Jerry Sloan

When I think of Jerry Sloan, who died yesterday at the age of 78, it’s mostly of the Bulls’ player and coach, as opposed to the coach who racked up 1127 career wins the Jazz.  Sloan was the first-ever Bull, taken in the 1966 expansion draft.  His career spanned my years in high school and as an undergraduate.

 

Sloan was real-life “Hoosiers,” the youngest of ten children born in downstate McLeansboro, though the family farm was located somewhere called Gobblers Knob (I’m serious).  Of course, there were farm chores to do before basketball practice.

 

If today we worry about global warming, in Sloan’s playing days the NBA season felt like it took place in the Ice Age.  As a fifteen- or sixteen-year old, following the Bulls kept me from freezing to death in the winter.  In time, to follow the Bulls meant identifying with Sloan, Norm Van Lier, Bob Love, Chet Walker, Tom Boerwinkle…In other words, I came to identify.

 

When I was at DePaul, the Bulls won anywhere from 51-57 games a season.  Twice they lost to the Lakers in seven games in what was then the Western Conference Semifinals.  This could be my imagination, but I seem to remember that second time I was watching the seventh game with the Bulls ahead with under three minutes to go, only to lose the TV signal.  When it came back, they were down and about to be eliminated.

 

Sloan played ten years with the Bulls before knee problems forced him to retire; in that regard, he joins the likes of Dick Butkus and Gayle Sayers.  But they didn’t get to coach the Bears.  Sloan did get a chance to coach the Bulls.  In two-plus seasons, he took them to the playoffs once before getting sacked in 1982.  I was married by then, and up to my waist in Ph.D. crap.

I always wonder what would’ve happened had Sloan been able to hang on until Michael Jordan showed up in 1984.  That would’ve been an interesting pairing, the first Bull with the eventual greatest.  The NBA might never have been the same.  With Michael Jordan learning defense from Jerrry Sloan, opponents might never have broken 70 points a game.

I guess some things just aren't meant to be.  Our loss.