Arizona

This prominent attorney collects art to celebrate his Mexican heritage

Published

5 months ago

January 9, 2026

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This prominent attorney collects art to celebrate his Mexican heritage

Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas possesses a large private collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.
Cardenas, who rose from humble immigrant roots, amassed the collection with his late wife, Virginia, as an embrace of their shared Mexican heritage.
He frequently opens his home to visitors for tours and events, sharing stories about the artwork and his life.

Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas loves to show off his vast collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.

But he once made a fool of himself arguing with the legendary Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska over a piece of artwork on display in his spacious 4,000-square-foot Chandler home.

Cardenas was giving Poniatowska a tour of his art collection during a reception he hosted for the writer. She was in town giving a lecture at Arizona State University.

“This is a self-portrait of Siqueiros,” Cardenas remembers telling Poniatwoska, referring to David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of Mexico’s three most famous muralists.

Poniatowska took a look at the sketch and shook her head, “No it’s not.”

The two got into a back and forth, with Cardenas continuing to insist the man depicted in the painting was Siqueiros.

“That’s what they told me when I bought it at the gallery in San Francisco,” Cardenas remembers telling the Mexican author.

Finally Cardenas backed down, thinking, “She’s getting up in years. I’m not going to embarrass her and argue with her.”

A few days later, Cardenas was flipping through TV channels. He came across a PBS documentary about the 1970 Chicano riots in East Los Angeles. The documentary highlighted a portrait Siqueiros had painted in homage to Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist killed by a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy during the protests.

Poniatowska was right. The figure in the painting was not Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist. It was indeed Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist, as painted by Siqueiros.

Cardenas tells this story when he gives tours of his art collection to visitors. They break out in laughter.

“You were mansplaining” one visitor told him. “No, I was being an idiot,” Cardenas said, “because why would you argue with her, of all people. She knew (Siqueiros). She wrote about him. She interviewed him. Not the person to say, ‘No, you are wrong.’”

Cardenas built prestigious career from humble roots

The personal art tours Cardenas hosts weekly at his home are peppered with similar stories that showcase his self-deprecating humor and highlight his enormous pride in his humble upbringing and Mexican heritage.

Cardenas comes from modest working-class Mexican immigrant roots. But he rose to become one of the most prominent and successful attorneys in Arizona. He has used his considerable wealth to amass what artists say is the largest collection of Mexican and Mexican-American artwork in the state, which he shares often with visitors during various events at his home, from personal tours to his annual post-Christmas bash.

Born in 1952, Cardenas is the son of an immigrant dad from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and a Mexican-American mom. Cardenas grew up in Vegas Heights, a working-class Hispanic neighborhood west of Las Vegas that was still segregated. His father, Fortunato Cárdenas Sánchez, had a sixth-grade education. He worked as a foreman for construction company that laid pipelines. He was killed in a work accident when Cardenas was 15.

His mother, Gloria Frances Gómez Vigil, was born in a small town in northern Nevada to Mexican immigrant parents who eventually moved to Las Vegas. She only attended school through eighth grade.

After his father died, Cardenas, the second-oldest of four children, wanted to quit school and work to help his family with finances. But Cardenas was a good student, and his mother insisted he stay in school and encouraged him to attend college.

Cardenas became the first person in his family to graduate from high school and then college. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and then a law degree from Stanford.

After law school, Cardenas clerked for a federal judge in San Francisco and then moved to Arizona in 1978 to work for the powerhouse law firm Lewis and Roca. Cardenas mostly handled commercial litigation but also did pro bono work on death penalty cases. In 1999, he was named managing partner, becoming one of the few Hispanic managing partners of a major law firm in the nation.

In 2009, Cardenas left Lewis and Roca to serve as chief legal adviser and senior vice president at Arizona State University, a position he held until 2022.

For nearly 20 years, Cardenas also hosted Horizonte, a public affairs show focusing on Arizona issues through a Hispanic perspective on Arizona PBS (KAET-TV Channel 8). He stepped down in 2023. Now semi-retired, the 73-year-old Cardenas continues to serve as special senior university adviser at ASU.

Cardenas and his Mexican-born wife, Virginia, were childhood sweethearts. When Virginia turned 15, Cardenas was one of the escorts in her quinceañera coming-of-age celebration. The two then began dating in ninth grade. They married when Cardenas was 19 and Virginia was 20 by one month. She worked as a counselor at Chandler High School. She died in July 2012 of kidney cancer.

Cardenas and Virginia bought their first artwork when he was still a financially struggling law student at Stanford. The two prints Cardenas purchased from a fellow student are now among the thousands of pieces of artwork that adorn his home.

Couple made frequent trips to purchase art

Cardenas said he and Virginia were introduced to the world of Mexican and Mexican American art when they moved to Arizona and met artists Zarco and Carmen Guerrero at a party. They are the founders of Xicanindio, the original name of Xico, a nonprofit organization that promotes Latino and Indigenous art and culture.

The couple became deeply involved in the organization. Virginia became the program director for several years and Cardenas served on the board of directors, including a stint as president.

Over the years, Cardenas and Virginia traveled frequently to Mexico City, Sante Fe and San Francisco to purchase paintings, crosses, ceramics, prints and pottery that cover practically every inch of Cardenas’ ranch home in Chandler.

Cardenas said he considers the collection an embrace of the Mexican heritage he and Virginia shared.

“It’s pride,” Cardenas said during an interview at his home.

“Virginia was born in Mexico. She came here when she was eight,” Cardenas said. “And I never considered myself Mexican American because when I was growing up, those terms weren’t used. So we were Mexicans.”

After Virginia died in 2012, Cardenas commissioned East L.A.-born artist George Yepes to paint a portrait of her. Yepes is best known as the artist who painted the cover of the 1988 Grammy Award-winning album by Los Lobos, “La Pistola y El Corazón.”

At first, Yepes turned down the commission after Cardenas showed her photo of Virginia, who was known for her dazzling smile.

“I can’t do it,” Cardenas recalled Yepes saying. “She’s always smiling. I don’t do smiles.”

A few weeks later, Yepes emailed Cardenas. “I think I can do it.”

The 7-foot-tall portrait Yepes painted of Virginia now hangs in Cardenas’ living room, where it dominates one of the walls. Cardenas considers it his most treasured piece, along with a portrait by a different artist of his three grown sons when they were young.

“The funny thing about this is she was pretty short, she was barely five foot tall. This painting is seven feet. And she’s sitting down. So talk about bigger-than-life-size,” Cardenas told a group of visitors during one of his tours.

Home is an art gallery, with frequent visitors

Cardenas frequently opens his home to visitors, serving as docent as he escorts visitors from room to room, telling stories along the way about various pieces of artwork.

In addition to the personal tours, Cardenas hosts an annual open house to showcase the ofrendas he creates in honor of Dia de los Muertos. At his Day of the Dead open house in November 2025, during the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation effort, one of the ofrendas focused on immigration. The ofrenda included photos of Cardenas’ relatives from Mexico, along with numerous quotes by Pope Francis that Cardenas printed out and framed.

“Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity,” read one quote.

“It is necessary to respond to the globalization of migration with the globalization of charity and cooperation, in such a way as to make the conditions for migrants more humane,” read another.

Cardenas also hosts an annual Los Tres Reyes Magos party every January in honor of Three Kings Day, a Christian holiday that is popular in Mexico and Latino America and marks the biblical visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus. This year’s party, attended by some of the most influential people in Arizona, will be Jan. 10.

One of the most powerful pieces on display in his home is a painting Cardenas commissioned as a tribute to the victims of the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting killed 19 students and two teachers, and injured 21 others. The artwork, which Cardenas displays in his dining room, also was painted by Yepes, the artist who painted the portrait of Virginia.

The painting depicts a woman draped in an American flag, her arms and hands outstretched in the shape of a crucifix, with swords piercing her exposed heart, while doves flutter around her head, wrapped in a crown of thorns.

‘Everything they have in the collection was for them’

One of the most striking pieces is a massive Talavera ceramic jar created by artist and restauranteur Gennaro Garcia, a native of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, who now lives in Phoenix. Garcia created the piece in Puebla, Mexico, where he studied the hand-painted Mexican ceramic artform that blends Spanish and Indigenous influences.

Cardenas had the piece shipped to his home, where he had to remove the table from his kitchen to make room for the artwork, which towers over six feet in height.

Garcia said he strived for years to have his artwork included in the Cardenas’ collection.

“As an artist, you want you want to be in in collection that you admire,” Garcia said. “His collection was already so good, and I wanted to have my name associated with those other artists” and with Virginia and Jose Cardenas as collectors.

Garcia describes the collection as a love story between the couple.

“Everything they have in the collection was for them,” Garcia said. “I always remember them standing in front of the art, talking about it, and then deciding to buy it” as a couple.

Garcia said he was not aware of a larger personal collection of Mexican and Mexican American artwork in Arizona.

“It’s the biggest one. Easy,” Garcia said.

Cristina Cardenas, a Mexican-born artist based in Tucson, agreed.

“In Arizona, to tell you the truth, I haven’t met anybody else with a bigger or more rich collection” especially of Mexican-American and Arizona artists, said Cardenas, who is not related to Jose.

She has sold numerous paintings to Cardenas. The collector also has commissioned her to paint several murals at his home, including a mural of a smiling Virginia that adorns an outdoor wall in the home’s sizable patio, and a mural of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo that greets visitors to his home.

The artist said Cardenas and Virginia have supported many artists through their collecting. They have played a role in opening the door for Latino artists to sell their work to other collectors, Cardenas said, noting that she once sold a print to former Arizona governor and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano through an introduction by Cardenas.

“It’s a commitment to represent our people, our communities, and to represent Mexico and the really highest rich cultural history that it has,” the artist said.

She noted that visitors will notice that Cardenas and Virginia have had a strong interest in collecting female figurative art. They were influential in shifting Xico artists away from depictions of low-riders and other traditional Chicano symbols toward prints and paintings that celebrate female figurative art.

Cardenas the artist, and others, often wonder what will happen to the massive collection after Cardenas is gone.

“It has to be preserved and it has to stay together. That’s my recommendation,” Cardenas the artist said.

Collection is a priceless legacy

Jose Cardenas said he isn’t sure what will become of his collection. He knows that some of the pieces will be passed down to his children and family, including the portrait of Virginia. The rest may go the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University, he said.

In the meantime, his collection continues to expand. He recently mounted two new pieces by renowned contemporary American artist Ayana Jackson, who reconstructs the portraiture of the 19th and early 20th centuries to, according to her bio, “assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography.”

The two pieces Cardenas acquired depict the artist suspended in midair in a battle stance while in character as Adelita, the Mexican female revolutionary soldier.

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Arizona

NAU launches first-of-its-kind engineering degree to fast-track Arizona’s future workforce – The NAU Review

Published

7 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

As Arizona’s semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries continue to grow at a rapid pace, Northern Arizona University’s Steve Sanghi College of Engineering is launching a new degree program designed to help meet the state’s workforce needs.

Beginning this fall, NAU will offer a Bachelor of Professional Studies in Engineering Technology, a flexible, workforce-focused degree pathway that prepares students for careers in microelectronics, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing in as little as three years. The 90-credit bachelor’s degree creates a more accessible pathway into engineering careers through a hands-on, applied curriculum and a streamlined transfer model with Arizona community colleges.

The program follows a 45-45 completion structure, allowing students to complete 45 credits at a community college and 45 credits through NAU. Courses will be delivered through synchronous remote instruction at NAU’s North Valley campus in Phoenix and at Pima Community College in Tucson, increasing access for statewide students.

Addressing Arizona’s growing semiconductor workforce

Designed with workforce readiness in mind, the program emphasizes practical engineering application, systems implementation, testing, quality control, systems analysis, manufacturing, fabrication, process control and project management. Students will gain technical and problem-solving skills aligned with the needs of Arizona’s rapidly evolving manufacturing economy.

“This new bachelor’s degree empowers students to identify real-world engineering challenges and develop practical solutions,” said James Palmer, associate dean for academic affairs at the Steve Sanghi College of Engineering. “We are creating a more accessible pathway into engineering careers while preparing graduates to support Arizona’s growing microelectronics and semiconductor industry.”

Arizona has emerged as one of the nation’s fastest-growing semiconductor hubs, with more than $200 billion in semiconductor-related investments announced in the Greater Phoenix region since 2020, including expansions from Intel, TSMC and Amkor Technology. TSMC alone has committed up to $165 billion toward Arizona operations, including multiple fabrication plants and advanced packaging facilities expected to create thousands of technical and manufacturing jobs.

Industry demand continues to grow for professionals with applied engineering and advanced manufacturing skills in areas such as process engineering, manufacturing systems, equipment operations and yield enhancement. NAU’s new degree program was developed to help students quickly enter these high-demand career fields while supporting Arizona’s long-term economic growth and domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity.

The program also aligns with NAU’s strategic commitment to expanding access to affordable, student-centered educational opportunities that prepare graduates for meaningful careers and long-term success.

Students interested in learning more about the Bachelor of Professional Studies in Engineering Technology program should contact SCE@nau.edu.

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Arizona

GOP candidates pitch themselves the person to beat Arizona’s Democratic governor

Published

17 hours ago

June 18, 2026

Press Room

GOP candidates pitch themselves the person to beat Arizona’s Democratic governor

PHOENIX (AP) — The two Republican congressmen running for Arizona governor pitched themselves at a debate Wednesday as the only candidate with broad enough voter appeal to unseat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs amid the state’s affordability struggles.

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, who is the GOP primary’s frontrunner and has the endorsement of President Donald Trump, portrayed himself as being able to cross party lines and having the right experience to be the state’s chief executive.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind, if you look at the polling data that you’re going to find, I am the most competitive with Katie Hobbs of anybody on this stage in any Republican in the state,” Biggs said.

U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, who has survived three tough Democratic challenges in recent years, believes his focus on government finances and his drive to bring new business to the state make him the singular Republican candidate.

“These are wonderful people, but they’ve never actually been in the great battle,” Schweikert said of Biggs and two other Republican opponents.

Businessman Scott Neely, who ran an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2022, said after the debate that if Biggs wins the primary, Republicans will lose the election.

The winner of the July 21 primary will face Hobbs, who’s running unopposed in the primary.

Biggs has served five terms in the U.S. House, representing a heavily GOP district in the eastern Phoenix suburbs and serving at one time as chairman of the ultra-right U.S. House Freedom Caucus.

Before that, Biggs served in the Arizona Legislature from 2003 through 2016, including four years as president of the state Senate. He battled with then-Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on a Medicaid expansion in 2013 and pushed school choice measures and bills targeting abortion providers.

Biggs is one of Trump’s top defenders in Congress and supported Trump’s false claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Schweikert, a budget hawk known for railing against government debt, has represented an affluent district that includes parts of northeast Phoenix and Scottsdale for eight terms. He served in the Arizona House in the 1990s and as Maricopa County’s treasurer in the 2000s.

Schweikert has focused his congressional career on sounding the alarm about the federal budget deficit and the ballooning U.S. debt, often in late-night speeches to a nearly empty House chamber and bleary-eyed C-SPAN viewers. Schweikert has praised Trump’s 2017 tax cuts but has called for more spending cuts to reduce federal borrowing.

His reputation was tarnished by ethics scandals. In 2022, he received a $125,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission for misappropriating campaign funds. Two years prior, he agreed to pay a $50,000 fine and accept 11 campaign finance violations after an investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Ethics. In his last three general campaigns for Congress, Schweikert staved off challenges from Democrats. Biggs voiced support for Arizona’s recent passage of a three-year moratorium on tax incentives for new data centers – a move Hobbs also has touted. “They shouldn’t be given a break,” Biggs said, noting the large amounts of power and water that data centers use.

Schweikert bemoaned Arizona’s unfavorable affordability rankings as “pretty miserable,” but said consumer prices don’t come down magically. He vowed to aggressively recruit businesses to Arizona and push for wage growth.

Both congressmen were asked about the expired healthcare subsidies for those getting coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

“We’re going to have to deal with the reality of subsidization of everything in the economy is not going to work,” Schweikert said.

Biggs said he introduced legislation in Congress to bring down healthcare costs and also voiced support for Trump’s proposal to send money directly to Americans for health savings accounts so they can handle insurance and health costs as they see fit.

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Arizona

Social sport leagues for adults heating up in Arizona

Published

1 day ago

June 17, 2026

Press Room

Social sport leagues for adults heating up in Arizona

by Shelby Evans, Cronkite News
June 17, 2026

SCOTTSDALE – “Seven.”

“Eight.”

“One.”

“Two.”

Forty adults gather in a circle around a sand volleyball court at Indian School Park. They count off to divide into eight teams for the volleyball matches.

The camaraderie of recess sports persists among the group. Play for the joy of playing.

“It is a stressful time to be an adult, right?” said Phoenix Fray city commissioner Hilary Neste. “So we want to encourage people to play. That is our mission.”

Adult social leagues have grown in number and size as more adults turn to them as a way to find community and stay active.

According to a 2025 report from Morning Consult, 58% of adults work out or play sports at least once a week.

The Valley has options for those majority of adults, Municipalities, like the City of Phoenix, offer community leagues, Arizona Sports League offers divisions of play for eight sports in locations spread across the metropolitan area and OutLoud Sports offers LGBTQ+ inclusive year-round options.

Fray Phoenix is a private adult social sport league provider. As dusk brings relief to the Arizona summer air, players begin gathering at the four sand volleyball courts every Sunday night at 7 p.m.

Pete Sanchez, a 55-year-old dad of three, participates in three Fray Leagues a week.

“Sundays is sand volleyball,” Sanchez said. “Then Mondays is flag football, Tuesdays is adult kickball.

“I enjoy the competition. I make a lot of friends, and friends where we actually hang out and go out.”

Each league has a pay-for-play model. Six weeks of indoor volleyball starting in August at a social or athletic level costs non-members between $75-$85.

Privately owned social sports leagues are growing in size across the country. Organizing the leagues became such a large undertaking that the Sport & Social Industry Association has been connecting member organizations with resources since 2010.

Chris Giebner, a founding member of SSIA, has owned and operated Tampa Bay Club Sport since 2002.

“It’s not an industry for the faint of heart,” Giebner said. “The raw truth of it is we’re in a business where half your customers lose every night.”

He first participated in a social league when he moved to Florida from Cincinnati in 1996.

“I Joined a start up, fledgling soccer league as a free agent,” Giebner said, “then on that first day, I ended up meeting who became my wife.”

It is a story that Giebner has seen repeated in the 30 years since.

“We have tracked, probably hundreds of marriages,” Giebner said. “I’ve probably been to dozens of weddings of people I met through Club Sport. We’ve seen dozens of on-field marriage proposals.”

Romances put the social in social sports in Phoenix as well. Jordyn Graham joined a Fray volleyball league when she moved to Phoenix from Texas. Michael Donovan moved to the area from New Hampshire.

“I would just show up at my game and leave,” Graham said. “He was like ‘hey, you should start coming to free play.’ And I was like ‘hmmm, maybe’ and then he was like ‘well here’s my number. I’ll text you.’”

Since then, the couple has dated and are now engaged.

“With us being together, it brought me out more,” Graham said. “Meet more people, made new friends and other connections.”

Tampa Bay Sports Club Sport has expanded into six cities in Florida and employs 15 full-time people with 80 part-time employees. They have about 80,000 players a year across their leagues, Giebner said He associates the growth to Gen Zs and Millennials moving away from a drinking culture.

“Those generations aren’t drinking as much as Gen X, and my generation,” Giebner said. “More of those generations are looking for something active to do, and I think our industry and our product is right up that alley.”

Fray United is headquartered in Washington D.C. and has leagues based out of Jacksonville, Florida, and Phoenix. Neste is the only full-time employee in Arizona and operates as the city commissioner. Sports options are available across the Valley spanning from Avondale, Glendale, Scottsdale and Gilbert.

“We always have new players joining us, which is so great,” Neste said. “You meet people that you wouldn’t meet in other areas, like going out to a bar.”

Phoenix Fray offers two divisions on Sunday nights: a social and an athletic. Athletic includes a higher level of play for a bit more competition.

“We want to be in the Athletic league,” Sanchez said. “Our team is pretty good but we just can’t seem to win when it comes to the playoffs.

“Everybody’s always asking when are you guys going to athletic and I’m like “no, we need to win social before we deserve to move up.’”

The sport still prioritizes socialization and Neste highlighted the access social leagues offer to players who are new to the sport.

“The way youth sports is going is everyone is specializing,” Neste said. “I think more adults are going to want to try new things because they never got to try it when they were children.”

At Indian School Park, the athletic and social leagues compete for the first two scheduled hours. By 9 p.m., the teams gather in a circle and count off into new teams that combine the levels of play.

“We stay after and we mix the teams up,” Neste said. “It’s a lot harder to yell at someone during the game if you know them on a personal level, right? So, we encourage them to interact with each other instead of just their own team.”

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Social sport leagues heating up in Arizona as adults look to connect <p>Shelby Evans, Cronkite News<br /> June 17, 2026 <p>SCOTTSDALE – “Seven.”<div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>“Eight.” <p>“One.” <p>“Two.” <p>Forty adults gather in a circle around a sand volleyball court at Indian School Park. They count off to divide into eight teams for the volleyball matches. <p>The camaraderie of recess sports persists among the group. Play for the joy of playing. <div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>“It is a stressful time to be an adult, right?” said Phoenix Fray city commissioner Hilary Neste. “So we want to encourage people to play. That is our mission.” <p>Adult social leagues have grown in number and size as more adults turn to them as a way to find community and stay active. <p>According to a 2025 report from Morning Consult, 58% of adults work out or play sports at least once a week. <p>The Valley has options for those majority of adults, Municipalities, like the City of Phoenix, offer community leagues, Arizona Sports League offers divisions of play for eight sports in locations spread across the metropolitan area and OutLoud Sports offers LGBTQ+ inclusive year-round options. <p>Fray Phoenix is a private adult social sport league provider. As dusk brings relief to the Arizona summer air, players begin gathering at the four sand volleyball courts every Sunday night at 7 p.m.<div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>Pete Sanchez, a 55-year-old dad of three, participates in three Fray Leagues a week. <p>“Sundays is sand volleyball,” Sanchez said. “Then Mondays is flag football, Tuesdays is adult kickball. <p>“I enjoy the competition. I make a lot of friends, and friends where we actually hang out and go out.” <p>Each league has a pay-for-play model. Six weeks of indoor volleyball starting in August at a social or athletic level costs non-members between $75-$85. <p>Privately owned social sports leagues are growing in size across the country. Organizing the leagues became such a large undertaking that the Sport & Social Industry Association has been connecting member organizations with resources since 2010. <div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>Chris Giebner, a founding member of SSIA, has owned and operated Tampa Bay Club Sport since 2002. <p>“It’s not an industry for the faint of heart,” Giebner said. “The raw truth of it is we’re in a business where half your customers lose every night.” <p>He first participated in a social league when he moved to Florida from Cincinnati in 1996. <p>“I Joined a start up, fledgling soccer league as a free agent,” Giebner said, “then on that first day, I ended up meeting who became my wife.” <p>It is a story that Giebner has seen repeated in the 30 years since. <div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>“We have tracked, probably hundreds of marriages,” Giebner said. “I’ve probably been to dozens of weddings of people I met through Club Sport. We’ve seen dozens of on-field marriage proposals.” <p>Romances put the social in social sports in Phoenix as well. Jordyn Graham joined a Fray volleyball league when she moved to Phoenix from Texas. Michael Donovan moved to the area from New Hampshire. <p>“I would just show up at my game and leave,” Graham said. “He was like ‘hey, you should start coming to free play.’ And I was like ‘hmmm, maybe’ and then he was like ‘well here’s my number. I’ll text you.’” <p>Since then, the couple has dated and are now engaged. <p>“With us being together, it brought me out more,” Graham said. “Meet more people, made new friends and other connections.” <div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>Tampa Bay Sports Club Sport has expanded into six cities in Florida and employs 15 full-time people with 80 part-time employees. They have about 80,000 players a year across their leagues, Giebner said He associates the growth to Gen Zs and Millennials moving away from a drinking culture. <p>“Those generations aren’t drinking as much as Gen X, and my generation,” Giebner said. “More of those generations are looking for something active to do, and I think our industry and our product is right up that alley.” <p>Fray United is headquartered in Washington D.C. and has leagues based out of Jacksonville, Florida, and Phoenix. Neste is the only full-time employee in Arizona and operates as the city commissioner. Sports options are available across the Valley spanning from Avondale, Glendale, Scottsdale and Gilbert. <p>“We always have new players joining us, which is so great,” Neste said. “You meet people that you wouldn’t meet in other areas, like going out to a bar.” <p>Phoenix Fray offers two divisions on Sunday nights: a social and an athletic. Athletic includes a higher level of play for a bit more competition. <div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>“We want to be in the Athletic league,” Sanchez said. “Our team is pretty good but we just can’t seem to win when it comes to the playoffs. <p>“Everybody’s always asking when are you guys going to athletic and I’m like “no, we need to win social before we deserve to move up.’” <p>The sport still prioritizes socialization and Neste highlighted the access social leagues offer to players who are new to the sport. <p>“The way youth sports is going is everyone is specializing,” Neste said. “I think more adults are going to want to try new things because they never got to try it when they were children.” <p>At Indian School Park, the athletic and social leagues compete for the first two scheduled hours. By 9 p.m., the teams gather in a circle and count off into new teams that combine the levels of play.<div class="mvp-post-ad-wrap"><span class="mvp-ad-label">Advertisement</span><div class="mvp-post-ad"> </div></div> <p>“We stay after and we mix the teams up,” Neste said. “It’s a lot harder to yell at someone during the game if you know them on a personal level, right? So, we encourage them to interact with each other instead of just their own team.” <p>This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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