[legend]

It is doubtful that many of Jerry Sloan’s players on the Utah Jazz have any idea how great a player he was. Sloan was one of the grittiest and toughest guards ever to suit up, playing his college ball at Evansville in Illinois and then for the Chicago Bulls as a pro. Jerry Sloan has been coaching for so long with such success, that it is easy to forget that he was not only the fist player ever drafted by the Bulls, he was also the first to have his number retired. Jerry Sloan was twice an NBA All-Star and four times he was named to the All-Defensive First Team in the NBA.
Born in McLeansboro, Illinois in March of 1942, Jerry Sloan was only five-foot-six as he entered high school, forcing him to play guard and handle the ball if he wanted to see playing time. This helped Sloan as he grew, and he enrolled at the University of Illinois with the intention of playing basketball. But Sloan didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, never envisioning a career in the sport he loved, and he left the school shortly after he started there and went to work in an oil field. Jerry Sloan soon found out that he wasn’t cut out for such an occupation, and he called the University of Evansville, also in Illinois, and they told him he was more than welcome.
While at Evansville, then a Division II college, Sloan became a standout on the hardwood. he played there for three full seasons from 1963 through 1965 and averaged 15.5 points a game and an amazing 12.4 rebounds over 85 tilts. He had grown to be six-foot-five and he weighed 195 pounds, all muscle and grizzle and there was never a scrappier player on the floor than Jerry Sloan. He took Evansville to the NCAA Division II title in consecutive years, being named to the 1964 and ’65 All-Tournament team and the Most Outstanding Player both times. Sloan was named a Sporting News second team All-American in basketball as a senior when he scored 17.6 point s a contest and hauled down 14.7 rebounds a game, as his team went 29-0. His 25 rebounds in the championship game that year is still the record, and Jerry is a member of the NCAA Division II 50th Anniversary Elite Eight Team.
After his junior year he was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets of the NBA, but Sloan stayed in school to pursue his degree. He needed something to fall back on in case his pro career didn’t pan out. He began his NBA career with the Bullets, playing one year for them in the 1965-66 campaign and then the expansion Bulls chose him with their first pick in the expansion draft the next season. With the Bulls, Sloan developed into a scorer and even better defender, totally unafraid to mix it up with anyone on the court. Sloan scored 17 a game his first year with the squad and made the first of his two All-Star appearances. There were only ten teams in the NBA when at that time, and just eighteen when he retired from the pros in 1976. The Bulls were perennial contenders, but could never quite make it out of the West, frequently eliminated each by the Lakers in the playoffs.
Sloan was on four NBA All-Defensive First Teams and was picked for the second team twice. he scored his career high of 43 points in a 1969 contest against the Bucks in Milwukee, and that same year corralled 21 rebounds in a game with the Lakers, the most he ever had as a pro. Sloan was forced to call it a day when he severely injured his knee in a 1976 game, and he left with an average of 14 points a game to go with 7.5 rebounds and 2.2 steals per contest, having played until eleven seasons to the age of 33.
Sloan took the coaching job at Evansville in 1977 and then resigned five days later as he changed his mind. He gained a new perspective on life when the plane that was carrying the team crashed, killing everyone on board later that season, including the new coach. Sloan became the head man for the Bulls in 1979 and took them to the playoffs the next year, but a bad 1981 season got him fired. Jerry resurfaced on the bench as the coach of the Jazz in 1988 and has experienced just one losing season in 18 plus years, and his 16 straight winning seasons is second only to Pat Riley’s 19. His record now stands at 1,005 victories against 666 losses as of this writing, and Sloan is only the fifth NBA coach to eclipse that magic number.
Jerry Sloan is hard-nosed and old school but he is able to leave basketball at the arenas and spend time with his family. He lost his wife Bobbye to cancer, but he has three children and eight grandkids to keep him busy. Sloan could never be appreciated by anyone who didn’t see him play, as he threw caution to the wind night after night trying to lead his team to victory. If the players of this generation ever ran into him in his prime, they would not know what to make of Jerry Sloan, one of the most underrated men ever to play in the NBA.