This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.
In 1972, a few years after the dawn of the Phoenix Suns in 1968, the team's then-general manager and eventual owner, Jerry Colangelo, hired Al McCoy as the team's radio play-by-play announcer.
It was McCoy's voice that first drew his attention. But he was surprised when they first met in person.
“He had a great personality. He was a people-person. He was as good as they came," Colangelo said, on the SiriusXM NBA Radio show "NBA Today" with co-hosts Eddie Johnson and league insider Amin Elhassan on Monday.
"I remember hearing his voice on the radio when I first came to Phoenix, and I kind of pictured in my mind a big guy because of the deep voice that he had. I remember when I met him the first time, I had to take a step back because I was surprised that such thundering voice could come out of a guy that small. He was an amazing individual and so talented.”
Colangelo was referring to McCoy's distinct baritone and 5-foot-6 frame.
McCoy became the "Voice of the Suns" for 51 years before he retired in 2023 as the NBA's longest-tenured team radio announcer ever. He died at age 91, the Suns announced on Saturday .
McCoy was in the same echelon of other legendary play-by-play radio callers. Colangelo drew a comparison to the Los Angeles Lakers' longtime announcer, Chick Hearn.
Colangelo compared McCoy's pedigree to Hearn, helping to make Phoenix a basketball town with its first big-league pro sports team.
“When I think about how radio people were in selling the sport, the NBA in the early days, I think of Chick Hearn," Colangelo said. "Basketball was foreign to the West Coast when the Lakers moved out of Minneapolis to L.A. And there’s no one, and I’m including all the players, Elgin (Baylor) and Jerry (West) and everyone who followed, no one sold the team more from the ground floor up than Chick Hearn.
"He was an amazing individual, and Al did that for us in Phoenix in selling the game, selling the sport. He created a following right from Day One. He had his own style. I will be forever grateful to Al McCoy for his contribution to getting the Suns off the ground and being such an intimate part of the story of the Suns and the history of the Suns. He was unbelievable.”
Colangelo, who eventually sold the franchise to a group led by Robert Sarver in 2004, further explained how multifaceted McCoy was as a radio commercial pitchman, radio show host, and play-by-play announcer in minor league baseball, where he got his start. He was the "Voice of the Phoenix Giants" triple-A team after he moved to the Valley from his native Iowa in 1958.
"Here was a major league team, the NBA, the Phoenix Suns, who had a couple years under their belt," Colangelo said. "Al just seemed like the guy that could help us accomplish everything that we wanted to do, and he recognized the opportunity. We had a small organization when we started, so we were all teammates. It’s as simple as that.”
McCoy had a cache of emphatic buzz words and catchphrases, such as "Shazam!" for the Suns' 3-point makes, "Whammo!" for their dunks, "Oh Brother!" for intense crowd reactions to plays or controversial calls by officials, "Heartbreak Hotel" for tough losses, and "Put this one in the ol' deep freeze" when the game appeared to be out of reach.
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“I like to think that I’ve always been a little bit on the cutting edge of various things in the game and the sport, and I liked it," Colangelo said about McCoy's slogans. "I loved some of his stuff. I thought it was very catchy. I thought it was iconic and that it had a chance to be permanent, and it certainly did all of that. When you think about two or three of his best phrases that he used, everyone who followed basketball in our state or in the Southwest knew they were synonymous with Al McCoy.”
McCoy will be forever be remembered by longtime Phoenix sports fans for moments such as his call from the buzzer-beating "Shot Heard 'Round The World" by Gar Heard to push a triple overtime in the 1976 NBA Finals' Game 5, and Charles Barkley's last-second shot over the San Antonio Spurs' David Robinson in the 1993 Western Conference semifinals-closing Game 6.
McCoy also had a long history on calling simulcasted Suns games on TV since the 1980s. He was inducted to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, and the Suns' Ring of Honor in 2017.
Colangelo mentioned how McCoy was revered by his TV and radio peers.
"Al established himself very early on. He was a great salesman for the NBA, regardless of where he was, he developed long relationships with radio and TV people in each city that we went into,” Colangelo said. “When he was honored at the Hall of Fame back in Springfield, and I still am chair of the Hall of Fame, that was a very proud moment for me to see him recognized and immortalized for what contributions that not only he made to the Phoenix Suns, but his career and to the game itself.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jerry Colangelo reflects on hiring Al McCoy as Phoenix Suns play-by-play announcer
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