with McCoy's signature "Shazam!" call as its first word. The center features walls of photos and text organized by Suns Senior Vice President Tom Ambrose with aid from McCoy's archives. "The media center is named for Al McCoy for one reason: Al McCoy is the center of sports media in the Valley," KTAR Vice President and Market Manager Erik Hellum said. The new look starts with a 1933 birth-year photo of his farm home in Williams, Iowa, (population 600) and moves on to a photo of a 7-year-old McCoy, who practiced calling games to barnyard animals. McCoy's high school days are shown in a photo of him, as a varsity basketball player, unable to reach a ball that two teammates held over his head and in a 1949 certificate saluting his "extemporaneous speaking." The center details a radio career that began in Webster City, Iowa, and moved to Buffalo, N.Y., until he came to Phoenix for a job at KOOL in 1958 to call Triple-A Phoenix Giants games. He was "Your boy, Al McCoy" in the 1960s on a rock station, worked as a television anchor, served as a radio station manager, called Arizona State basketball and football and did radio and TV for roller derby, boxing, wrestling and hockey until he caught Jerry Colangelo's ear and became the voice of the Suns in 1972. Wednesday's ceremony included a video with McCoy clips, including calls from Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals that now are wrapped around a pillar of the McCoy Center. "When I think about MVPs for the Suns, the name Al McCoy is at the top of the list," Colangelo said on the video. It has been all part of an "overwhelming" year for McCoy, who last month received the Curt Gowdy Media Award, the top honor a NBA broadcaster can receive and one usually reserved for national voices. McCoy said he hopes the center will foster media "camaraderie" with "that same type of good feeling, that same type of knowing that we're all in this business to get it right and present it to the fans as best as we can." When McCoy left the induction ceremonies for his Gowdy Award at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., Suns General Manager Steve Kerr told him, "There's only one thing left for you to do. That's call the final game when we bring home the trophy." When Kerr relayed that anecdote Wednesday, McCoy yelled out, "One more year!"</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dissonance19)</div><div class='quotemain'>When McCoy left the induction ceremonies for his Gowdy Award at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., Suns General Manager Steve Kerr told him, "There's only one thing left for you to do. That's call the final game when we bring home the trophy."</div></p> </p> That's my favorite part of the article. It would only be appropriate to have McCoy make the call as the Suns secure their first championship.</p>
