Sloan’s hustle, work ethic was perfect for Bulls
Hall of Famer’s grit helped give the franchise its 1st face and fan favorite
Jerry Sloan’s accomplishments as an NBA player and coach are well-known.
Hall of Famer. Original Bull.
Master tactician.
But when anyone mentions the name of the former Utah Jazz coach and Bulls great, who died
Friday at 78, the picture that immediately springs to mind is one of
Sloan hustling for a loose ball and diving out of bounds to save it.
That work ethic is why Sloan was so beloved in Chicago.
In a statement the Jazz released Friday, the team said he will “always be synonymous with the Utah Jazz … and we join his family, friends and fans in mourning his loss. We are so thankful for what he accomplished here in Utah and the decades of dedication, loyalty and tenacity he brought to our franchise.”
Sloan may have been synonymous with the Jazz, but he also was revered in Chicago, a town where floor burns are considered as admirable as slam dunks, if not more so. And no duo incurred more floor burns than Sloan and Norm Van Lier, his backcourt partner in grime on those 1970s Bulls teams.
“Either for him or against him, he was one badass,” said former Bulls guard John Mengelt, who played against Sloan and was coached by him. “He took no prisoners, and I really appreciated that. Even as a player, despite getting nicked and bruised against him, I had a lot of respect for Jerry. He played a hard-nosed game.”
Sloan’s journey from small-town farm boy to NBA legend is a remarkable example of perseverance.
After being selected from the Baltimore Bullets in the 1966 expansion draft, he became the first Bulls playerand signed on May 6. The Bulls went through some tough times in their early history, and rumors abounded the franchise would move. Chicago was not considered a pro basketball town, and teams such as the Stags and Zephyrs already had failed.
“There’s no question the Bulls were on the way out, to Kansas City or San Diego or someplace else, when Dick Motta came along,” Sloan once recalled.
Motta arrived as coach in 1968, and the turnaround came in 1970-71, when the Bulls won 51 games before losing to the Lakers in seven games in the Western Conference semifinals. In November 1971, the Bulls acquired Van Lier from the Cincinnati Royals, teaming him with Sloan in what’s still considered one of the best defensive backcourts in NBA history.
“The chemistry was there between Norm and me because we played hard and thought of the team first,” Sloan said. “The coach didn’t have to tell us how to play defense.”
The 1974-75 Bulls — led by Sloan, Van Lier, Bob Love, Chet Walker and Tom Boerwinkle — made it to their second straight conference finals and held a 3-2 series lead on the Warriors before falling in a heartbreaking seven-game series.
After a knee injury ended his playing career, Sloan went into coaching and became a Bulls assistant. In 1978 his No. 4 jersey was retired, one of four Bulls players whose numbers hang from the rafters of the United Center, along with Love, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Coach Phil Jackson, general manager Jerry Krause and coach and broadcaster Johnny “Red” Kerr also are honored with banners.
After the Bulls announced Sloan’s No. 4 would be retired, Tribune sportswriter Bob Logan called him “the living symbol of the team.” Sloan had a typically humble response to the announcement, which lauded his reputation for nonstop hustle.
“Why should a guy be rewarded for giving 100% at his job?” he asked. “Everybody’s supposed to do that.”
Sloan was considered one of the top coaching prospects at the time, but he was in no hurry to climb the ladder.
“The right job finds the man,” he said. “And besides, I have another year left on my contract in Chicago. I was so intense as a player, I wondered if I could relax and analyze other players’ ability. Now I know I can teach kids and understand people.”
He eventually got the Bulls head coaching job in April 1979, replacing interim coach Scotty Robertson. General manager Rod Thorn originally looked elsewhere but turned to Sloan in the end, pointing to his playing reputation and hoping it would rub off on the players.
In his second season, Sloan’s Bulls won 45 games and made the playoffs. But he was fired in the middle of the 1981-82 season when the team underachieved with center Artis Gilmore, a talented player who lacked Sloan’s work ethic.
Sloan refused to point fingers, saying: “Downgrading the organization is not a professional approach. I’m an ex-coach, and I don’t want to make it any tougher for the next guy.”
The Bulls continued to flounder until they selected Jordan with the third pick in the 1984 draft, changing the course of franchise history. After being fired, Sloan went back home to tiny McLeansboro in downstate Illinois, assuming he was done coaching in the pros.
“I haven’t heard from an NBA team at all,” he told Tribune reporter Mike Kiley in February 1983. “And probably never will.”
But he returned as a scout for the Jazz before becoming an assistant under coach Frank Layden in 1985. When Layden was promoted to team president, Sloan took over as head coach in December 1988 and lasted nearly 23 seasons in Salt Lake City with only one losing season.
The right job had found the right man.
Sloan became the fourth-winningest coach in NBA history with 1,221 wins.
Like those 1970s Bulls teams, the Jazz teams led by Karl Malone and John Stockton came tantalizingly close to winning a title but never finished it off. They lost to the Jordan-Pippen Bulls in the 1997 and ’98 Finals, as chronicled in the recent ESPN documentary, “The Last Dance.”
The failure of those 1970s Bulls teams to break through in the postseason haunted the organization until Jordan arrived and fueled the dynasty.
“We all knew the first team to win a championship in Chicago would own the town,” Sloan recalled in 1978. “If we’d won it, all the things we went through over the years would have some meaning. Now it’s been tarnished somewhat.”
But those teams live on in the memories of longtime Bulls fans, just as the 1969 Cubs created a love affair that never faded.