Goodbye to Tark the Shark

Among a flurry of people passing away over the last few days-Dean Smith and Bob Simon among them,one hit home most in former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who passed away at the age of 84.

Tarkanian, who coached UNLV to a national title and another Rebels squad to the closest run to an undefeated national title since Indiana in 1976 with an undefeated string that ended with a loss to Duke in the final four, also coached at Long Beach State before UNLV and Fresno State after his Rebels tenure with a short 20 game stint with the San Antonio Spurs.

Tarkanian won 729 games at three schools, but for all the winning and for all the entertaining basketball that he is responsible for, he will be most remembered for his run-ins with the NCAA, which tried to suspend him and essentially run him from the game.
Tarkanian won in the end though as he never served the time and beat the NCAA in court to the tune of winning an unofficial admission of guilt from the NCAA along with a check for 2.5 million dollars...

Tark's career at Las Vegas has been noted extensively, but what is forgotten was his term at Long Beach State, where behind high scorer "Easy" Ed Ratleff, Long Beach almost KO'ed UCLA in the West finals, losing by two points, when Ratleff fouled out,
Tarkanian's problems with the NCAA began at Long Beach when he wrote a column criticizing the organization for only going after the smaller schools such as his teams while ignoring the issues at larger power programs such as UCLA and their multi-millionaire booster Sam Gilbert.
That column would start an over twenty years and three schools battle between the two with some taking the side of Tark for sticking up for the little man, while others preferred to look at Tarkanian as a win at all costs coach that was free and easy with the rulebook.

Tark might have taken a few too many chances on troubled players (academics and otherwise), but he did have some players that would turn out to be good pros and excellent in the classroom.
Tarkanian is often thought of running renegade programs and that's of his own doing, however, that was part of needing a special vibe to attract top-notch players to a mid-major program.
UNLV was in the small-time PCAA (later to be known as the Big West) and needed to bring into town top-notch recruits, so the Runnin' Rebels would also play a national schedule against a powerhouse from other parts of the country in order to showcase the program and help the strength of schedule that a small conference school has problems building due to the in-conference weakness of schedule.

What else would bring players to Las Vegas (besides the off floor enticements of the city that never sleeps and what his detractors would say were illegal ones, that is)?
Try the up and down the floor running style with teams that averaged over 100 points in seasons without a shot clock or the three-pointer.
The style of play along with an aggressive style of pressure defense always is a popular style for players to play and brought players that didn't want to play the four corners or slog along in a slow-paced, walk the ball up the floor halfcourt offense to play for him.
When you are able to sell an appealing way to play-recruiting becomes so much easier and the results speak for themselves.

Jerry Tarkanian wasn't a saint, he wanted to win and he had some whiffs on players that likely would have been nowhere near a college had they not had the ability to put the ball in the hoop.
That happens about a million times more than any of us wants to admit-from even the best
coaches, no matter their reputation, but Tark openly embraced being different and honest, at least on some things anyway.

In the end, though, I was proud to call myself a fan of Tarkanian and his Rebels and I wore my Rebels gear with pride after they won their national title and the following year.
Much in the way that I pull for Boise State, now, I love pulling for the little guys that can compete with the big men-if they only get a chance.
I lost interest in the Rebels after Tarkanian left, but some of my best memories came AFTER his UNLV years.

Tarkanian returned to his alma mater, Fresno State from 1995-2002, and because of his name (and some decent teams there), Fresno was often seen as the late-night ESPN games from the left coast.
Ryan and I spent many nights watching and rooting for those Bulldogs and of all the memories that I received from Tarkanian-that one might be the best-teaching Ryan the game, rooting together (we don't really share a lot of teams), and spending time together.
One cannot beat many memories like that...

Back later tonight, maybe with a look at a great coach that I didn't care for!