Arizona Sports Trivia Quiz

Answer: Phoenix Suns

The Phoenix Suns professional basketball team came into existence in 1968 as an expansion team. Arizona gained a gridiron football team in 1988 when the St. Louis Cardinals football team relocated from Missouri (St Louis Cardinals) to the Phoenix area.

They were known as the Phoenix Cardinals before becoming the Arizona Cardinals in 1994. The former Winnipeg Jets ice hockey team moved from Canada to Arizona in 1996 to become the Phoenix Coyotes. The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team was an expansion team created in 1998.

Answer: Oldest rivalry trophy in American college football

The trophy was first awarded to the Arizona Territorial Normal School (renamed Arizona State University in 1958) for its win against the University of Arizona on Thanksgiving Day, 1899. Although the schools continued to have annual showdowns (now known as the "Duel in the Desert"), the trophy was lost and wasn't rediscovered until the 1980s when it was allegedly found in the basement of a church near the Arizona State University campus. It was put on display at Arizona State University until 2001 when the presidents of the two universities agreed to grant the trophy to the winner of the annual game.

Incidentally, the "Little Brown Jug" awarded to the winner of the Michigan/Minnesota college football game is the oldest continuously-awarded rivalry trophy in American college football. It was first awarded in 1903.

Answer: Detroit

Although pre-season exhibition games had been held in Arizona before it even became a state, the Detroit Tigers were the first team to establish a camp in Arizona. The Tigers trained at Riverside Park which was located at the intersection of Central Avenue and the Salt River.

The park had a baseball diamond and grandstands that were used for minor league baseball teams. In 1947, the Cleveland Indians and New York Giants made Arizona their spring training homes, thus beginning the Cactus League.

Answer: NFL - Arizona Cardinals

The Arizona Cardinals have the oldest continuously-run franchise in gridiron football history, according to the National Football League. First established in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club, the team became known as the Racine Cardinals in 1920, the Chicago Cardinals in 1922, the St. Louis Cardinals in 1960, the Phoenix Cardinals in 1988 and finally the Arizona Cardinals in 1994.

The Winnipeg Jets were founded in 1972 and became the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996. The Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks both were expansion teams that began their franchises in Arizona in 1968 and 1998, respectively.

Answer: Fiesta Bowl

Arizona State University was part of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in 1969 when it won its conference championship but the team wasn't invited to any of the major annual bowl games. The same thing had happened to the prior year's championship team, Wyoming, so the Fiesta Bowl was created to guarantee the champion of the WAC a bowl berth.

When Arizona State University moved to the Pacific-10 Conference (PAC-10), the Fiesta Bowl went with it. The 1987 Fiesta Bowl between Penn State and Miami was a major turning point for the bowl game, since it decided the national championship.

In the 1990s, the Fiesta Bowl became part of a bowl alliance to rotate the championship game among the bowls, leading to the Bowl Championship Series.

Answer: The Gorilla

According to the Phoenix Suns website, the Gorilla plays the position of CGO (Chief Gorilla Officer) and has been named the Suns MVP each season - Most Valuable Primate. He has even been featured in a Dire Straits music video ("Walk of Life"). The Gorilla joined the San Diego Chicken and the Phillie Phanatic in the inaugural class of the Mascot Hall of Fame (yes, there really is one).

The other mascots listed as possible answers are also Arizona mascots: Sparky the Sun Devil of Arizona State University, Baxter the Bobcat of the University of Arizona and Artie the Fighting Artichoke of Scottsdale Community College.

Answer: Being the first Arizonan to win an Olympic medal

A teammate of legendary athlete Jim Thorpe at the Carlisle Indian School of Pennsylvania, Lewis Tewanima was born on the Hopi's Second Mesa in the late 1870s or early 1880s. Tewanima qualified for the 1908 Olympics in London where he finished 9th in the marathon.

In the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, he finished second to Johan Kolehmainen, one of the early Flying Finns, in the 10,000 meter race and finished 16th in the marathon. After winning his silver medal, Tewanima returned to Arizona to live on the Hopi reservation.

Answer: Arizona Diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks won the baseball World Series in 2001 over the favored New York Yankees, only four years after the "Dbacks" had been established as an expansion team. The Cardinals franchise twice won the National Football Championship earlier than 2001, but they did so as the Chicago Cardinals, winning in 1925 and 1947 (the 1925 title was by virtue of having the best record in the league).

Incidentally, the Arizona Rattlers arena football team won their first national championship in 1994, but arena football isn't one of the Big Four professional sports in the USA.

Answer: Pat Tillman

After graduating Summa Cum Laude with a marketing degree from Arizona State University, Pat Tillman was drafted by the Cardinals in 1998. He turned down a multi-million dollar contract renewal to join the U.S. Army along with his brother in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.

A member of the Arizona Cardinals Ring of Honor, Tillman's number 40 was retired by the Cardinals, as was his number 42 by his alma mater, Arizona State University.

Answer: Mercury

The Phoenix Mercury was one of the original eight Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) teams. College and Olympic basketball star, Cheryl Miller, was the first coach of the team and led them to a 16-12 record in their first season. The Mercury went to the WNBA finals in their second year of existence but lost to the Houston Comets.

They finally won their first WNBA championship in 2007 by defeating the Detroit Shock.