One of the longest tenured coaches in American pro sports, and a man I admire greatly, has stepped down. Jerry Sloan resigned as head coach of the Utah Jazz yesterday.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6109031It boggles the mind that he kept the same job for 23 years. 10 years coaching the same team is a long time in the NBA. Year in and year out he got more out of his teams than you would expect on paper. During the Michael Jordan era the Jazz, with Karl Malone and John Stockton and not much else, almost took them down in the NBA finals. Twice.
It seems so long ago now but I am old enough to remember Jerry Sloan as a player. He was a guard for the Bulls and was known as one of the best defenders in the league. He was probably not the most athletic guard, even back then, but he got it done with tenacity and hard work.
http://www.google.com/images?q=jerry+sloan+as+chicago+bull+photo&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=5vNUTfvcOYHKgQeUt6WHDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQsAQwAA&biw=1904&bih=1023What cemented my respect for him was only tangentially related to basketball. There was an article about him in the Chicago Tribune a few years ago that mentioned him being contacted by a woman who played for him when he was first coaching. They had not spoken in many years. She had fallen on hard times and called him up in the middle of the night. He spent two hours on the phone with her. She said I don't know what even gave me that idea but that phone call was exactly what I needed. To me that says a lot more about him than how many seasons he coached or how many games he won.
