In the fall of 1993, Jerry Colangelo, majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, the area's NBA franchise, announced he was assembling an ownership group, " Arizona Baseball, Inc .," to apply for a Major League Baseball expansion team.

This was the first major professional sports championship for the state of Arizona and the first for a team ( in the four major North American professional sports leagues ) owned or controlled by Colangelo, whose basketball Suns made it to the NBA Finals in 1976 and 1993 but lost both times.

In the summer of 2005, Colangelo was named director of USA Basketball whose team represented the United States in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Colangelo was born and raised in Chicago Heights, Illinois where he played basketball and baseball for Bloom Township High School.

In 1989, Colangelo was an essential part of the group that planned to build America West Arena ( now US Airways Center ), providing financial backing.

Barkley's relationship with Colangelo, however, grew sour over the years, and in 1996, he was traded to the Houston Rockets.

Colangelo was also involved in bringing the National Hockey League ( NHL ) to Arizona, transferring the Winnipeg Jets to the area as the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996.

On May 9, 2002, Colangelo was awarded an honorary degree from Arizona State University.

On April 4, 2004, Colangelo was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

On November 4, 2007, Colangelo was inducted into the Phoenix Suns Ring of Honor at the halftime of a Suns game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

One of the first people to congratulate Moreno after the news was Diamondbacks ' owner Jerry Colangelo, a personal friend who declared it a good opportunity for Moreno.

Jerry Colangelo, future owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Phoenix Suns, was the ace of that Bloom High School staff.

In the 1980s, the company was taken over by Madrigal and lost several of its employees and innovators ( Mark Levinson, Tom Colangelo, etc .).

Like in Seattle, he often clashed with his coach, John MacLeod, and was finally traded by general manager Jerry Colangelo to the Boston Celtics for Rick Robey and draft picks.

This gave the Raptors fans and management a glimpse of his abilities and in July 2006, Parker was officially signed by Raptors General Manager Bryan Colangelo as a free agent as part of a massive revamp of the 2006 – 07 Toronto team.

Richard John Colangelo ( April 14, 1957 – March 10, 2007 ), better known by the stage name of Richard Jeni, was an American stand-up comedian and actor.

Colangelo fired Showalter after a relatively disappointing 2000 season, and replaced him with Bob Brenly, the former Giants catcher and coach, who had up to that point been working as a color analyst on Diamondbacks television broadcasts.

Colangelo had two stints as head coach during that decade, compiling a record of 59 wins and 60 losses.

In 1970, Fitzsimmons replaced Jerry Colangelo as Suns coach.

In his autobiography, How You Play the Game, Colangelo tells of working after graduating college at the House of Charles, a tuxedo rental shop in Chicago Heights.

While in Chicago for a Suns game, Colangelo attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field.

It is located in the Colangelo Building on Taylor Street in Little Italy, Chicago.

At the time, freshmen were not allowed to play on the varsity basketball team, but as a sophomore he replaced the just-graduated Jerry Colangelo.

Although every Major League Baseball team cultivates fans from outside its immediate metropolitan area, and even though the greater Phoenix area has 2 / 3 of the statewide population, Colangelo still decided to call the team the " Arizona Diamondbacks " rather than the " Phoenix Diamondbacks ".

By this time Colangelo and the other partners were embroiled in a dispute over the financial health and direction of the Diamondbacks ( and notably including over $ 150 million in deferred compensation to many players who were key members of the 2001 World Series winning team and others ).

Colangelo sold his interest in the General Partnership of the Diamondbacks to a group of investors who were all involved as partners in the founding of the team in 1995.

According to published reports, the Rattlers struggled to stay afloat as a franchise after Colangelo sold the team.

These extra expenses, combined with the Diamondbacks and their fellow expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, not being allowed to share in the national MLB revenue for their first five years of operations, left the Diamondbacks in a less-than-desirable financial situation, which would come back to haunt team founder and managing partner Jerry Colangelo and his group later on.

Burke and Gluckstern originally planned to move the team to Minnesota ( which had lost the North Stars to Dallas in 1993 ), but eventually reached an agreement with Phoenix businessman Jerry Colangelo that would see the team move to Arizona and become the Phoenix Coyotes.

From the beginning, Colangelo wanted to market the Diamondbacks to a statewide fan base and not limit fan appeal to Phoenix and its suburbs.

Two years before their first opening day, Colangelo hired Buck Showalter, the American League Manager of the Year in 1994 with the New York Yankees.

Colangelo ’ s willingness to go into debt and acquire players through free agency had led to one of the quickest free falls in major sports history.

Jerry Colangelo ( born November 20, 1939 ), is an American businessman and sports executive.

Colangelo also serves as Chairman of the National Italian American Foundation ( NIAF ), a nonprofit nonpartisan educational foundation that promotes Italian American culture and heritage.

Colangelo has been known for a no-nonsense ownership style.

Colangelo put together a group that bought the Suns in late 1987, in the wake of the drug scandal.

In 1992, Colangelo traded Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry, and Andrew Lang to the Philadelphia 76ers for Charles Barkley.

Colangelo declared himself a born-again Christian, a reason that he credits for his change of heart about Barkley.

Colangelo has been involved in many professional sports teams in Arizona.

For his new baseball club, Colangelo hired Joe Garagiola, Jr. as General Manager.

Showalter and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner did not agree to a contract extension, so Colangelo quickly hired Showalter as future manager of the Diamondbacks.