John McCain impacted so many lives throughout his life, including the sports world, especially in the state of Arizona.
Legendary sports figures from Arizona including Larry Fitzgerald and Luis Gonzalez gave their condolences and remembered McCain after the former senator discontinued his brain cancer treatment and died Saturday afternoon.
Another Arizona athlete he impacted: ex-Arizona Wildcat and Chicago Bulls forward Lauri Markkanen.
On Sunday morning, Markkanen thanked McCain on Twitter for landing the Finland native a visa so he could play his freshman season at the UA.
"Rest In peace @SenJohnMcCain, I will forever be grateful for you helping a kid from Finland get a visa to live out my dream of playing basketball in the States," Markkanen tweeted.
Rest In peace @SenJohnMcCain, I will forever be grateful for you helping a kid from Finland get a visa to live out my dream of playing basketball in the States
— Lauri Markkanen (@MarkkanenLauri) August 26, 2018
Prior to the 2017 NCAA Tournament, McCain filled out a bracket with ESPN's Andy Katz and ABC's Rick Klein, and selected Arizona to go to the Final Four, which was in Phoenix and revealed his hand in helping Markkanen receive a student visa to play in Tucson.
“We’ve got a young guy from Finland named Markkanen, as you know, Lauri Markkanen. He is fantastic,” McCain told ESPN in 2017. “You know how politicians are, they like all credit, you know? He was having trouble with his visa. And they went to our office and we helped out with the visa. So therefore, any success, I will take full credit for. That’s classic, huh?
“There was some delay in getting him a visa. Obviously he had to have a student visa and there was a question about whether he was a student or not in Finland. I’d like to tell you it was the hardest struggle I ever had. Actually, we just kind of weighed in and said, ‘hey, how about expediting this’. It was not quite as big a deal as I would like it to be.”
McCain's hand in getting Markkanen a visa worked out perfectly as the 7-footer put together one of the best freshman seasons in UA history for a big man averaging 15.6 points and 7.2 rebounds per game while shooting 42.3 percent from 3-point range. In result, McCain received a big thank you from Sean Miller.
"I met Lauri and I did get a thank you from Sean Miller," McCain added.
