Suns super fan Mr. ORNG honors late mother's last wish, buries her in Booker jersey

Mr. ORNG rose to NBA stardom this past season appearing in two of the league's commercials to promote their 75th anniversary.

He's Peoria High School boys basketball head coach Patrick Battillo by day. At Suns games, he's the noticeable orange-painted fan mascot who dons a spiky-haired wig and matching headband or orange fedora with a Mr. ORNG-embroidered blazer.

"You can't even go eat, even when he's not in his whole (Mr. ORNG) getup, they know him," Battillo's sister Cynthia Bogat said.

But Battillo and his family have dealt with two tragedies within the past year. His father Bob Battillo was in a serious car accident in Phoenix that has left him hospitalized then in a rehab facility since the Suns' opening night on Oct. 20. And his mother Carol Mead passed away on June 14 after he third bout with cancer.

She battled skin cancer once and breast cancer twice.

When during her wake at Peoria's Best Funeral Homes West Valley Chapel on July 2, Mead's beloved Elvis Presley music, Betty Boop item, and her wearing an orange Devin Booker jersey in her open casket were her final mementos attendees saw.

Battillo said that his mother whimsically told him in multiple conversations she wanted to be laid to rest wearing a Booker jersey. But she never met the Suns All-Star and never wore his jersey during her life.

Battillo thought obliging her final wish would come long after the 25-year-old Booker ends his career. Not at age 60.

“The family knew her passion, love and request, and so, that’s what we did,” Battillo said.

Since Booker's first Suns press conference appearance after he was drafted in 2015 out of Kentucky, Mead viewed Booker as team's greatest hope during their worst decade in franchise history from 2011 to 2020.

"He was like, 'I'm here to win,'" Battillo said about Booker's initial message as a rookie. "And especially his early years when we weren't winning and still his resilience of not wanting to give up, not wanting to leave."

Battillo, 35, said his mother's passion for Booker tremendously grew thereafter.

“When I’m backstage after games he just stops for every single fan and takes his time. What you see in the media, of course, he gets ejected at a game on the road and he still stops for fans. Just that whole piece of him and that competitive nature he brings had my mom just fell in love with him as a player and a man.”

His sister cited Booker's swarthy, handsome complexion factored in their mother's obsession for him.

"I don't know any ladies out there who don't have something for Devin Booker because I would be lying myself if I said no," Bogat said. "It wasn't just his attractiveness, but how he was on and off the court."

Battillo added that his siblings are Suns fans as well, but not at the level like himself and his mom. Especially her Booker fandom, for which he would send his mother photos of Booker at the start of all their playoff home and road games he attended the past two years.

"She always wanted to see Devin," Battillo said. "So every game I arrived and Devin's shooting around coming out to warm up, I'd take pictures and send them to her."

Battillo's entire sports life has been colored orange.

He's the middle child born between his sister and younger brother William Battillo.

Battillo and his family are New York City transplants living in the Valley since 1994. His parents were married for 25 years before they divorced in 2006.

Battillo’s mother became a Suns fan after she and her family moved to Peoria in 1994, the year after the team reached the NBA finals for the second time in franchise history.

“It was the excitement when we got to Arizona. That was the Barkley era and that ran the town here. So being a sports fan once we moved here, that was a no-brainer,” Battillo said. “There was no (Diamondbacks) baseball. She was a die-hard Mets fan and the Cardinals weren’t even a thing. …

“The passion that the Valley had for the Suns is what made her kind of fall in love, and it just went to another level when I started Mr. ORNG,” Battillo said.

As her son’s became one of the NBA’s most visible fixtures at Suns games, she connected with her son deeper about the team. 

"My whole life growing up, she was never like super, huge into sports. We would definitely go to the baseball games in New York. But in the last few years, especially, she would not miss a game. She knew every (Suns) news article, every interview. She knows more about basketball than I do, and I have kids who play basketball."

Battillo said she went to just 10 Suns games during her life, including a few with him after he created his Mr. ORNG character in 2010. She was equally passionate bowler and basketball junkie. Mead avidly watched recordings of Suns games because she worked evening shifts as a manager at Peoria's Sierra Winds senior living facility.

Like Battillo, she remained loyal to the team during its lowly decade as one of the league’s worst teams, missing the postseason from 2011-2020.

“She was just all in, all Suns. Many of those years for about a decade we were not good and weren’t winning many games. But she would still just remain positive, upbeat, supportive just cheering for the team, but very passionate as she watched." …

“’Go Suns, Go Orange’ is her favorite phrase, and every text message we had back and forth on every single game, or when she would put a Facebook post up after every game, she would include that in her signatures.”

One year after Carol and her ex-husband split up, she met Dave Mead who had just as much passion for her as she did for Booker. 

Dave was a maintenance technician who also worked with Sierra Winds. He was awestruck when he first saw Carol at the facility in early 2007, but was too shy to approach her.

Mead said William, who worked at the senior living facility as well, repeatedly revealed her secret admirer but she undermined the tip.

One day, Mead chivalrously doused her car in the facility's parking lot with rose petals. He also left a short note on the windshield which listed his phone number and offered to spend with some time with her. 

He described meeting her in early 2007 by having a melted heart and buckled knees seeing her blonde, wavy hair and smile that lit up a room. They were married on July 9 that year. 

"I knew, and I knew that she knew," Mead said about their love at first sight experience.

It was a case of opposites attract because he loathed basketball and knew nothing about the sport. 

After they moved in together in Peoria, Mead said she initially watched Suns games on one television and he'd watched different programs on another TV in separate room. But Mead loved his wife so much that he put both TVs together in their living room to keep her near him as much as possible.

"I would do anything I could: dishes, laundry to distract myself from that ball game," Mead said. "We kept the volumes non-competitive."

Mead's disdain for basketball changed when the Suns made their run to the finals against the Milwaukee Bucks. He hadn't watched a Suns game during the Nash era before he was traded to the Lakers in 2012. 

They went to one Suns game together in the past two seasons, and now he's a converted fan of the team. 

But his heart was shattered when she collapsed and went unconscious in their home. Mead, who said he's been trained in CPR for 25 years, tried to revive her but couldn't.

"All the time since she died in my arms on the living room floor, it's getting better for me everyday," Mead tearfully said. "The last breath she took was the last breath I gave her."

Mead said he plans to sell their home and move to Buffalo, New York to be near his extended family, and plans to fervently track the Suns in his eventual new location. That began with honoring his late wife's memory by putting her in a Booker jersey until they reunite in heaven.

"If I knew her as well as I thought I did after nearly 15 years of being together, this is what she would want," Mead said.

Have tips for us? Reach the reporter at dana.scott@azcentral.com or at 480-486-4721. Follow his Twitter @iam_DanaScott.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Suns super fan Mr. ORNG's buries his late mom in Booker jersey for her last wish