Jerry Colangelo is a businessman and sports executive. He played basketball for the Illinois Fighting Illini, earned All-Big Ten honors, and captained the Illini as a senior. He was later inducted into the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame.
He formerly owned the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, the Arizona Sandsharks of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League, and the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball. He was also instrumental in the relocation of the original Winnipeg Jets team in the NHL to Phoenix to become the Phoenix Coyotes (now the Arizona Coyotes). From December 2015 to April 2016, Colangelo served as Chairman of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, before serving as a special adviser to the team until December 2018. He became the youngest general manager in professional sports in 1968 after being hired as general manager for the Phoenix Suns. He has the second longest tenure running the same NBA franchise (as of 2020), exceeded only by Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics.
Since 2009, he has served as Chairman of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2014, Grand Canyon University renamed its Christian based school of business after Jerry Colangelo, replacing Ken Blanchard's namesake.