Saluting Jerry Sloan -- The king of constancy

[RonnieBrewer (Ronnie Brewer)]

The king of constancy
Celebrating Sloan as he pursues a coaching milestone
Posted: Friday December 8, 2006 11:04AM;
by Jack McCallum

With one more victory, which could come Friday night in Minnesota, the Utah
Jazz's Jerry Sloan will become only the fifth NBA coach to reach 1,000 wins.
He won his first 94 games with the Chicago Bulls, the team for which he
played as a tough-minded defensive stopper, but no other coach in history,
with the exception of Boston's Red Auerbach, is so identified with a single
franchise. So as Sloan looks to join that elite club (Lenny Wilkens, Don
Nelson, Pat Riley and Larry Brown are the other members) we salute him in
this week's five-pack. Here are some of the many things you gotta love about
the NBA's king of constancy.

1. He embraced the challenge after Karl Malone and John Stockton left.

In 2002-03, when that remarkable duo was in its last season together in Utah,
I asked Sloan, "Boy, you must want to feel like getting out, too." He was 61
at that time and already a legend.

"Hell, no," Sloan snapped. "The opposite, in fact."

He went on to talk about how amped up he was to take on the challenge of
teaching again, of ingraining his possession offense into the heads of
players who hadn't been born when Stockton and Malone began running their
precision pick-and-rolls. And Sloan went about that task with the eagerness
of a first-year coach. After a few seasons of being cursed by injuries, he
now seems to have a team ready to once again challenge for a Western
Conference title.

2. He cleaned himself up.

Sloan was born a country boy and he lived much of his life like the
protagonist in a country song. He drank, he smoked, he stayed out late,
and all the time a loyal woman, Bobbye, his high-school sweetheart before
she became his wife, was home waiting for him. "We were married 38 years
and at least 12 of them were pretty good," Bobbye told me once, laughing.

After she contracted cancer -- Bobbye first felt a stabbing pain in her
breast on June 13, 1997, the day the Jazz were eliminated in Game 6 of their
first NBA Finals -- Sloan wised up. He stopped drinking and staying out and
their last years together were good ones, aside from her suffering, which
ended with her death in June 2004. By that time, they had a practiced ritual
-- before every game that she was in attendance, Sloan's eyes would find her
in the stands before tip-off and they would press two fingers to their lips
and hold those fingers aloft for a second or two.

Sloan never wanted his rehab story to become tabloid fodder -- he's as far
from being a publicity-seeker as any man I've ever met -- but, when asked, he
will credit Bobbye for making him happy, healthy and whole.

3. Stockton and Malone never lost respect for the man.

You spend as many seasons together (Stockton arrived in '84, Malone in '85
when Sloan was an assistant; he got the head job in '88) as these three spent
and relationships are hard to maintain, particularly in a profession that's
played out in the public eye. But the Mailman, who fought a couple of
contract battles in Utah and sometimes felt overlooked, and the steady
Stockton never had anything but good things to say about Sloan and, more
to the point, the way he coached.

When I was writing a story about Sloan several years ago, I remember saying
to Stockton: "With all your years in the league, I notice that you still look
over at the bench to get a play call from Jerry. That's unbelievable."

Stockton looked puzzled. "Why wouldn't I?" he said. "Jerry's the coach."

That says a lot about Stockton, of course, but it says as much about Sloan.

4. Sloan's contract "negotiations" are conducted with all the pomp and
   circumstance of a barroom gin rummy game.

He appears in owner Larry Miller's office, wearing his beloved John Deere hat
and maybe a flannel shirt, and Miller will throw out a figure. By longevity
and/or success, Sloan should be the highest-paid coach in the league, but he
never is. There's always one of those Brown or Phil Jackson deals out there,
and sometimes there are a couple of them. But Sloan makes, as he puts it, "a
good buck" (somewhere around $6 million), and he'll usually just say "Yep" to
what Miller suggests, and another contract will be in place.

5. You never hear him obsessing about championships.

When we talk about the great ones who never won a title -- Stockton and
Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Garnett, etc. -- we always leave out coaches,
and that means we leave out Sloan, who is as deserving as anyone. His Jazz
made two Finals, in '97 and '98, where he got Michael Jordan-ized both times,
but I never heard him talk much about it. He went on as if it never happened,
just coaching his team, getting ready for next year and spreading the gospel
of taking care of the ball.

"Teaching players to play the right way is what Jerry Sloan is all about,"
Stockton told me once. "I'm not sure you could ask anything more out of a
coach than that."



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jack_mccallum/
12/07/jerry.sloan/index.html

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作者: xjazz (jazz) 看板: UTAH-JAZZ
標題: Re: Saluting Jerry Sloan -- The King of Constancy
時間: Sat Dec  9 11:04:59 2006


堅定的王者 - Jerry Sloan
慶祝Sloan即將獲得教練生涯的里程碑
by Jack McCallum


只要這個星期五晚上在明尼蘇達獲得一勝，爵士隊的教練Jerry Sloan就會名列NBA
史上第五位獲得千勝的教頭。Sloan在公牛隊執教時期獲得生涯的前94勝，而他在公
牛的球員時期即是一位頂尖的防守硬漢。在本週，Jerry Sloan有可能與
Lenny Wilkens、Don Nelson、Pat Riley和Larry Brown一同名列千勝教頭俱樂部的
成員。不過相較於這些名教練，Jerry Sloan與另一位波士頓教頭Red Auerbach，則
另外以長時間執教單一球隊的名聲著稱。關於這位堅毅的王者，可能有許多事情您
會感興趣：

1. 他在史馬雙人組退休後仍然繼續執教，延續這份挑戰

在2002-03球季，著名的猶他雙人組合紛紛退休後，我曾經問過Sloan：『老弟，你應該
也想離開了對吧？』當時他已經是61歲高齡而且早就是傳奇人物了。

『歐，不！』『事實上剛好相反！』Sloan如此決然地回應我。

Sloan表示他對於繼續挑戰這份工作仍舊充滿著能量，並以他一貫的強勢作風將籃球理念
不停地灌輸於史馬擋拆時期後新一代爵士球員的心中。Sloan並以如同第一年執教般的熱
情來帶領這支球隊。在幾個因傷困擾的球季之後，他似乎已經準備好要再次將球隊帶入
西區冠軍賽。

2. 他保持著一身純淨

Sloan生為一個鄉村男孩，也像個鄉村歌手般地生活著：喝酒、抽煙、晚歸。Sloan那偉
大的太太Bobbye，在結婚之前是Sloan高中時期的小甜心，曾笑著跟我說：我們結婚38
年了，而其中至少有12年我們日子得非常好。

西元1997年6月13日，Bobbye突然胸口一陣刺痛並進一步得知罹患癌症的時候，當時
Sloan正帶領球隊與公牛進行冠軍戰的第六場球賽。Slaon領悟了，他戒了喝酒，並與妻
子共渡剩下的歲月直到Bobbye於2004年6月離開人世。在當時，他們有個熟練的習慣：
在Bobbye每一場出席比賽開始的跳球之前，Sloan的會用眼睛找到觀眾席中的Bobbye，
兩人並將雙指放在嘴唇上隔空親吻對方數秒。

Sloan從來不想讓他之後的療傷故事成為小報頭條，他是我見過最不喜歡出風頭的人之
一。但是，只要有人問起，他總是說Bobbye帶給他快樂、健康與一切。

3. Stockton與Malone永遠都尊敬這位硬漢

在眾人眼光關注的職業賽事中，三個人要一同合作並維持關係是件不容易的事情。（
Stockton在1984年，Malone在1985年分別加入NBA，當時Sloan是助理教練，到1988年才
升等為總教練。）但身處爵士隊數十年如一日，常感覺被過渡檢視的硬漢Malone與沈穩
的搭檔Stockton，卻從來只有對教練Sloan的讚賞，特別是他帶兵的方式。

當我數年前寫關於Sloan的故事的時候，我記得曾對Stockton說過：在你所有的NBA球季
中，我發現你控球時仍然會回頭看你的教練尋求比賽的指示，真是不可思義！

『我為什麼不？』『Jerry是教練阿』Stockton一臉疑惑地說著

這說明著Stockton這位球員，當然，更說明著Sloan這位教練。

4. Sloan的合約『談判』在酒吧樸克牌遊戲的排場中完成

他出現在老闆Larry Miller的辦公室，穿著他最愛的John Deere帽和可能是法蘭絨質料
的上衣，而Miller會開始撥動他的一根手指。依照執教時間或執教成功經驗來看，
Sloan應該是全聯盟最高薪的教練了，而他從來不是。總是有Brown或Phil Jackson等人
在談價錢預期得到更好的待遇。但Sloan總是只對Miller的建議說一句『好吧！』就簽
下一紙約6百萬美元的合約。
（這段不知道該如何想像那個情境）

5. 你從來不曾聽過他迷戀冠軍戒指

當我們談及幾個未拿過冠軍戒指的偉大球員 - Stockton、Malone、Charles Barkley、
Kevin Garnett等等，我們總是忽略了許多教練，而這代表著我們忽略了Sloan，這位比
誰都值得獲得這個榮耀的教練。他的爵士隊曾於97及98球季兩次打入冠軍賽，但都被
*beep* 檔在前面。但我從未聽到他對此有什麼評論，並當作什麼事都沒發生一樣。他
依然準備好面對下一個球季，繼續傳播他的籃球基本教義。

Stockton曾對我說過：『教導球員正確的打球方式是Jerry Sloan代表的全部，』
『我想應該沒有人能夠從另一位教練身上找到更多東西了。』


補：

Red Auerbach 2006/10/28 過世
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Auerbach
Lenny Wilkens 2006/11/29 成為超音速副總裁
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Wilkens
Don Nelson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Nelson
Pat Riley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Riley
Larry Brown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Brown_%28basketball%29
Jerry Sloan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Sloan



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