Jerry Sloan: The Utah Jazz’s small-market savior

In a small market, on a number of fronts, the Utah Jazz are fighting an array of unique battles. Fortunately, for 23 years, Jerry Sloan was the one leading them.

Two days ago, on May 22, 2020, Jerry Sloan passed away at the age of 78 from complications having to do with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. Though his health had failed him for the better part of a year, as is often the case, his death still somehow felt unexpected.

Normally, when something newsworthy surrounding the Utah Jazz happens, I immediately sit down at my laptop and begin hammering away at my keyboard until something sensical appears on the screen. With Sloan’s death, however, the process was a bit different — I actually took a couple of days to soak it all in. As I did, my mind kept coming back to the same realization …

Sloan was as a small-market savior for the Jazz.

For starters, he was a winner. Obviously, for an NBA head coach, this will always be key for job security, but for a team based in a state like Utah, winning becomes that much more important.

And I mean it: outside of the prospects at the NBA draft, free agents aren’t pulling numbers to try and find a way to get to Salt Lake City. For Sloan, it didn’t matter — he’d still find a way to win:

• Under Sloan, the Jazz won 50-plus games seven times.
• Under Sloan, the Jazz won 60-plus games three times, too.
• Under Sloan, the Jazz went to the playoffs 19 times in 23 seasons.
• Under Sloan, the Jazz went to the playoffs 15 consecutive seasons.
• Under Sloan, the Jazz were Western Conference champions in 1997 and 1998.

Sure, Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs have brought widespread admiration to small-market winning in the NBA, but Sloan and the Jazz were doing it long before it was in vogue.

To date, a banner featuring his name and the number “1223” hangs in the rafters at Vivint Smart Home Arena. The number represents Sloan’s total combined regular season and playoff wins with Utah — good enough to make him the fourth-winningest head coach in all of NBA history.

Winning is great, but for a small-market team looking for longevity as a title-contending force, “loyalty” is really the name of the game — Sloan fit the bill on that front, as well. Believe it or not, in all of professional sports, NBA coaches have the shortest average tenures, coming in at a measly 2.4 years. Sloan, on the other hand, was the head coach of the Utah Jazz for 23 seasons.

https://twitter.com/kslsports/status/1263848601509216260

As time passes, outside of the Salt Lake Valley, most of the greater NBA world will forget about his winning ways and endurance at the Jazz’s helm — life goes on; I get it. What won’t soon be forgotten, however, was the guy’s tough-as-nails nature …

Seriously, it’s the stuff of legends.

Sloan was born just outside of McLeansboro, Ill. in a place legit called “Gobbler’s Knob.” As if that fact alone weren’t enough to thicken a guy’s skin, Sloan delivered on just about every other old-timer stereotype that stuck out like a sore thumb in the squeaky-clean state of Utah: he drank, he smoked and he swore with the creativity of a seasoned sailor — that would change, though …

After his first wife, Bobbye Sloan, underwent a mastectomy in 1998, Sloan gave up his vices for good. And while his health improved, his tenacity on the Jazz’s sideline only became that much more intense. In more than four decades as an NBA player and coach, it’s estimated that Sloan was assessed 446 technical fouls — he’s also shoved a few NBA officials, just for good measure.

Coach Sloan was a winner, proudly adopted Utahn and get-off-my-lawn tough guy who always went to bat for his players. It didn’t matter if his team was going up against the New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers or Chicago Bulls, his small-market self was ready for a fight.

There’s no replacing him; he’ll forever be missed by the Beehive State.