Jerry Sloan

I am still sad about the departure of Jerry Sloan from the Utah Jazz. Not so much that he is actually gone, because he had a wonderful tenure; but the manner and speed of his leaving was not right. He deserved better! He deserved to go out on his own terms, and maybe in reality he did. But, Jerry was a fantastic man and a truly great coach, who left a real, lasting legacy in Utah. It would have been great if all this nasty stuff could have happened in the off season, if it needed to have happened at all. He should have been allowed to say goodbye to the fans, and we should have been permitted to tell him publicly, in an appropriate time and place, that we thinks he was wonderful. Jerry, you will always have a special place in our hearts.

The common man's coach

Republished from the Deseret News: In this state, there are men and women in their 20s who will wake up this morning and spend the first day of their lives with someone other than Jerry Sloan as head coach of the Utah Jazz. Gail Miller, whose late husband bought the team, kept it in Utah and made it prosper, may have said it best at Thursday's press conference when she told Sloan, "You've become an institution." Not many coaches could shock an entire state by announcing their resignation. But then, not many coaches have kept their jobs for nearly 23 years. Sloan was the longest tenured coach in all major U.S. professional sports. He won 1,127 games and led the team to two trips to the NBA finals. In a state where, with apologies to Real Salt Lake, the Jazz is the only major big-league franchise, Sloan was the face of the team and also a symbol of the ethic of hard work and hustle.

Sloan's enduring quality was his ability to connect with the common fan, the average working stiff, the man or woman who either has to dig deep to buy a ticket or who relies on an office pool to win tickets paid for by an employer. Like those fans, he didn't seem to have much patience with millionaire athletes who wouldn't perform or who gave anything less than a complete effort. He was old-school in a community longing for old-time values. His short and blunt post-game appraisals of his team let people know he didn't care nearly as much about the entertainment value of professional basketball as he did about winning. If you've been around a long time, you can remember Sloan as a player — the immovable object in the Chicago Bull's back court who never thought twice about holding his ground against a charging Wilt Chamberlain, that era's monster center. He coached much the same way he played, which was a lot similar to the way he works on his farm in Illinois, applying relentless pressure to stubborn tree stumps until they finally give.

The circumstances of his departure are surrounded by questions. Were frictions with players to blame? Were there disagreements with management over his coaching style? These may be ferreted out in days ahead. However, his insistence at the press conference that he had simply run out of energy seems entirely consistent with his character. If Sloan no longer felt he could give the job 100 percent, he wouldn't want to continue. He left much the way he came. On a cold day in 1988, long-time coach Frank Layden suddenly resigned and left Sloan the job. His first comment when he sat in the chair Layden used for post-game interviews was, "This is a tough seat. It's a lot bigger than I thought." Big as it was then, he expanded it greatly. As much as Jazz fans hope Tyrone Corbin excels as the new coach, they will never forget the Sloan era.

Superbowl Crazies

People do some really nutty things on Superbowl gameday! Tailgate parties in snow covered parking lots dressed in nothing but shorts and flip-flops, face-painting jobs that would scare the Grim Reaper, and of course some weird and freaky bets. One wager is based on whether Fergie will wear shorts during the halftime show. Another bet centers on which color Gatorade will be dumped on the winning coach. Seriously? Seriously!

Even some of the country's highest-browed art lovers are getting into the act. The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has bet a Renoir that the Steelers will win Sunday. The Milwaukee Art Museum took that bet — and put up a rare Gustave Caillebotte painting in return. Should the Steelers lose to the Packers, Milwaukee's prize will be one of Pierre Auguste Renoir's paintings of bathers. Lynn Zelevansky, director of the Carnegie Art Museum, describes Bathers With Crab as "a late Renoir, which is the Renoir that everybody loves — all those lovely pink maidens."

Should the Packers lose, however, the Carnegie Museum gets Gustave Caillebotte's Boating on the Yerres. Either way, the winning city will keep the borrowed painting for just a few months before returning it to the loser. Until then, Keegan says that they will receive a strong exhibit from a great museum in Milwaukee. Zelevansky feels exactly the same way: "We have a very strong Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection — but we don't have Caillebotte. I'm looking forward to bringing Caillebotte to the museum."

Pakistan players and agent charged over betting scandal

By Owen Gibson, republished from The Guardian: The three Pakistan players at the centre of the spot-fixing row that rocked cricket last summer were today told they would face criminal charges in a British court, becoming high-profile test cases for new legislation introduced five years ago to prevent cheating at gambling. The trio will tomorrow hear from an International Cricket Council tribunal in Qatar whether they face lengthy or even life bans from the sport under the governing body's regulatory code, but must now also return to London next month to face charges of conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments and also conspiracy to cheat.

The batsman Salman Butt, who was captain at the time of the incidents under investigation, and the fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were told that extradition treaties would be sought if they did not return to London voluntarily, as they promised when they returned to Pakistan amid a swirl of controversy in September. The charges, which carry maximum sentences of seven years and two years in prison respectively, also apply to the alleged "fixer", Mazhar Majeed. Majeed, who acted as an agent to several Pakistan players including Butt and was alleged by the News of the World to have accepted payment in return for ordering no-balls to be bowled at specific points, is also under investigation for money laundering by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

"These charges relate to allegations that Mr Majeed accepted money from a third party to arrange for the players to bowl no-balls on 26 and 27 August 2010, during Pakistan's fourth Test at Lord's cricket ground in London," said Simon Clements, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime division. He said the CPS had worked closely with the police since the allegations first became public on 27 August last year. "We received a full file of evidence on 7 December 2010 and we are satisfied there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute," Clements added.

Majeed was alleged to have accepted £150,000 from reporters posing as frontmen for a Far East gambling cartel and allegedly stated when the three no-balls would be bowled. The reported claims appeared to be borne out by the events of the second day of the Fourth Test, when they were delivered as predicted. The four men will appear before the City of Westminster magistrates court on 17 March, but the case is unlikely to reach a full trial for over a year, casting an ongoing shadow over the sport. Unlike the players, Majeed, also under investigation for alleged money laundering by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, did not appear at the recent ICC hearing in Doha, Qatar, because he does not fall under the aegis of its sporting code.

A three-person panel, headed by Michael Beloff QC, heard more than 45 hours of evidence from the three players and other witnesses and will today rule on whether they should face bans of between five years and life in the worst betting scandal to hit the sport since the Hansie Cronje affair. The criminal case will also pose more problems for the ICC, which had hoped to draw a line under the affair ahead of the forthcoming Cricket World Cup. At the height of the controversy last year, when it appeared the Pakistan team may call off their tour of England and the country's high commissioner claimed the allegations were part of a smear campaign, there were fears the scandal could fundamentally undermine the sport. It also sparked widespread concern at the extent to which illegal gambling operations in the Far East and Asia had infiltrated professional sport.

In November, the former Pakistani wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider fled to London claiming his life was in danger after refusing to co-operate with match-fixers. He has yet to hear whether his asylum request has been granted. Previous high-profile attempts to tackle alleged sporting corruption have ended embarrassingly for the CPS, as when the trial involving jockey Kieren Fallon collapsed. The offence of conspiracy to cheat, introduced under the 2005 Gambling Act, is untested in British courts. A parallel case, involving the former Essex bowler Mervyn Westfield, could be the first to reach trial. Westfield, who faces the same charges as the Pakistan trio but without the conspiracy element, is alleged to have bowled in such a way to allow his opponents to reach a certain score during a one-day county match against Durham. He is scheduled to appear in court again next week.