Al McCoy passes away

[mjwang92]

I literally just found this out and cried. I can remember all through the 90s and 2000s during national games I would turn the TV down so I could listen to Al on the radio instead. A true legend.

I remember trying that and it didn’t work. Al was always like ten seconds ahead of the TV broadcast.

I didn’t care. The way Al called a game is a big part of why I’m a Suns fan today. His whole story is just cool. I’m truly sad right now.

[carey]

91. An amazing run. Rest eternally and may his memory always be a blessing for my fellow Suns fans.

[The Bobster]

Al was from an era before you could catch all the games on TV. For most games his description of the game was all we had to go on except perhaps for a few random highlights on the local news.

Al was also great on KTAR doing his sports reports (you know, back when KTAR was a good source for news). We were so fortunate to have a couple of consumate professionals in Al and Tom Dillon here in town.

He was also from the time when broadcasters sat courtside, where they could feel the action. They knew the players, coaches and broadcasters around the league. But the business of the game slowly took over and teams moved their broadcast locations away from the court in order to sell more courtside tickets. The Suns held out until the end of Al's career, at which point they moved them up near the luxury boxes.

The move from simulcasts to made-for-television broadcasts lost something. You lost some of the intimate feel of the game in exchange for a slick studio production. But the appeal of Al's radio broadcasts never suffered from that. He was authentic, and he was he was skilled enough to do minor league baseball, ASU football and baseball, boxing and Roadrunners hockey before joining the Suns. A Suns game with Al behind the mic as still pure an experience as you were going to find.

[Superbone]

Yep, the way Al vividly described a game, it was as if you were there. Video or not. I'll never forget my times laying on the living room floor or laying in bed listening to Al McCoy call a basketball game. Or on a road trip or just in my car. He had a great voice in his little body and you could feel the excitement as well as the low points. He was a one of a kind. He made a huge impact on the Valley and he will be sorely missed.

[Superbone]

Heartbreak Hotel!

[Superbone]

Duane Rankin put together a great tribute article. It also has video of Al’s retirement ceremony and pictures throughout the years. It was only this last season that Al didn’t call Suns games. He carried out his passion really close to the end.

Al McCoy, voice of the Phoenix Suns for 51 seasons, dies at 91

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/ ... 330038007/

[Uncle_Gene]

R.I.P. Al McCoy.

Bless his soul.

More motivation for the Suns to win it all this season.

[JeremyG]

[Superbone]

Great interview after Al's last game. And in true Al McCoy fashion, he wished it had been a better game and that the Suns had come out on top just like the rest of us.

[Charlie Smithy!]

I still find it hard to believe that we dropped four straight in 2021, really thought Al McCoy was going to see that title.

[JeremyG]

I still find it hard to believe that we dropped four straight in 2021, really thought Al McCoy was going to see that title.

I remember feeling genuinely worried that it was going to be a sweep and that it would feel anticlimactic.

[The Bobster]

Here's a list of Al's radio/television broadcast partners.

1972-74 - KTAR AM 620/KTAR 12 - Al McCoy & Hot Rod Hundley
1974-75 - KXIV AM 1400/KPHO 5 - Al McCoy & John Shumate or Joe Gilmartin
1975-77 - KOOL FM 94.5/KPHO 5 - Al McCoy & Tom Ambrose
1976-77 - KTAR AM 620/KPHO 5 - Al McCoy & Tom Ambrose
1977-79 - KTAR AM 620/KPHO 5 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale
1979-92 - KTAR AM 620/KPNX 12 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale
1992-96 - KTAR AM 620/KUTP 45 - Al McCoy & Cotton Fitzsimmons
1996-97 - KTAR AM 620/KUTP 45 - Al McCoy & Greg Schulte
1997-00 - KTAR AM 620/KUTP 45 - Al McCoy & Keith Erickson
2000-03 - KTAR AM 620/KUTP 45 - Al McCoy & Eddie Johnson
2003-04 - KTAR AM 620 - Al McCoy & Cotton Fitzsimmons or Tim Kempton
2004-05 - KTAR AM 620 - Al McCoy & Tim Kempton or Vinny Del Negro
2005-23 - KTAR AM 620 - Al McCoy & Tim Kempton

My three favorites were probably Cotton, Eddie Johnson and Van Arsdale, with Cotton being my favorite by a good margin. I didn't listen to any of the broadcasts before Ambrose, and his on-air time was minimal compared to your usual color broadcaster. Games were simulcast on radio and television until 2003.

- Shumate teamed with Al in 1974-75 when he was out for the season with blood clots on his lungs.
- Gilmartin was the highly-popular sportswriter for THE PHOENIX GAZETTE.
- Ambrose was the head of the Suns Media Relations department.
- Schulte was producer of the Suns broadcasts who later went on to a long tenue with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
- Hundley was a former player who was the broadcasting holdover when McCoy joined the booth, and left in 1974 to begin a long tenure with the expansion New Orleans Jazz, who he followed to Utah in 1979.
- Fitzsimmons was a former Suns coach of course, and Van Arsdale, Erickson, Johnson, Del Negro and Kempton were all former Suns players.

[O_Gardino]

Al and Eddie were such a great team.

[Cap]

1977-79 - KTAR AM 620/KPNX 12 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale
1979-92 - KTAR AM 620/KPNX 12 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale

Why are these two separate lines if nothing changed?

[The Bobster]

1977-79 - KTAR AM 620/KPNX 12 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale
1979-92 - KTAR AM 620/KPNX 12 - Al McCoy & Dick Van Arsdale

Why are these two separate lines if nothing changed?

1977-79 should have read "KPHO 5"

Fixed.

[The Bobster]

A few more unrelated broadcasting odds and ends -

- Al's first Phoenix pro basketball broadcasting experience came in 1966 with the local broadcast of a neutral site game between the St. Louis Hawks and San Francisco Warriors at the Coliseum.
- Bob Vache was the original "Voice of the Suns" until he died in a car accident in 1970. Jerry Colangelo's answer to the broadcasting problem was to put John "Red" Kerr, who he had fired as coach two weeks earlier in the booth with color man Rod Hundley, who took over play-by-play. Kerr would go on to a long tenure as a Chicago Bulls broadcaster, and Hundley was the voice of the Jazz for 35 seasons in New Orleans and Salt Lake City.
- Joe McConnell was brought on for play-by-play in 1971-72. He lasted two year before they let him go. Apparently he was a little difficult to get along with.
- The Suns first cable broadcast was on ON-TV in 1980-81. They moved to American Cable in 1981-82, Dimension Cable in 1985, Cox Sports in 1995, and finally Fox Sports Net Arizona in 2003.
- The Suns began experimented with pay-per-view beginning in 1999-00.
- Games were broadcast in Spanish beginning in 2004-05
- Suns games were simulcast over-the-air from 1968-69 to 2002-03 and on cable from 1980-81 to 1984-85. George Allen (1985-93), Gary Bender (1993-11), Tom Leander (2011-12), Steve Albert (2012-17) and Kevin Ray (2017-23) were the other main play-by-play cable broadcasters.

[Kryptonic]

Thanks Bobster!

[Cap]

Brings back memories.

3 - ABC
5 - Independent. Wallace and Ladmo!
8 - PBS. Once I grew out of Sesame Street and Electric Company, I stopped watching this for a while
10 - CBS
12 - NBC
15 - Independent during the day, ON TV at night. I used to watch the scrambled picture hoping to catch a glimpse of nipple.
21 - Christian channel
33 - Spanish Channel

And… that was the lineup.

[The Bobster]

5 - Independent. Wallace and Ladmo!

It's also where I got my daily dose of shows like Gilligan's Island, Dick Van Dyke, The Andy Griffith Show, etc.

Sports in the 70's here was basically the Suns at the Coliseum on KTAR and a sprinkling of tv games, ASU Sports on KTAR, the Los Angeles Dodgers on KTAR, the Phoenix Giants at Phoenix Muni, and the Phoenix Roadrunners at the Coliseum representing whatever league they were playing in at the time.

The Sun Devils were probably still king of the valley sports scene until the Suns reached the Finals in 1976.

[Superbone]

- Gilmartin was the highly-popular sportswriter for THE PHOENIX GAZETTE.

He also wrote a book I read as a kid.

The Little Team That Could... And Darn Near Did! The Famous Rise of the Phoenix Suns

https://a.co/d/7zEGMAG