{"id":1037393,"date":"2026-09-01T19:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T19:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1037393\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T19:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T19:36:17","slug":"longtime-phoenix-suns-gorilla-mascot-performer-earns-hall-of-fame-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1037393\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Phoenix Suns gorilla mascot performer earns Hall of Fame honor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 The man who spent decades flipping through the air, donning a gorilla suit in front of thousands of Phoenix Suns fans, is heading to the hall of fame. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Bob Woolf, who adopted the \u201cGo the Gorilla\u201d persona for over 30 years, will be inducted into the <a href=\"https:\/\/worldacro.com\/gallery-of-legends-hall-of-fame\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/worldacro.com\/gallery-of-legends-hall-of-fame\/\">World Acrobatics Society Hall of Fame<\/a> this weekend in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Woolf was the second man to wear the iconic suit and turned the gorilla into a mascot staple of not only Arizona, but the NBA. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Before he was the man in the mask, Woolf competed for Arizona State\u2019s men\u2019s gymnastics team from 1985 to 1987. Then, in 1988, the Suns held open auditions to replace the original gorilla, Henry Rojas. What started as a short-term gig became decades of trampoline dunks and daredevil stunts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Phoenix Suns mascot &quot;The Gorilla&quot; in the first half during a preseason NBA basketball game...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/VSQ2ZAG6YRAVJJCA3I2YAH4N5E.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>Phoenix Suns mascot &#8220;The Gorilla&#8221; in the first half during a preseason NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, in Phoenix. (AP Photo\/Rick Scuteri)(Rick Scuteri | AP)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">During his 33-year tenure, Woolf also encouraged other former collegiate gymnasts to become mascots. He was inducted into the <a href=\"https:\/\/mascothalloffame.com\/classes\/class-of-2005\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/mascothalloffame.com\/classes\/class-of-2005\/\">Mascot Hall of Fame in 2005<\/a> and retired the suit in 2021. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">He joins fellow Arizona gymnasts in the Hall of Fame, including his college coach <a href=\"https:\/\/usagym.org\/halloffame\/inductee\/robinson-don\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/usagym.org\/halloffame\/inductee\/robinson-don\/\">Don Robinson<\/a>, current ASU men\u2019s gymnastics coach Scott Barclay, and <a href=\"https:\/\/usagym.org\/halloffame\/inductee\/schabacker-joseph-c\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/usagym.org\/halloffame\/inductee\/schabacker-joseph-c\/\">Dr. Joseph Schabacker<\/a>, who served as ASU vice president and president of the U.S. Sports Acrobatics Federation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-start\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 The man who spent decades flipping through the air, donning a gorilla suit in front&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1037394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,1339,415034,415035,58914,415037,50,1589,7183,415036,415039,415038,7231,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1037393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-azfamily","tag-basketball","tag-bob-woolf","tag-bob-woolf-phoenix-suns","tag-mascot","tag-nba-mascot","tag-news","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-news","tag-phoenix-suns-gorilla","tag-phoenix-suns-gorilla-mascot","tag-phoenix-suns-mascot","tag-suns","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}