A nice walk in a beautiful city

BOB STARKEY: It's been about 20 years since I've been to Phoenix.  At the time I was on Dale Brown's staff and it was during the era where you could scout in person so I was sent out here to scout Oklahoma State and Big Country Reeves as they were playing against Arizona in US Airways Arena.  In those days, however, you flew in that afternoon, got your notes read, headed to the arena to scout, ate a late dinner and grabbed the first think smokin' the next morning.  There was never really enough time to check out the sites of a city.

This morning I got up to take a 90 minute walk and get my first good look at Phoenix -- at least the downtown area.  It's a beautiful city!  The architecture is a combination of old school with modern buildings -- including some spanish tile roofs reminding me of the LSU campus.  It's also a very clean city that obviously takes great pride in it's appearance as is evident by the landscapping.  I am actually a block away from the arena which stands right beside Chase Field, home of the Diamondbacks.

Another thing that struck me is the absolute lack of traffic in downtown -- which does NOT remind me of Baton Rouge!  I started my walk at 7:30 AM so thought I'd see cars backed up at each intersection but that was not the case.

It's very apparent to me that the city itself is one of the reasons that Temeka enjoys playing for the Mercury!

Posted by Bob Starkey