Jerry Tarkanian obit

Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian dies

LAS VEGAS -- He couldn't stop fighting the NCAA any more than he could give up chewing towels courtside. Jerry Tarkanian built a basketball dynasty in the desert, but it was his decades-long battle with the NCAA that defined him far more than the wins and losses.

The coach who won a national title at UNLV and made the school synonymous with basketball died Wednesday after several years of health issues. He was 84.

Tarkanian battled an infection since he was hospitalized Monday in Las Vegas with breathing difficulty, said his son Danny Tarkanian, a point guard on his father's teams in the 1980s. "He fought and fought and fought," Danny Tarkanian told The Associated Press.

Tarkanian put the run in the Runnin' Rebels, taking them to four Final Fours and winning a national championship in 1990 with one of the most dominant college teams ever. His teams were as flamboyant as the city, with light shows and fireworks for pregame introductions and celebrities jockeying for position on the so-called Gucci Row courtside.

He ended up beating the NCAA, too, collecting a $2.5 million settlement after suing the organization for trying to run him out of college basketball. But he was bitter to the end about the way the NCAA treated him while coaching.

"They've been my tormentors my whole life," Tarkanian said at his retirement news conference in 2002. "It will never stop."

The night before he died, fans attending UNLV's game against Fresno State draped towels over the statue of Tarkanian outside the campus arena. Tarkanian is depicted in the statue chewing on a towel while sitting in a courtside chair urging his team on.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a longtime family friend, said Tarkanian's legacy was far more widespread than just in Las Vegas, where he made UNLV a national power and was a bigger star than anyone playing on the Las Vegas Strip.

"Jerry's mark on American athletics is significant not only because of his coaching ability, but also his fearlessness in taking on the brutal NCAA," Reid said. "They controlled, bullied and tried to embarrass him, but he never stopped fighting until they cried uncle."

Tarkanian's wife, Lois, said her husband fought health problems for the last six years with the same "courage and tenacity" he showed throughout his life. His death came just days after the death of another Hall of Fame coach, North Carolina's Dean Smith.

"Our hearts are broken but filled with incredible memories," Lois Tarkanian said in a family statement. "You will be missed Tark."

Tarkanian was an innovator who preached defense yet loved to watch his teams run. And run they did, beginning with his first Final Four team in 1976-77, which scored more than 100 points in 23 games in an era before both the shot clock and the 3-point shot.

He was a winner in a city built on losers, putting a small commuter school on the national sporting map and making UNLV sweatshirts a hot item around the country. His teams helped revolutionize the way the college game was played, with relentless defense forcing turnovers that were quickly converted into baskets at the other end.

He recruited players other coaches often wouldn't touch, building teams with junior college transfers and kids from checkered backgrounds. His teams at UNLV were national powerhouses almost every year, yet Tarkanian never seemed to get his due when the discussion turned to the all-time coaching greats.

That changed in 2013 when Tarkanian was elected to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, an honor his fellow coaches argued for years was long overdue. Though hospitalized in the summer for heart problems and weakened by a variety of ills, he went on stage with a walker at the induction ceremony.

"I knew right from day one I wanted to be a coach," Tarkanian said. "Coaching has been my entire life."

Tarkanian's career spanned 31 years with three Division I schools, beginning at Long Beach State and ending at Fresno State, where Tarkanian himself played in 1954 and 1955. Only twice did his teams fail to win at least 20 games in a season.

But it was at UNLV where his reputation was made, both as a coach of teams that often scored in the triple digits and as an outlaw not afraid to stand up to the powerful NCAA. He went 509-105 in 19 seasons with the Runnin' Rebels before finally being forced out by the university after a picture was published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal showing some of his players in a hot tub with a convicted game fixer.

UNLV was already on probation at the time, just two years after winning the national title and a year after the Runnin' Rebels went undefeated into the Final Four before being upset in the semifinals by the same Duke team they beat by 30 points for the championship the year before. Even after losing four of his starters off that team and being on probation, Tarkanian went 26-2 in his final year at UNLV.

His overall record is listed several different ways because the NCAA took away wins from some of his teams, but the family preferred to go with his on court record of 784-202.

Tarkanian's style evolved as he was able to recruit better players, and the Rebels were all about running and shooting. But the core of his high flying offenses was great defense, and Tarkanian drilled them constantly in practice to commit to nonstop pressure and create turnovers.

"Everything had to be full speed intense," he once said. "A lot of coaches want guys to be loose for games. I never wanted them to be loose. I wanted their hands sweating, their knees shaking, their eyes bulging. I wanted them to act like we were going to war."

That was also the way Tarkanian approached his dealings with the NCAA. His program at Long Beach State was put on probation after he left for UNLV and it wasn't long before UNLV was also on probation and the NCAA was demanding Tarkanian be suspended for two years. But he sued to overturn the penalty and remained as head coach, though NCAA investigators became a common sight in Las Vegas over the years.

The sad-eyed Tarkanian was born to Armenian immigrants Aug. 8, 1930, in Euclid, Ohio, and attended Pasadena City College before transferring to Fresno State, where he graduated in 1955. He coached high school basketball in Southern California before being hired at Riverside City College, where he spent five years before moving on to Pasadena City College.

He was hired at Long Beach State in 1968 and went 23-3 in his first year, then led the school to four straight NCAA tournament appearances, including the 1971 West Regional final, where Long Beach led UCLA by 12 points at halftime only to lose by two. While at Long Beach he got into his first dispute with the NCAA, writing a newspaper column that questioned why the organization investigated Western Kentucky and not a powerful university like Kentucky.

Never shy about challenging the NCAA, Tarkanian once famously said: "The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky, it's going to give Cleveland State two more years' probation."

By the time he moved to Las Vegas in 1973, Tarkanian was considered one of the rising coaching stars in the country. He quickly built a name for what was then a small school and by his fourth season at UNLV he had the Runnin' Rebels in the Final Four, where they lost 84-83 to North Carolina. It would be another decade before UNLV made the Final Four again, and the Runnin' Rebels were in three in five years, including the national championship season of 1990.

In the final that year, UNLV used its pressure defense to blow out Duke 103-73 in one of the most dominant performances in championship game history.

It all happened with Tarkanian on his chair courtside, chewing on a moist towel that was always left carefully folded underneath his seat. The towel chewing, Tarkanian would later say, was something he started doing during long practices when he could not stop to go to a drinking fountain.

After being forced out at UNLV, Tarkanian briefly coached in the NBA, going 9-11 with the San Antonio Spurs before being fired in a dispute with ownership. He would later return to Fresno State, where he had six straight 20-win seasons before finally retiring in 2002.

Tarkanian was a fixture at UNLV games in his later years, watching from a sideline seat next to the court that was named after him.

Quotes and reaction to the death of Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian:

"Our hearts are broken but filled with incredible memories. You will be missed Tark." — wife Lois Tarkanian

"He had an uncanny ability to take star players, and mold them into cohesive and selfless teams. That is a testament to how well he related to his players. They adored him. As coaches, we admired him as well. His teams were a joy to watch, unless you were playing against one of them. He taught pressure man-to-man defense as well as anyone has ever done." — Duke and U.S. national team coach Mike Krzyzewski

"He was well-known and was able to recruit kids pretty much all over when he was at UNLV because of their success and the fact that they were sold out all the time. I was happy to see that they named the court after him because there were two types of fans: People who didn't like having him coach at UNLV and a lot more people who did like having him." — former Arizona coach Lute Olson

"HOF coach & great friend Jerry Tarkanian has passed away. We've lost two icons in the same week. Sad week for all who love this great game." — Kentucky coach John Calipari via Twitter

"He fought and fought and fought." — son Danny Tarkanian

"He was one of the few coaches who were successful playing more than one style. At Long Beach he was low possession, walk it up the floor, zone defense and at UNLV it was the Runnin' Rebs. Not many coaches can change styles that dramatically." — North Carolina coach Roy Williams

"He instilled in me a confidence and commitment to doing what I believe is right for all people I am around. He will always be a part of UNLV, and our university is a better institution because of that." — current UNLV coach Dave Rice

"Coach Tarkanian's contribution to UNLV and southern Nevada stretches far beyond the game of basketball. He made Runnin' Rebel basketball a brand name during his 19 years on campus, inspiring our community and creating a legacy that endures to this day." — UNLV President Len Jessup

"Jerry Tarkanian is one of the true legends in the coaching profession. He was successful at so many different levels in college basketball. Coach Tarkanian welcomed me in from the first day I arrived in Fresno. He loved the Bulldogs and stayed connected with our program throughout the years." — current Fresno State coach Rodney Terry

"As a player it's one thing, but as I've gotten older and started coaching, the relationship changed. I remember sitting in a restaurant talking to him and going through a stack of 100 napkins, doing plays and showing me different things on the napkins." — former UNLV player and current Cal State Northridge coach Reggie Theus

"He was a good friend and great coach. His style of play really impacted college basketball. When he got to UNLV, he started to run-and-gun and that set up a style for other teams." — former Nevada coach Sonny Allen, who faced Tarkanian's Rebels 12 times from 1980-87

"Coach Tarkanian will be forever memorialized by sports fans across the nation as an iconic figure who changed the sport. Nevadans will remember him as a man who brought fame to our young UNLV and a wonderful husband, father, and grandfather." — Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval

"If you didn't have it together offensively, and you didn't have some really good guards, you wanted no part of playing those guys. He was a great teacher of the game." — former Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo, whose team lost in the Elite Eight to Tarkanian's famous 1991 team at UNLV

"Every time I saw Jerry Tarkanian, at the end he'd say, 'You guys are unbelievable.' His team was 32-2 and we were like 24-10. He would say, 'I can't believe you do that.' He would do that almost every time I'd see him. People are different than their personas that the media cultivates. He's one of the humblest, nicest guys and one of the best coaches ever. I don't think people know that he was a great guy and he was a great basketball coach." — Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim

"Coach Tarkanian was one of the most charismatic and talented coaches of his era. He was a great defensive specialist whose teams were always well-prepared. But most importantly, he always cared about his student-athletes. Jerry will be sorely missed." — former St. John's coach and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Lou Carnesecca

"People forget that when he went to UNLV, no one knew who UNLV was. And he created that. I thought it was a shame how long they made him wait to get into the Hall of Fame. I never thought that was right or just. I had a problem with that, and I actually voiced it way back. He fought the NCAA when no one else would. He could have taken his fine, but he said: 'No, I'm not. I'm going to fight you.' And I just find it interesting now that the things he was fighting about is basically what we've all found out — he was right. So I hope he passed away knowing that he had a just cause for everyone. So I'm a big fan." — Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers

Larry Johnson talked about Jerry Tarkanian all the time. Years later, I finally met Tark and he nearly cried when he spoke about Larry. — Frank Isola

When his former star Armen Gilliam died, he said” “He was one of the greatest Rebels ever and one of the best players we have ever had,” Jerry Tarkanian said in a statement, according to ESPN. “He was such a great person. Everybody loved him, and he loved everybody. He was such a gentle person and such a caring guy. I am all shook up over it. I think the world of him and am just really shocked.”

Demand for UNLV basketball tickets was so great after the Rebels reached the 1977 Final Four in Tarkanian's fourth season that the school soon broke ground on the 19,500-seat Thomas & Mack Center. Las Vegas headliners Sinatra, Bill Cosby and Don Rickles were among the regulars at that time in UNLV's courtside seats, famously nicknamed "Gucci Row."

Because UNLV initially lacked the pedigree to compete with North Carolina, Duke and Indiana for elite high school players, Tarkanian sought out higher-risk prospects and mined his junior college connections for talent. Armen Gilliam, Moses Scurry, Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon and Larry Johnson were among Tarkanian's success stories. Clifford Allen and Lloyd Daniels were two of his most prominent failures.

Tarkanian is survived by his wife and four children.