<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ATLANTA ? It was just more than a week ago that Jerry Sloan abandoned a morning shootaround to chat with Jazz owner Larry H. Miller. Rumor had gotten to Sloan that Miller had threatened to fire him, and the only head coach the franchise has known since Dec. 9 of 1988 needed to talk. As it turned out, Miller denied ? privately, and later publicly ? saying anything of the sort. But the two did speak. Sloan said his share, as did Miller. Beyond his role as boss, beyond his station as a friend, Miller then elevated the conversation. Playing amateur psychologist, with Sloan all but reclining on a couch, the former auto parts salesman turned businessman extraordinaire offered this to the farmer from Illinois: "You know, I've never told you this, but the way I look at you, it's like since you were in junior high school you were going to the board to see if you've been cut. You're always looking over your shoulder." Sloan, whose Jazz hope to snap a three-game losing skid tonight at Atlanta, bristles when the remark is repeated. The competitor in him wants to fight the facts, perhaps even maul the middle man. But the reality is this: Sloan lives a credo that tomorrow means uncertainty, and not a thing more. The longest-tenured coach or manager in current major American professional sports has spent much of the past two decades waiting for the ax to fall, even when it was buried so far in the stump the handle would not budge. Many suspect it's because the soon-to-be 64-year-old was fired from his only other job as an NBA head coach, by the same team for which he played during a full decade of his 11-year career, the Chicago Bulls. But that's not the case. Sloan's insecurities ? paranoia? ? cut much deeper than that. "I played that way when I was in college," he said. "That was in my head every day: I couldn't afford to fail. "My dad passed away when I was 4 years old, and I was taught a great lesson: Nobody's gonna raise you; you've got to raise yourself. That's something, right or wrong, good or bad, that that's just who I have been. And every person that's gotten to know me real well beyond basketball knows I still have those problems ? if you want to call them 'problems.' I call them 'motivating things.' "Because when I get put in a corner, I'm not gonna just fold up like an accordion. I never have," added Sloan, who played three collegiate seasons at Evansville after transferring from the University of Illinois. "I'll try to do it the right way, and be fair, but I'm gonna put everything I have into it. And if that's not enough, if it doesn't work, fine." It's a family thing. "I have a brother ? if he thinks he's going through some stress, he's gonna work twice as hard," Sloan said. "I don't care if it's digging a hole in the ground. "People think stress is gonna kill them. It doesn't get too many people. People trying to get out of stuff is when they have their problem. If you work, you'll have some stress ? but people that really work work to keep from having stress." That explains how and why Sloan battled his way through the NBA more on grit than great shooting, more with intensity than intention to dribble his way out of trouble or make a move around his man. It explains why when Sloan first went to work for the Jazz, he'd order bacon, eggs, biscuits, an abundance of gravy and frequently whatever else seemed appealing on the breakfast menu. Warned about health implications if he continued to eat like that, lore has it that Sloan responded, "I went without food so many times when I was a kid, I swore if I ever got a job that paid enough, I'd never miss a meal again." It explains, too, why Sloan, still skinny and fit in his sixties, coaches like he played ? as if he is ready to shed the shirt and tie at any moment, storm onto the court and take a chunk out of whoever gets in his way like Dick Butkus and Mike Tyson and Ron Artest all rolled into one. For as much as he toils with a passion beyond par, though, there exists what Sloan deems a misconception about his body of work. "This is one of the things I've fought all my life: People think I expect players to play like I did," he said. Not so, Sloan insists. "I had to play that way, because I couldn't play," he said. "I didn't have any skill of being able to shoot the ball, or anything glamorous . . . My only skill: I could play hard."</div> Source
