Jerry Sloan the hall of Fama coach passe away at 78

Jerry Sloan the hall of Fama coach passe away at 78

Jerry Sloan, who guided the Utah Jazz for 23 seasons and have become the fourth-winningest coach in NBA history within the process, died Friday.He was 78 years old

Sloan announced in 2016 that he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and dementia from Lewy bodies, a terrible combination of neurological disorders.

Sloan said he decided to travel public with the diagnosis because the symptoms were noticeable."He also told the Salt Lake Tribune "not to" want people to feel sorry for me."

Sloan was one among the best coaches in NBA history and is not any . 4 on the list of the most winning coaches of all time with 1,221 victories.. Among coaches with a minimum of 500 games coached, he's ninth with a .603 winning percentage.

Born in McLeansboro in 1942, Sloan attended the first six years of elementary school during a one-room school and sometimes had to drive or hitchhike to practice basketball in high school.

Sloan became an all-state player in highschool and played college basketball at Evansville. Baltimore bullets drew Sloan in 1965 with the no. 4 overall pick and traded him to Chicago the subsequent season. With the Bulls, Sloan was a shooting guard, a little forward with a talent for defense.. He averaged 14 points and seven .4 rebounds in his 11-year career, was a two-time All-Star and named all-first team defense fourfold .

In 2017, at a meeting for the 1996-97 team, Sloan said:" I was lucky to stay around as long as I have. This organization has been quite fair to me and my family.”


And in fact, only three NBA coaches have accumulated more wins in the regular season than his 1,221: Don Nelson 1,335, Lenny Wilkens1,332 and Popovich 1,272.

On Jan. 31, 2014, the Jazz raised a banner with the amount 1,223 — signifying the entire number of regular-season and playoff victories Sloan earned with the Jazz — to stage rafters.

After coaching the Chicago Bulls for 2½ seasons, Sloan came to Utah as an assistant in 1984, when then-head coach Frank Layden hired him. Sloan would replace Layden on Dec. 9, 1988, and continue to teach the team until 2011.

“I had an excellent deal of respect for him. He had great retention. He had tons of what i assumed Johnny Wooden had. Johnny Wooden, people don’t realize this: He never scouted opponents; he said, ‘They need to worry about us. I don’t need to worry about them.’ And Jerry felt an equivalent way. 

Jerry said, regardless of who we played, ‘This is how we play. We play tough defense, we re-evaluate the highest , we beat guys to the spot, we got our hands up, we’re moving our feet.’ He was like Vince Lombardi on defense. And he thought that that was the constant. And he added it to our team," Layden told The Tribune. “I said this once I retired and Jerry was taking over: ‘Jerry will take this team to a different level. I took them as far away as I could. I don’t think I can do anything . 
But Jerry’s gonna take it to subsequent level.’ And, of course, that’s what he did.”

Over subsequent 23 years, he guided the Jazz to a record of 1,127-682. With Hall of Fame players Karl Malone and John Stockton leading, Utah reached the Western Conference finals five times between 1992 and 1998. In ’97 and ’98, the Jazz finally advanced to the NBA Finals, though they lost in six games both times to Michael Jordan and therefore the Chicago Bulls.

Sloan suddenly resigned from the team and stopped coaching in February. 10, 2011, after a loss of 91-86 to the Bulls. During the sport , he had the last during a long series of run-ins with All-Star point guard Deron Williams. Sloan would eventually return to the Jazz as a senior adviser in 2013.

“He’s a person that I even have tremendous respect for as a person's being. one among the foremost loyal, humble, hardworking, straight-up guys that you simply can ever meet.And it's always been that way," he told The Tribune Ty Corbin, who succeeded Sloan as a jazz coach. “… to possess a chance to play for him as a player, once I need to Utah, then to possess an opportunity to return back and get on his coaching staff, for me, was an incredible honor. For him to inquire from me , and truly give me a chance to get on his coaching staff and to find out and be around him more and to find out more about him as an individual , that was just an incredible honor. And what a man . Just what a man .”
Sloan was never voted the NBA’s Coach of the Year despite his success ,a undeniable fact that seemed to bother others quite him.

“I just think there’s tons more to basketball than individual awards,” he said.

Sloan was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. Others in his class included Stockton and Jordan.

Jerry Colangelo, the director for Team USA and thus the chairman of the board for the Hall of Fame, recalled way back entertaining Sloan on a recruiting visit to the University of Illinois, where Sloan would temporarily enroll before leaving a few of months later, citing homesickness.

To see Sloan go from there to the Hall thrills Colangelo to this day, he told The Tribune.

“I love the guy for who he was," he said. “And respected him such tons as a terrific competitor during a game that we both loved, and I’m very happy for the great career he had in basketball and his journey from McLeansboro to the Hall of Fame — you can’t get a far better tribute than that.”

Sloan, never being one for the spotlight, conceded that giving his HOF acceptance speech was “pretty tough on behalf of me . It’s just hard on behalf of me to talk about myself. I don’t desire I’ve done anything."

Anyone who was around him, naturally, would afflict such an assessment.

Sloan played 11 seasons within the NBA, starting in 1965-66 after the then-Baltimore Bullets drafted him out of Evansville. After his rookie season, Sloan was selected in an expansion draft by Chicago. For subsequent decade, he joined Norm Van Lier, Bob Love, Chet Walker and Tom Boerwinkle because the guts and soul of the Bulls.

Though he averaged only 14 points per game during his playing career, he was a two-time All-Star and a four-time All-Defensive Team honoree. More importantly, he was renowned for his incredible physical toughness.

(AP file photo) Boston Celtics' Paul Westphal (44) breaks for basket around Chicago Bulls' Jerry Sloan (4) during NBA action Tuesday night, March 11, 1975 in Chicago.
(Phil Mascione | Chicago Tribune Photo) Nicknamed 

(AP Photo) Jerry Sloan (4) of Chicago Bulls reaches for the ball as he falls to court following collision in game with Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1971 at Chicago. Bill Cunningham of 76ers is at left. Philadelphia won the National Basketb