Museum Named after Bloom High School Alum

Bloom High School’s 117-year history has many outstanding alums, but Jerry is the first and only alum to have a museum named in his honor.

Grand Canyon University unveiled the Jerry Colangelo Museum in a VIP event that showcases Colangelo's illustrious sports life, starting from his schoolboy days in Chicago Heights,IL to building the Suns into an NBA Finals team twice and the Diamondbacks into a World Series champion, to rebuilding the USA Basketball team and being the dominant team in the world every four years at the Olympics

…” He’s like the godfather of Phoenix sports. It needed to be done. His passion was to have four major professional sports teams. And he had a vision of Phoenix and how to revitalize it." Says Randy Gibb (dean of the College of Business).

Four walls on Grand Canyon's campus contain five decades of impact on the city of Phoenix and the world of basketball. About 2,200 square feet of GCU contains the life work of a Phoenix icon, who emerged from humble Chicago Heights roots to change the sports and civic landscape for Arizona and beyond. The Jerry Colangelo Museum is a tribute and a treasury. It is a celebration and a destination.

For no admission cost, the public can visit a collection of Colangelo's championship rings, gold medals, awards and trophies amid a display of his life through rare and memorable photographs and a personal video.

"I am humbled by what they chose to do and how they did it," Colangelo said. "This is world class. Everything (GCU President) Brian (Mueller) has done here is first class."

As great as he must have felt this day, he must have had flashbacks to his roots and his beginnings and memories of being a Bloom student. The experiences growing up at a unique time in Chicago Heights, admittedly affected him.

Jerry, who after the many professional epic sports encouunters, said,” In my life, my greatest sense of lost was at Bloom High School, in a lost in the Illinois Super Sectionals

Colangelo was referring the 1957 Bloom basketball squad that brought a 27-1 record into a state tournament game against Elgin and lost 53-52 in the final seconds. It marked the second consecutive bittersweet basketball season for the Chicago Heights school. Bloom's 1956 team finished 22-6 and also made it to Illinois' "Sweet 16" in the state tournament.

When divided predominantly white and predominantly black high school districts were merged in the 1950s into what is now Bloom Township High School, Thomas "Bert" Moore was one of the faculty members/his coach who made integration work. "You have to give Bert credit’ for instilling our attitude of acceptance of difference races as early as high school," Colangelo said.

As many students who attended Bloom will attest, Bloom had a unique racial mixture that would go on to impact his professional career. Not until Colangelo attended the University of Illinois in 1959 did he use his Bloom influenced perspectives of black athletes as integration pioneers on basketball teams. His Bloom teams such as the 1956 and 1957 powerhouses were integrated, as were those of prime rival Thornton High School.

When one speaks of Bloom in basketball, football and track & Field student-athletes. One players who helped shape his perspectives was a Black teammate he described as “Bloom’s greatest”

Jerry Colangelo, who knows a lot of the history and tradition of Bloom Township's sports program and has written a lot of history of his own as the one-time owner of the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball franchise, recalls with notes of sadness and admiration the last time he spent time with Homer Thurman.

Colangelo and Thurman were teammates on Bloom's 1957 basketball team that lost to Elgin 53-52 in the super sectional. Colangelo has said that it was the most disappointing loss he has ever experienced in his high school, college and professional sports career.

"When he graduated from high school in 1959, in terms of talent, he was as talented an athlete as I had ever seen at that age. Unfortunately, he had other issues that went along with the package. But he could have had a terrific college career and maybe a professional career."

Thurman, a 6-foot-4, 225-pounder, was a two-time All-Stater in basketball, football, and track & field. He

He was a freshman on Bloom's 18-2 team in 1956 that lost to Oak Park 62-57 in the super sectional at Hinsdale, On a team with Colangelo, Bobby Bell and Chuck Green, he was the leading scorer with 20 points!

It is no wonder that the museum tour prominently displays his early years. A huge display wall proudly illustrate several Bloom pictures, along with his Bloom basketball and senior yearbook photos.

“You can’t ever forget where you came from, “You just can’t.” ...Chicago Heights/Bloom High

The Bloom Alumni Association & The Bloom Alumni Athletic Association are vicariously basking in the glow of this honor.