Was in ICU last night, his passing reported by his son on Twitter.

yeah, 2 HOF coaches gone within days of each other.

Jerry Tarkanian loved the game of basketball. And from what I've read in various media and other message boards, most everybody loved him. Especially his players.

One thing I've always admired about Tark is that he stood tall in his belief he never did anything wrong. The NCAA would ignore whatever infractions UCLA committed under John Wooden while doling out punishment on everyone else for the same things or lesser "crimes," and Tark was not afraid to call him out for it. He didn't crumble under the pressure and nothing hurt the NCAA more than UNLV's national championship.

@ChuckCarltonDMN 43m43 minutes ago
RT @RobDauster: Great Tark line: "I always like to get transfers. Especially from the Pac-10. They already have their cars paid for."

This is how I always think of him.

Dan Wetzel wrote a great article about Tark, here: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/jerry-tarka...17307.html

Excerpt:

Quote:There was the time a transfer showed up from Oral Roberts driving a big, expensive Lincoln. "I told him, 'You can keep the Lincoln, but you have to leave the Oklahoma license plates. I don't want to see a Nevada plate. That way they won't think I bought it.' " There was the time he negotiated his UNLV contract and somehow became a full professor … with tenure.

There was a time at an all-star game when an opposing coach walked in with a suitcase everyone suspected was full of money, only to find an NCAA investigator sitting in the stands. Tark went up to the NCAA guy and told him to go steal the suitcase and buy himself a condo in Florida … "what's the coach going to say?"

There was the time he convinced his team the thin air at 7,200 feet in Laramie, Wy., wouldn't affect them because the game was indoors. There was the time one of his Fresno players pulled a Samurai sword on another guy. A Samurai sword? "The papers made a big deal over that one." You think?

At least, just barely, he got to see himself enshrined in the basketball Hall of Fame. Fingers crossed, God forbid a certain coach I know of who also barely saw his enshrinement is next.

(02-11-2015 02:31 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  At least, just barely, he got to see himself enshrined in the basketball Hall of Fame. Fingers crossed, God forbid a certain coach I know of who also barely saw his enshrinement is next.

Two Legendary Coaches gone...i was kinda thinking the same as you on that subject.

Tark was an old school cheater who challenged the NCAA successfully. He was also an innovative coach who played a run-and-gun style before there was a 3-point line or a shot clock. I liked his 1970s teams better than the early 1990s teams that brought the most fame.

UNLV was a joy to watch during the Tark years. Ironic, in almost all ways he was the anti-Dean Smith except in two areas - having a huge basketball brain, and winning.

RIP.

Jerry Tarkanian broke the mold, for certain.

(02-12-2015 08:08 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Tark was an old school cheater who challenged the NCAA successfully. He was also an innovative coach who played a run-and-gun style before there was a 3-point line or a shot clock. I liked his 1970s teams better than the early 1990s teams that brought the most fame.

UNLV was a joy to watch during the Tark years. Ironic, in almost all ways he was the anti-Dean Smith except in two areas - having a huge basketball brain, and winning.

RIP.

He may not have been Dean Smith, but I don't recall him being a cheater, either. He believed the NCAA had it in for him because he recruited players who weren't choir boys, but in every case they tried to bring against him he was exonerated of wrongdoing. Doing it a different way is not the same as cheating.

Tark was Misunderstood throughout much of His Career, just like Dale Brown. They didn't cheat but They knew how to take a kid that might have had a checkered past and motivate Them to do great things on the court. A great legendary Coaching figure that We are all better for to have watched Him. R.I.P. Tark