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How did you become a Jazz fan?

JJ Rage

JJ Rage

Active Member
I realize for many of you, this thread will will simply become a case of being a Utahn and being brought up in a household full of Jazz fans. And I'm sure this type of thread has existed in the past, maybe on the old board. But with many people seemingly questioning their loyalty to the team after Jerry Sloan resignation, and many users going at each other over whether or not Deron's to blame (among other reasons), I just wanted to see how everyone here came to become a fan of this team. Moreover, I hope that sharing these kinds of stories will help us remember why we're all on this site in the first place.

(I'm also hoping my personal story isn't met with bile and hatred, since it's not a typical tale of fandom. It's also a bit longwinded, so sorry about that.)


When I was a kid, I didn't care much about basketball. I played a lot of baseball, it was my favorite sport at the time. I grew up a die hard Atlanta Braves fan on account of their minor league affiliate being stationed in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. I enjoyed watching football as well, rooting for the Cowboys because my father did. And my uncle got me interested in the NHL through video games. He was a Wayne Gretsky fan, and vicariously an L.A. Kings fan. He'd whoop my *** on NHL '93 all the time, until I started picking the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was the only team in the entire game I could beat him with. And thusly, I became a Penguins fan.

But, I never really had a favorite basketball team. Not really.

I did root for the Bulls often. A kid with no team, and the greatest player to play the game was in his prime during my childhood. Plus, the dude was in a ****ing Michael Jackson video. But when I went out and rented NBA Live '96, I found that by going to the player creator and making a player named "Michael Jordan", it would unlock all his stats and his appearance. Contracts might've kept him out of the game officially, but even MJ couldn't escape cheat codes. I also found that I could put any player on any team I wanted. So I put MJ on the Jazz.

I didn't know much about basketball, but I knew that Stockton and Malone were pretty good. I knew putting Jordan on the Jazz would make that whole team pretty good. Plus, I really liked the uniforms.

Then in the Summer 1997, when I was 13, my stepfather took a job here in Salt Lake City. After arriving at the airport, my mother and I took a rental car and headed to our new house. My first truly vivid memory of Utah happened on this car ride, as we passed right by the Delta Center in the midst of the NBA Playoffs. It was a madhouse and I wanted to be a part of it. I started watching the games, I made friends with other Jazz fans at my new school, and I begged my parents for Karl Malone jersey. That request fulfilled, and I proudly wore those bright purple road colors on the first day of the new school year.

I have been a Jazz fan ever since. Even though my stepfather took a new job shortly after the '98 Finals, I was a Jazz fan for life. The loss of two legendary players, a loyal owner and a Hall of Fame coach won't change that. And if Deron leaves, I guess I'll just have to retire my #8 jersey and start wearing a #20.
 
Always good to have a Californian as a Utah Jazz fan.

To put it short, I spent my first eleven years of my existence in the Salt Lake area and being a Jazz fan was inked before I was born. Proud of it, too. Go Jazz!
 
I live in Italy...near Pisa......
Since 1990...I saw a photo about Stockton....I saw him little and very normal....
Sometimes on Nba Action there were the HL about Stockton and the Jazz....
Then Malone...Sloan...Olympic games...The Finals...Williams...Boozer....
 
Good timing on this post.

I was born in Cali, but grew up in Utah. Dad always watched the games growing up, and I preferred them to a lot of other sports he watched. It was the Utah Jazz and the Oakland A's in the pre-enhanced McGwire and Conseco days.

One particular Jazz memory I have is during the finals years I was heading on a school trip to DC. The crew headed down to the Delta Center for every home game. We couldn't afford tickets, but they played it on a huge screen outside and you could get your face painted etc. It was always a blast! Anyhow we hopped on the plane with our faces painted that day and got some pretty good looks when we arrived in DC Ah the glory days!

After that, the team started downhill and I started college and sometimes as many as 3 jobs simultaneously. I took up rockcrawling and poker as new hobbies as if I needed something to take up my 'spare time'. I really didn't pay much attention to the team during college. I somehow graduated college and noticed one day that the Jazz were back in the playoffs again. The high school memories came flooding back and my evenings were pretty much open, so I began following again. I have really enjoyed it ever since, and I am willing to be patient with the team as it goes through transition this time.
 
My Step Dad was a sports journalist and he took me to my first game when I was 7. 1988. I still remember everything about the Salt Palace. Due to his status, I was able to meet a lot of players from outside the lockerroom. Including the visiting team as well. My childhood as a jazz fan was great.
 
My first Jazz game was the free tickets in the nose bleed section you got for playing Jr. Jazz way back in the day. Me and my dad and cousin drove up and watched the game in the Salt Palace. After taking in that first live pro game at 8 years old I was hooked to Basketball. I watched the Jazz every chance I got. As I got older and started watching other teams it used to piss me off that there was so much one on one going on with the other teams. While the Jazz ran a team offense and played hard even though they weren't the better team most of the time. The reason I am a Jazz fan is because though all the years of change and the NBA becoming a punk infested circus the Jazz were alway a basketball TEAM. The way it was supposed to be played.
Stock became and well prob be my favorite player for the rest of my life. Sloan was a coach who coached the right way and demanded effort and execution. And the team won because of it. I well miss the old school Jazz. But Basketball is my passion. I still play every chance I get and I coach (get paid to do it so thats a plus). And I well always love my Utah Jazz for showing me what real Basketball at the highest level is supposed to look like. Even if the Jazz fall apart completely I well still follow them. They are my team for ever.
 
grew up with my dad, who is hearing impaired (completely deaf), blaring Jazz games and constantly yelling at Sloan and Karl Malone....with sign language as well as vocally. It was fun!
 
Born in Santa Barbara, moved to SLC in about '79. Wasnt really an NBA or Bball fan. I think around that time I got into the BYU tourney run with Ainge and then from there went to a couple Jazz games at the Salt Palace. Green, Dantley...game on since then.
 
My Dad took me to the Salt Palace to see my first Jazz game in 1985, and I've never looked back. I even spent 14 years living in or near Seattle, rooting for the Utah Jazz as the "away" team. That was fun, especially in the later years when the Jazz PWN3D the Supes, prior to their acrimonious departure from the city. I used to wear a full Jazz warmup suit to the Key Arena. Got lots of dirty looks from most people, but occasional high-5s from the Stockton faithful -- Stock had a crazy core of fans due to the Gonzaga connection. Probably several hundred every game. Like I said in a different thread, what I miss most these days is not the nostalgia or even the players, it's the defense. I could care less if the Jazz can put up points. Jazz basketball was best when it was defensively sound. Everything builds on defense. Bring back the D, Coach Ty!
 
I was born in Utah and spent my first 11 years there. While us kids were mild Jazz fans in the early 80's, we werent rabid about it. Then when my family moved out of Utah I grew homesick and began to follow the Jazz religiously as a way to stay connected with my home. It's been a great ride for nearly 30 years now. Hopefully it isn't coming to an end anytime soon.
 
....Stockton and Malone duo/pick and roll....Sloan insisting on open shots and not one on one....simple as that. I have no vested interest in Utah or Salt Lake City. But when you had two of the smartest, fundamentally sound players in the History of the NBA playing on the same team in their prime....it was something to behold!
 
I was not really into basketball until I was about 13 years old. At 14 I had a chance to be a ball boy for the Jazz for about 5 home games and a few practices. That was the year they drafted Karl Malone. I have a Griffith jersey signed by several Jazz players including Malone and Stockton, Ricky Green, Griffith and a couple others. Being that close to the game, close enough to hear the contact when they hit each other or hear the snap of the ball going through the net and of course hear the trash talk and watching them at practice and getting autographs from them and hearing a few start calling you by name even after just a few games and practices (Stockton was one...he was good to the ball boys), well then I was hooked. Been a fan ever since.
 
Wait, you like the Cowboys? No wonder I always grate my teeth reading your posts.

We could never be friends in real life.
 
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the kid next door's father worked in advertising with some kind of connection to the Wirtz family - they owned the Blackhawks and Bulls. The Bulls were a pretty new franchise then, and he'd have tickets for these games and bring us along. My friend's Dad's favorite player was Jerry Sloan, so I guess that's why he became my favorite player as well. (OK, him and Tom Boerwinkle whom I liked because his name sounded like Bullwinkle). Then later Pete Maravich became my favorite player (I think because he looked like one of my favorite teachers at the time) so I became a fan of the New Orleans Jazz. Who then became the Utah Jazz and eventually made Jerry Sloan their head coach. So I sort of felt it was karma or something the way everything had come full circle.

As a life-long (for the most part) Chicagoan, I've always been a Bulls fan, but when they played the Jazz in '97 and '98 I was hoping the Jazz would win at least one of those years since the Bulls had already won plenty of championships. Except for the Yankees, I've never been particularly fond of sports dynasties at all. So I felt it was time to let someone else win, and since the Jazz had Jerry Sloan as their coach, I felt it would still be a credit to Chicago in a sense. Probably sounds dumb to some of you...

Plus my youngest son was a big John Stockton fan.

Anyhow, I just enjoy watching basketball, at any level - I always have. So I was totally entranced by the Illini teams in '88-'89 and 03'-'05 and began following the Jazz more closely once they drafted Deron, and then the year they added Dee Brown and Roger Powell. And the internet and cable certainly make it easier to follow an out-of-area team.


(and neither here nor there, but those early Bulls teams also had a player by the name of Bob Boozer, that name reminded me of Bozo so he was another favorite player - - and I'm sure there's something subliminal about why I've liked Carlos Boozer since his days at Duke...)
 
I became a Jazz fan...

Well it's complicated. Every story is, right? I grew up both a Jazz & Bulls fan. My family was from Chicago, so that made it easier cheering for Chicago. It didn't hurt that Michael Jordan was putting on the Greatest Show on Earth.

But I also liked the Jazz. They were a very close second and since both Utah and Chicago were in two different conferences and didn't meet until the late-90s, it was pretty reasonable to root on both teams.

I even cheered for Utah in home games against the Bulls and for the Bulls when they were at home. A weird system, but a fair one, I thought.

Of course, it was easier back then to follow the Jazz because they were the local team. The internet was still in its infancy and all the games, well many of the games, were on the television. So as the decade progressed, I slowly changed my allegiance fully to the Jazz. When Michael Jordan retired from the game the first time, I pretty much dropped my support of the Bulls and invested it solely into the Jazz.

I was intrigued by his return, even have some Chicago newspapers from then that my dad's cousin sent me in the mail - but overall, it wasn't enough to trump the growth of my Jazz fandom.

When the two met in the NBA Finals, it wasn't really a complicated choice - I chose Utah.

Wise choice, right? I'm starting to wonder...

But the overall reason for my decision was influence. I was the only non-fully invested (I feel dirty saying those words) Jazz fan in the family. I watched a lot of games with my grandparents, especially my grandma, and that certainly rubbed off on me, especially when Jordan was gone from 1994-1995.

Coming out of the 90s, I was probably more invested than I would have ever liked. Too many heartbreaking losses. Too many disappointments. Too many seasons ending without the ultimate prize.
 
France, summer 1992, back then you couldn't catch one single image of NBA broadcasted on French tv, or maybe just a recap of the Finals on a paying channel. So I had no idea of what was going on for any team or any player. I turn on my TV and the Dream Team is playing in the Barcelona Olympics. I immediately wonder "who the hell is this little white guy they picked along with Jordan, Magic, Bird and co ???". Never stopped following the Jazz since then, and I even came to Salt Lake in 2002 to see John Stockton play before he retires.
 
I grew up in vermont and played basketball in high school. When Stocktan and Malone left the team every NBA expert in the country said Utah was going to be the worst team in the NBA, but I said "NO!". I saw the potential in Kirilenko to be something new an unique and the work ethic in Matt Harpring to pull together a strong season. So as the season went on I laughed at all my fellow basketball friends as my bold and mocked prediction followed the Jazz to their 42-40 season. After that Jazz has been plucked from the strings of my heart very since.
 
Moved to utah when I was 3.. my dad was a VP for salt palace and than for the Delta center when it opened.. rest is history
 
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