Sports obituaries

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[QUOTE=sox83cubs84;412932]Jerry Sloan, a Pro Basketball HoFer who had a decades-long love affair with pro basketball, died on 5/22 at age 78.

One of the top defensive players of his era, Sloan's playing career began in 1965-66 with the Baltimore Bullets. The following season found him taken by the Bulls in the expansion draft, and he spent the next 10 seasons playing rough and tough defense for the team which, for most of his time there, was a perennial contender

Sloan began his NBA coaching career with the Bulls, starting in 1979-80 and staying on the job until the team fired him in the middle of the 1981-82 season. After a few years off, he came aboard with the Utah Jazz, taking the role of an assistant coach beginning in 1985, and filling it until early in the 1988-89 campaign, when he was promoted to Head Coach. There he stayed through the 20110-11 season, and, near the end of his career, was named to the Pro BSKB HoF for his coaching career in 2009.

The saddest factor of his career in the NBA in both roles was that he never played on nor coached a team that won the NBA Championship. His closest chances ended in the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, where his Jazz team was defeated in the Finals by the Chicago Bulls, with the two Bulls Finals wins capping off their second Three-Peat.

Dave Miedema[/QUOTE

I couldn't get a photo to take on the original post, but am adding this one here.

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Harry Glickman, the man who founded the NBA Portland Trailblazers, died on 6/10 at age 96.

As the team's GM, Glickman oversaw the crew from Rip City as they battled thei way to the 1977 NBA Championship.

Before this, he founded the Portland Buckaroos minor league hockey team in 1960.

Dave Miedema