Tucson Arizona
The Home of The Wildcats
By Luke Pyle
Photo by Arizona Athletics
Have you ever been to Tucson? You can find the hot and dry Sonoran desert with the most beautiful sunsets ever, this is Tucson, Arizona. The heart of Tucson is University of Arizona, wherever you go in Tucson you are guaranteed to see someone wearing some type of UofA merch. And at the heart of the University is the men’s, and recently the women’s, basketball team. If you ever go to a game, walking through the doors you will be met with 14,644 fans all cheering for a team or taunting the other team. The smell of popcorn and hotdogs will waft over you almost instantly and you’ll be very tempted to get one of those. Every game is usually sold out at these basketball games and the atmosphere at the games is truly special. With the absence of a professional team in Tucson the men’s basketball team took over the passion that fans show for their favorite teams.
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To find another angle at this basketball team I got an interview with one of the of the managers who has been a manager for 2 years now.
I talked to Parker McPherson, who is a junior here at the UofA, he is studying sports in society and minoring in business administration. Also he is a manager on the men’s basketball team.
In our conversation together I could tell how passionate he was for UofA and their basketball team. Parker talked a lot on every question I asked him without me even asking many follow up questions.
McPherson came to UofA specifically for the chance to work with the basketball team. He told me,“ I just knew growing up just as a regular person in Tucson. I’ve lived here for probably 19 years now. It would be really cool for me to just go to the same school that I grew up watching, going to the games, going to the football and basketball games , that’s mainly why I chose it.”
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From personal experience and hearing Parker I can tell a lot of kids growing up in Tucson love this basketball team. When I was 3 years old my dad bought me a little tikes mini basketball hoop and a #34 chase Budinger jersey. I wore that jersey so much that my mom had to buy me a second one because she needed to wash it. Me and my dad would watch every game on TV or go to the games at the UofA. At one of the games we went to, my dad brought me close to the court and had me get a picture with my favorite player and had him sign something, to this day I still have that picture and the signature hung up in my room. I absolutely love to support the basketball team because that’s what made me love the game of basketball.
Along as inspiring kids, the basketball games bring in adults to be very passionate about UofA. My dad didn’t bring me to the games just to entertain me, but he loves watching the games. I think he has watched every single UofA basketball game since I was born, he will even record the games and watch them multiple times. For the past 10 years my dad has gotten the same season tickets in the same seats and every year the exact same people sit around us in their exact same seats. There is an old lady that sits behind me and my dad and every game she records the stats of the players on a notepad and sometimes she will even asked who scored if she missed what happened. And I’m sure it was cool for her to see me grow up from a little kid and eventually go to the same school I have been supporting for years.
My grandpa who sadly just passed away about a month ago would still go to the games with me and my dad in his 80’s until it was too hard for him to sit in the chair at the stadium for that long. But he continued to watch the games at home until he passed.
The basketball team even does things to help the Tucson community. In our conversation Parker told me, “We are very involved I mean if you you’ve been to all the games whenever we shoot threes it’s always like Lexus of Tucson Charity three”
Ever since I was a child going to the UofA games I’ve heard Lexus of Tucson Charity Three, where Lexus of Tucson makes a charitable donation for every three pointer that is made by the basketball team.
Parker also said, “There’s nova home loans put across the scores table during our games and then a lot of other sponsors are really invested in our program so I think that’s the main goal”
The community of Tucson supports the basketball team with money and support and the team loves to give back. Arizona even offers a club called the wildcat club where people can donate money to help support the student athletes to pay for their college fees. In return these donors get access to exclusive communications, events, apparel and more throughout the year. The club currently has 99 members who have donated over $50,000 to student athletes.
For college basketball at the end of their regular schedule they play in a conference tournament and UofA is in the Pac-12 Conference, so there is a pac-12 tournament every year in Los Vegas and I have gone to every single one, even the year Covid started and the tournament was canceled halfway through, and every single year the most fans out of any other team are the Arizona Wildcat fans. Even during games that the wildcats don’t play in, UofA chants can be started and it is so cool to see that.
As you can tell the people of Tucson love their Arizona Wildcats and the Arizona Wildcats love them back.
