Confessions Come From His Perspective

“As a college player, I accepted cash from my coach. As a college coach, I gave cash to players.”

So begins the first sentence of Chapter One in “Confessions of a Coach,” Norm Sloan’s revealing book on his life in college basketball. The soon-to-be released book, written by Orlando Sentinel columnist Larry Guest, is one of those rare sports kiss-and-tell tales that has something to say.

A caveat: This is the University of Florida coach who was forced to resign in October of 1989, in the wake of allegations concerning NCAA violations. This is the coach whose North Carolina State team in 1972 was put on NCAA probation because of violations surrounding the recruitment of David Thompson.

Cash course: While coaching during his first stint at Florida, Sloan recounted the time a freshman player and his girlfriend came into his office with a problem--she was pregnant.

“They wanted money for an abortion,” Sloan says in the book. “The figure that sticks in my mind is $150. I grilled them to make sure they had a plan. Was it safe, or were they going to somebody’s butcher shop? Were they sure they were not going to look back on this and regret their choice? One way or another they were going to go through with it. So I gave them the money. That was a violation of NCAA rules.”

On recruiting: Sloan recalled how Tom McMillen, a star player who has become an NCAA reform-minded congressman, ended up playing for Lefty Driesell at Maryland. McMillen was set to play for Dean Smith at North Carolina and even gave an unwritten commitment.

If Driesell could not sway the recruit away from North Carolina, why not try the parents?

Sloan said Driesell discovered that North Carolina’s play-by-play announcer at the time wrote pornographic books under a nom de plume. Lefty bought copies of all the books the announcer had written and delivered them to the McMillen family. He asked if they wanted their son to be going on trips and spending time with such a person.

Hello, Maryland.

Add recruiting: Sloan had his share of recruiting wars. One he recalled was over Washington, D.C., high school star Thurl Bailey, now with the Utah Jazz.

In 1979, Sloan went head-to-head against Georgetown Coach John Thompson to lure Bailey.

Sloan: “When John Thompson recruits, he puts everything on a racial level. He makes it clear what he does to help blacks as opposed to what that white coach over there is doing to help blacks. He dredged up the Jesse Helms things 10 years after the fact and accused me of being a racist.”

Sloan was a supporter of Helms, a conservative U.S. senator from North Carolina.

Trivia time: Who did Sloan’s North Carolina State team lose to during their 57-1 run between 1972 and ‘74?

Take a free ride: Sloan was subpoenaed to testify before a congressional oversight committee, which was holding hearings concerning Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian’s battle with the NCAA. He was called by a U.S. marshal, who told Sloan when to appear on Capitol Hill.

Sloan: “I said, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to have anything to do with that.’ ”

Marshal: “Ooooh, Coach, I think you don’t understand. I didn’t call to ask whether you wanted to go or not. I’m giving you the choice of flying first class and having a couple of drinks on us or riding in the tourist section handcuffed to me.”

Sloan: “Send me first class.”

“See how we big-time coaches can handle instant decisions,” Sloan comments.

On coaches: Of Bobby Knight, Indiana’s volatile coach: “We had breakfast with Bobby and his first wife in the coffee shop of one of the big Las Vegas hotels while we were at the Pizza Hut Classic in the mid-’70s. Bobby had demeaned his wife over breakfast, talking down to her and about her in front of her so viciously that both of us (Norm and Joan Sloan) were stunned.”

Add coaches: Sloan recounted the days at The Citadel, where he coached basketball and Al Davis, now owner of the Raiders, coached football. One day, Sloan said, most of the athletic staff began discussing career goals during lunch. Davis stated emphatically that he would own a professional team.

“It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud,” Sloan said. “Here was Al, making the same $5,200 a year I was making, driving an old beat-up Chevrolet. And he was going to own a pro football team. Yuk, yuk, yuk.”

Trivia answer: UCLA won, 84-66, in a nationally televised matchup at St. Louis in 1973.

Quotebook: “I worked alongside Dean Smith for years,” Norm Sloan said. “Super coach, super image. But he was one of the biggest phonies I ever encountered when it came to dealing with the media.”