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Sports Then and Now



Jerry Sloan Resignation Is End of an Era 5

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Dean Hybl

Jerry Sloan spent years leading superstar guards, including Jeff Hornacek and John Stockton...

When Jerry Sloan took over the reins of the Utah Jazz on December 9, 1988, Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, the television classic Seinfeld was still months from hitting the airwaves and surfing the web was a term still years from having a meaning.

In the NBA, Michael Jordan was coming off his first MVP season, but was still two and a half years away from winning his first NBA Championship. Magic Johnson and the Lakers were trying (unsuccessfully it would turn out) for an NBA three-peat and 40 players who would be on NBA rosters in 2011 weren’t yet born.

Much changed in the ensuing 23 seasons, but the one constant in the NBA was that Sloan would be on the sidelines for the Jazz and that Utah would have a hard-working team built on fundamentals and a team philosophy.

Before announcing his resignation on Thursday, Sloan was the longest tenured coach with one organization in any of the four major professional sports. During his time leading the Jazz, the NBA had 245 coaching changes, including 13 alone by the Los Angeles Clippers. Read the rest of this entry →

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      The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month is a former major league baseball player who came into the game as a teenager and stayed until he was in his 40s. In between, Rusty Staub put up a solid career that was primarily spent on expansion or rebuilding teams.

      Originally signed by the Colt .45s at age 17, he made his major league debut as a 19-year old rookie and became only the second player in the modern era to play in more than 150 games as a teenager.

      Though he hit only .224 splitting time between first base and rightfield, Staub did start building a foundation that would turn him into an All-Star by 1967 when he finished fifth in the league with a .333 batting average.

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