Jazz Without Pizazz : Sloan’s No-Frills Approach Has Earned Respect From His Players and Victories for Utah, a Team He Has Guided to the Western Conference Finals for the Third Time in Five Seasons

He collects things. OK, so he collects a lot of things. Dolls, baseball cards, furniture, lunch boxes, countless other curios that have found their way from garage sales and shops into the home here or the one in McLeansboro, Ill., his permanent residence where a warehouse is being built nearby. Those 20 or so antique tractors need to go somewhere, after all.

“But I think some of it is junk,” said Karl Malone, his friend and superstar power forward. “He’s just a pack rat. I think his wife does all the major collecting.”

Not all of it. It was Jerry Sloan, the husband, who stumbled upon the most impressive pickup, not even realizing at the time how grand an artifact it would become.

His resume. A piece of paper that has become a glass showcase for its own collectibles.

Three trips to the Western Conference finals in the past five seasons, including 1996, as coach of the Utah Jazz. Appointment as an assistant to Lenny Wilkens for this summer’s Olympics. Fifty-win seasons in six of seven full seasons here. Two Midwest Division titles. On the same job since Dec. 9, 1988, making Sloan No. 1 in the league in current tenure. With 513 victories in Chicago and Salt Lake City, he is No. 17 all-time and behind only Wilkens, Bill Fitch, Pat Riley and Larry Brown among active coaches.

You’re shocked? Sloan himself expected to squeeze out a season or two before the posse caught up, then retire to work the land in hometown McLeansboro, perfectly content.

And then to have the longest run going among all coaches?

C’mon.

“Yeah, it really does,” Sloan said when asked if it’s strange to hear people talk about him being No. 1 in tenure. “I was shocked that I got to play basketball as long as I did. I knew that it might end immediately. That’s why my wife and I are real fortunate. We saved most of the money that we made. Same thing in this business. We’ve tried to do that, up until the last couple or three years. We started to spend a little bit of money to have some fun, whether it’s with our kids or with ourselves. But, yeah, I’m shocked by it.”

Like he said, it was the same when he played, an in-your-face guard out of Division II Evansville who was just a little bit intense, kind of the way Antarctica is just a little bit cold in the winter. Dick Motta, his coach with the Bulls, would arrive at Chicago Stadium a few hours before tipoff and find Sloan in the locker room, already in uniform and staring straight ahead in concentration like someone in the blocks about to start the Olympic 100-meter final. One day, Motta told him to get a hobby.

All Sloan, the guy who wondered if it all would end tomorrow, did was make two all-star teams and six all-defensive teams in a seven-year stretch. When it finally did end, in 1976, the Bulls retired uniform No. 4 in his honor and made him a scout. And opposing guards rejoiced.

Three years later, he became the head coach and went from 30-52 the rookie campaign of 1979-80 to 45-37 and a playoff berth the next season. When he opened 1981-82 by going 19-32, he was fired. Just like he always expected.

The Jazz brought him on as a scout from there, then an assistant coach to Frank Layden at the beginning of 1984-85, as unlikely a pairing as you could find: Layden, the jovial guy you’d want speaking at your banquet, and Sloan, the no-nonsense guy you’d want leading your ground troops up the hill. When Layden suddenly retired about a month into 1988-89, Sloan got the promotion.

Players, well versed on his reputation, feared the worst and got the best. Sloan was demanding, but not maniacal. In other words, not like he was as a player.

He was, in the meantime, straightforward, devoid of pretense and, away from the court, a genuinely nice guy. Players can sense a phony, possibly because so many come from their own ranks, and Sloan was the real deal. It didn’t take long before they would have followed him up that hill.

“They all really appreciate it,” said Antoine Carr, the veteran power forward/center in his second season with the Jazz. “He’s what I call a country guy. Usually country guys are the type who are going to come out, they’re going to work hard, they’re not going to be into this flamboyant, I’ve-got-to-dress-this-

way, do-my-hair-a-certain-way stuff. They’re not going to be like that. They just want to get out there, get the job done and go home.

“He’s going to jump all over you, he’s going to get down your throat, he’s going to let you know, ‘Hey, I’m one of those hard-nosed guys and I’m here for the eternity of the time you’re around here. I’m going to be there and I’m going to hassle you and you’re going to get better.’

“That’s what I like about him. I’ve had a lot of coaches. He’s the type that he says what he has to say and then he leaves it alone, whereas some coaches tend to carry on and on and on about it.”

Added Malone: “I just think he’s a no-nonsense kind of guy. He played the game, so you can’t pull the wool over his eyes with a lot of excuses. And not only that, not that he’s bad here, but away from the court you can not meet a nicer person.”

Team leaders John Stockton and Malone, small-town products themselves with many of the same qualities, swore allegiance long ago; Malone goes so far as to say he wouldn’t want to play for anyone else.

Whether he would have had to has been an issue for all but about two weeks of Sloan’s almost eight seasons with the Jazz, when speculation about his future here, or lack thereof, was almost an annual event from the outside. As in: How could the Jazz have two future first-ballot Hall of Famers in their prime, the best at their positions for considerable stretches of that time, and not even get to the NBA finals once, let alone win a championship?

People keep wondering when Sloan is going to get pink-slipped, and he just keeps adding years to the pension. Of course, it’s worth noting that among those wondering through the years has been Sloan.

“The last couple of years is the first time they haven’t mentioned about me getting fired every year,” he said.

He’s a realist, not a worrywart looking over his shoulder. Sloan went into the job knowing you only need a 20-second timeout to count the lifers, and that you’d probably have time left over at the end.

Then he blinked and became one himself.

“I didn’t know how long I could last, I didn’t know long I could hang with it,” he said, typically matter-of-fact. “I never knew that when I played. I coach pretty much the same as when I played--I figured if I could play another month or week or whatever the case, because something is always going to happen to put you to sleep in this business.

“Larry [Miller, the Jazz owner] is always very kind to me. Even when it came out as something that sounded like it was a reliable source, Larry always said, ‘Hey, we’re not firing the guy.’ And if he wanted to, or had that in mind, that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with it, because it at least gives me an opportunity to get to the point I’m trying to finish, whether it’s another day or two.”

This has stopped being a day-at-a-time proposition long ago, of course. Sloan is only 54, feels healthy and still excited about the job and is in great position to keep moving up the all-time win list, among other accomplishments. What a pack rat.