SALT LAKE CITY — During my four decades as a sportswriter, I was never the full-time beat writer for the Utah Jazz, although I used to cover a lot of Jazz games back in the 1990s and beyond when Jerry Sloan was the coach.
Of the hundreds of coaches I’ve interviewed over the years, I’ll admit a few were intimidating, including Rick Majerus at times and Gregg Popovich all the time. But I never felt that way about Sloan, despite his gruff, no-nonsense manner. I liked the fact that Sloan was always straightforward with you and the way he was unpretentious to a fault.