1. Jerry Tarkanian was an American basketball coach.
49 Facts About Jerry Tarkanian
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Jerry Tarkanian coached college basketball for 31 seasons over five decades at three schools.
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Jerry Tarkanian spent the majority of his career coaching with the UNLV Runnin' Rebels, leading them four times to the Final Four of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, winning the national championship in 1990.
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Jerry Tarkanian was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
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Jerry Tarkanian studied at Pasadena City College and later Fresno State, earning a bachelor's degree while playing basketball.
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Jerry Tarkanian was a head coach at the high school level before becoming a successful junior college coach at Riverside City College winning three state championships, and returned to Pasadena City College and led them to a state championship.
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Jerry Tarkanian established a successful program built on former junior college players, who were typically considered second-rate by other four-year programs.
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Jerry Tarkanian was the rare coach who dared to start a predominantly black lineup.
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Jerry Tarkanian transformed the small program into a national powerhouse while granting his players the freedom to express themselves.
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Jerry Tarkanian left the Runnin' Rebels for a brief stint coaching professionally with the San Antonio Spurs in the National Basketball Association before finishing his career at his alma mater, Fresno State.
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Jerry Tarkanian responded by challenging the organization to investigate larger and more powerful universities.
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Jerry Tarkanian sued them again in 1992, and the case was settled when he received $2.5 million in 1998.
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Jerry Tarkanian was born in 1930 to Armenian immigrants in Euclid, Ohio.
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Jerry Tarkanian's mother, Rose, was a survivor of the Armenian genocide.
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Jerry Tarkanian's maternal grandfather, Mickael, was an Ottoman government official who was beheaded by Turkish authorities.
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Jerry Tarkanian began his coaching career with five years of California high school basketball, starting with San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno.
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Jerry Tarkanian then moved to Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster and Redlands High School.
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Jerry Tarkanian then moved on to the junior college level at Riverside City College from 1961 to 1966 and Pasadena City College from 1966 to 1968.
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Jerry Tarkanian moved to Division I basketball as coach at Long Beach State from 1968 to 1973.
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Wary of continuing in UCLA's shadow, Jerry Tarkanian accepted an offer to coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1973.
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Jerry Tarkanian's teams were known for run-and-gun offense, stifling defense, and going on long runs that turned close games into blowouts.
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Jerry Tarkanian took his UNLV teams to four Final Fours.
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Jerry Tarkanian had been under more or less constant scrutiny from the NCAA for most of his career, but managed to weather the pressure until he signed Lloyd Daniels, a talented, but troubled shooting guard from New York City.
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The picture had been taken in 1989, only months after Jerry Tarkanian claimed that he had warned his players to stay away from Perry.
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On June 7,1991, Jerry Tarkanian announced he would resign after coaching one more season.
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Jerry Tarkanian was hired to coach the San Antonio Spurs in 1992, not long after leaving UNLV.
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Jerry Tarkanian felt that the Spurs wouldn't be competitive without an experienced point guard, but McCombs disagreed.
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Jerry Tarkanian received a $1.3 million settlement, which he used to fund a lawsuit against the NCAA.
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Jerry Tarkanian returned to college coaching at his alma mater, California State University, Fresno, from 1995 to 2002 and led them to six consecutive 20-win seasons.
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Jerry Tarkanian led the Bulldogs to five NIT tournaments and two NCAA appearances.
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Jerry Tarkanian retired from coaching in 2002 with 778 career Division I wins.
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Jerry Tarkanian spent most of his career as a Division I coach in a battle with the NCAA.
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Jerry Tarkanian sued, claiming the suspension violated his right to due process.
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The harassment, Jerry Tarkanian claimed, started when he wrote a newspaper column alleging that the NCAA was more willing to punish less-prominent schools than big-name schools.
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Jerry Tarkanian was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, an honor that fellow coaches had been saying was overdue.
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ESPN wrote that Jerry Tarkanian "helped revolutionize the way the college game was played".
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Jerry Tarkanian was an innovator who had his teams play a pressing defense that forced turnovers to trigger its run-and-gun offense.
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Jerry Tarkanian was one of the few early coaches to effectively use the three-point shot, which was added by the NCAA in 1986.
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Jerry Tarkanian recruited players that his peers often passed over, taking chances on junior college students or those with a troubled past.
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Jerry Tarkanian's players hailed predominately from urban areas, and he allowed his team the freedom to express themselves.
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Jerry Tarkanian's teams changed the style and image of college basketball in a way that predated the impact the Fab Five of Michigan had in the 1990s.
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Jerry Tarkanian became a celebrity, and tickets to UNLV games became hot items with regulars, including Vegas headliners Frank Sinatra, Bill Cosby and Don Rickles.
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Jerry Tarkanian has a middle school located in Southern Highlands, NV named after him and his wife Lois.
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Jerry Tarkanian had small roles in the 1979 film, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh as the LA Team Coach, in the 1992 film, Honeymoon in Vegas as a poker player, and in the 1994 film, Blue Chips as a basketball coach.
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Jerry Tarkanian was married to Las Vegas city councilwoman Lois Tarkanian.
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Jerry Tarkanian was a good friend of college basketball coach Bob Knight.
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Jerry Tarkanian started a basketball school in Las Vegas, named The Tarkanian Basketball Academy.
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On February 11,2015, Jerry Tarkanian died at the age of 84 at Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, where he had been hospitalized days earlier after having difficulty breathing.
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Jerry Tarkanian was portrayed by Rory Cochrane in the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.