Hey guys. Finally got to my 1000th post. Here is the interview. All feedback is appreciated.
Link below is the audio portion if you want to listen. It will open your media player once you click it. It won't open a new page though.
http://www.thesportsinterview.com/RMFiles/JerryTarkanian.rm
Chris
For close to 40 years he coached basketball and loved every minute of it. In 1990 he lead his UNLV Rebels team to a national championship. His new book Jerry Tarkanian, Runnin' Rebel shares the story of his entire coaching career and what he went through as a coach with his battles with the NCAA.
First off how are you?
"I am doing good."
What do you want people to take away from reading your book?
"I just want them to enjoy it. I told a lot of things sometimes coaches don't talk about. I got into recruiting, players that we lost and thought we had, building the program here in Las Vegas, Nevada and Long Beach, California, and some of the hard times we had with the NCAA."
Are you surprised you aren't in the Basketball Hall of Fame with all that you have accomplished?
"Well, I know that my battles with the NCAA have hurt me there. The NCAA is just a powerful organization. They control the media. They have projected some things about me that were totally inaccurate. I got a big 2.5 million dollar lawsuit settlement from them, but the media hardly mentioned that. They never talked about the fact that I won my lawsuit. That was pushed back in the pages and hardly ever talked about."
From 1968 to 1973 you were head coach at Long Beach State and took the school to four NCAA tournaments. Anything that stands out while you were there?
"I was a California guy. I was primarily raised in Pasadena. I coached seven years in the California junior colleges. Long Beach was relatively a new university. It was attractive to me. It was a great location. We lived in Huntington Beach. It was great for my family. We built a program from scratch. They were Division Two before I got there. We didn't have any money or hardly any alumni. We built it all out of junior college players and were able to get a good player in Eddie Ratliff. We became a national power. It really was a miracle because if you looked at what we had we didn't having anything. Our recruiting money came from our basketball camp. It was money that normally went to coaches. We used that for recruiting."
From 1973 to 1992 you were head coach at UNLV. Why do you think you were so successful for those 20 years that included going to four NCAA Final Fours?
"It was a great community. People right now are flocking to Las Vegas. They got 1.6 million people here living here. You talk to anybody here they will tell you the best times were before all these people came. In 1973 we had 300,000 people. It was just a great community to live in. You couldn't believe how wonderful living there was at that point. I still live there now, but the traffic is so bad. We got from one side of town to the other in 15 minutes. There are a lot of economic activities in Las Vegas, but the traffic is so bad. It now takes you 15 minutes to get out of your driveway. It's incredible."
What do you remember most about your 1990 UNLV Rebels team that won you a national championship?
"We had great players. Nobody played harder than we did. Nobody practiced harder than we did. Nobody worked harder than we did. Nobody played defense nowhere near to what we did. We scored a lot of points. Most media that don't understand basketball didn't really figure it out. I think if you ask coaches around the country they will tell you that our strength was our defense. We were a great defensive team."
Give me a brief summary of the 2.5 million dollar lawsuit against the NCAA.
"They just made up allegations against me with no basis. I never had a fair hearing. They had no evidence of any kind. They would just come out and make an allegation and the committee would go along with it. My attorney told me that we would kill them when we went to court. No court in America is going to put up with this. We killed them when we got to court. They settled so the things we filed didn't come out. Got a 2.5 million dollar settlement from them. Thing was though that we got beat up by the media going into that. For years we got beat up by their allegations. When we won the lawsuit nobody printed that. You hardly ever read about that."
Were you out coached by Dean Smith in the NCAA semifinal back in 1977 when your team lost a huge lead to North Carolina?
"Could you ever imagine UNLV getting out coached by North Carolina? We never had a player North Carolina wanted. Every guy that we got were guys North Carolina didn't want. We came out of nowhere. We had hard working guys who were great athletes. North Carolina had guys that were high school All Americans. North Carolina had a great coach in Dean Smith. We lost a heart breaker game by one point. We were up by ten in the first half. My center got his nose broken and that set us back. North Carolina went ahead after that. It was a good team. Dean Smith is a great coach."
In the 1999-2000 college basketball season you took Fresno State to a WAC Tournament Championship and their first NCAA tournament in 1984. How did that make you feel as a Fresno State alumni to finally break
through?
"It was always special because I love the people in Fresno, California. The coaching here was hard, but the people were absolutely wonderful. They were starved for a good program and their support was great. We were the only school on the West Coast that charted to all of our away games. We had so many fans that went with the team. I don't know anybody on the West Coast that did that."
Your overall record is 988 wins and 228 loses. Did you ever think about going for win number 1000 before
retiring?
"I never think about things like that. I just try to win the next game. I didn't even know what the record was."
Why do you think you had such a tough relationship with the NCAA while being a college coach?
"I talk about in the book. I wrote a couple of articles defending a few colleges and they came after me. When they came after me I thought what they did wasn't true. I battled them for it and they just kept coming. They never got me fired. Normally when you fight the NCAA you get fired. I never got fired so they just kept coming. Dale Brown and me are the only two coaches to have fought the NCAA that didn't get fired immediately."
Do you regret going to the NBA because you weren't successful?
"I liked the NBA. I don't regret doing that. It was fine."
Who was the best player you ever coached?
"Larry Johnson was the one who contributed the most because he was such a great person on and off the court. I had so many great players that I don't want to single anybody out."
Who was the toughest coach you ever faced?
"There are just so many good coaches. I don't know. It's hard to pick one out. I thought Boyd Grant and Jerry Pitt were two of the best coaches I ever coached against."
While you were at UNLV did you ever have to worry about your players gambling since you were so close to the Vegas strip and did you have talks with them about it?
"Well, we didn't allow anybody to gamble. I didn't care if you went down to the strip. That was fine. We didn't want any players gambling. If they did we would know about it in minutes because everyone was a UNLV Rebels fan. We only had one player that got involved in that. That was in 1978. He was going to be our captain. We dropped him from our team and never had another problem."
Was UNLV different from any of your other coaching stops?
"No. UNLV was great. We had great community support. We had great university support. It was great."
Tell me about your friendship you made with Frank Sinatra.
"He did a fundraiser for the university every year. In one night he would make $100,000. When he came he and I got to be friends. Whenever he would come to town he would take me and my wife to dinner. He never came to a game. He kept saying he was going to come to a game, but he never did. We had everything setup and for one reason or another he wouldn't come. When we won the national championship the first call my wife got in the hotel was from Frank Sinatra congratulating us."
One of your habits was chewing on a towel. Tell me why you did that.
"It was a superstition that started in high school. I won my first championship so I just kept doing it. More superstition than anything else."
Finally, what's in store for your future?
"I do a couple of radio shows, but I am totally retired. I am enjoying myself."
You can purchase a copy of Jerry Tarkanian, Runnin' Rebel at sportspublishingllc.com
Link below is the audio portion if you want to listen. It will open your media player once you click it. It won't open a new page though.
http://www.thesportsinterview.com/RMFiles/JerryTarkanian.rm
Chris
For close to 40 years he coached basketball and loved every minute of it. In 1990 he lead his UNLV Rebels team to a national championship. His new book Jerry Tarkanian, Runnin' Rebel shares the story of his entire coaching career and what he went through as a coach with his battles with the NCAA.
First off how are you?
"I am doing good."
What do you want people to take away from reading your book?
"I just want them to enjoy it. I told a lot of things sometimes coaches don't talk about. I got into recruiting, players that we lost and thought we had, building the program here in Las Vegas, Nevada and Long Beach, California, and some of the hard times we had with the NCAA."
Are you surprised you aren't in the Basketball Hall of Fame with all that you have accomplished?
"Well, I know that my battles with the NCAA have hurt me there. The NCAA is just a powerful organization. They control the media. They have projected some things about me that were totally inaccurate. I got a big 2.5 million dollar lawsuit settlement from them, but the media hardly mentioned that. They never talked about the fact that I won my lawsuit. That was pushed back in the pages and hardly ever talked about."
From 1968 to 1973 you were head coach at Long Beach State and took the school to four NCAA tournaments. Anything that stands out while you were there?
"I was a California guy. I was primarily raised in Pasadena. I coached seven years in the California junior colleges. Long Beach was relatively a new university. It was attractive to me. It was a great location. We lived in Huntington Beach. It was great for my family. We built a program from scratch. They were Division Two before I got there. We didn't have any money or hardly any alumni. We built it all out of junior college players and were able to get a good player in Eddie Ratliff. We became a national power. It really was a miracle because if you looked at what we had we didn't having anything. Our recruiting money came from our basketball camp. It was money that normally went to coaches. We used that for recruiting."
From 1973 to 1992 you were head coach at UNLV. Why do you think you were so successful for those 20 years that included going to four NCAA Final Fours?
"It was a great community. People right now are flocking to Las Vegas. They got 1.6 million people here living here. You talk to anybody here they will tell you the best times were before all these people came. In 1973 we had 300,000 people. It was just a great community to live in. You couldn't believe how wonderful living there was at that point. I still live there now, but the traffic is so bad. We got from one side of town to the other in 15 minutes. There are a lot of economic activities in Las Vegas, but the traffic is so bad. It now takes you 15 minutes to get out of your driveway. It's incredible."
What do you remember most about your 1990 UNLV Rebels team that won you a national championship?
"We had great players. Nobody played harder than we did. Nobody practiced harder than we did. Nobody worked harder than we did. Nobody played defense nowhere near to what we did. We scored a lot of points. Most media that don't understand basketball didn't really figure it out. I think if you ask coaches around the country they will tell you that our strength was our defense. We were a great defensive team."
Give me a brief summary of the 2.5 million dollar lawsuit against the NCAA.
"They just made up allegations against me with no basis. I never had a fair hearing. They had no evidence of any kind. They would just come out and make an allegation and the committee would go along with it. My attorney told me that we would kill them when we went to court. No court in America is going to put up with this. We killed them when we got to court. They settled so the things we filed didn't come out. Got a 2.5 million dollar settlement from them. Thing was though that we got beat up by the media going into that. For years we got beat up by their allegations. When we won the lawsuit nobody printed that. You hardly ever read about that."
Were you out coached by Dean Smith in the NCAA semifinal back in 1977 when your team lost a huge lead to North Carolina?
"Could you ever imagine UNLV getting out coached by North Carolina? We never had a player North Carolina wanted. Every guy that we got were guys North Carolina didn't want. We came out of nowhere. We had hard working guys who were great athletes. North Carolina had guys that were high school All Americans. North Carolina had a great coach in Dean Smith. We lost a heart breaker game by one point. We were up by ten in the first half. My center got his nose broken and that set us back. North Carolina went ahead after that. It was a good team. Dean Smith is a great coach."
In the 1999-2000 college basketball season you took Fresno State to a WAC Tournament Championship and their first NCAA tournament in 1984. How did that make you feel as a Fresno State alumni to finally break
through?
"It was always special because I love the people in Fresno, California. The coaching here was hard, but the people were absolutely wonderful. They were starved for a good program and their support was great. We were the only school on the West Coast that charted to all of our away games. We had so many fans that went with the team. I don't know anybody on the West Coast that did that."
Your overall record is 988 wins and 228 loses. Did you ever think about going for win number 1000 before
retiring?
"I never think about things like that. I just try to win the next game. I didn't even know what the record was."
Why do you think you had such a tough relationship with the NCAA while being a college coach?
"I talk about in the book. I wrote a couple of articles defending a few colleges and they came after me. When they came after me I thought what they did wasn't true. I battled them for it and they just kept coming. They never got me fired. Normally when you fight the NCAA you get fired. I never got fired so they just kept coming. Dale Brown and me are the only two coaches to have fought the NCAA that didn't get fired immediately."
Do you regret going to the NBA because you weren't successful?
"I liked the NBA. I don't regret doing that. It was fine."
Who was the best player you ever coached?
"Larry Johnson was the one who contributed the most because he was such a great person on and off the court. I had so many great players that I don't want to single anybody out."
Who was the toughest coach you ever faced?
"There are just so many good coaches. I don't know. It's hard to pick one out. I thought Boyd Grant and Jerry Pitt were two of the best coaches I ever coached against."
While you were at UNLV did you ever have to worry about your players gambling since you were so close to the Vegas strip and did you have talks with them about it?
"Well, we didn't allow anybody to gamble. I didn't care if you went down to the strip. That was fine. We didn't want any players gambling. If they did we would know about it in minutes because everyone was a UNLV Rebels fan. We only had one player that got involved in that. That was in 1978. He was going to be our captain. We dropped him from our team and never had another problem."
Was UNLV different from any of your other coaching stops?
"No. UNLV was great. We had great community support. We had great university support. It was great."
Tell me about your friendship you made with Frank Sinatra.
"He did a fundraiser for the university every year. In one night he would make $100,000. When he came he and I got to be friends. Whenever he would come to town he would take me and my wife to dinner. He never came to a game. He kept saying he was going to come to a game, but he never did. We had everything setup and for one reason or another he wouldn't come. When we won the national championship the first call my wife got in the hotel was from Frank Sinatra congratulating us."
One of your habits was chewing on a towel. Tell me why you did that.
"It was a superstition that started in high school. I won my first championship so I just kept doing it. More superstition than anything else."
Finally, what's in store for your future?
"I do a couple of radio shows, but I am totally retired. I am enjoying myself."
You can purchase a copy of Jerry Tarkanian, Runnin' Rebel at sportspublishingllc.com
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