Like most rebels, Jerry Tarkanian leaves complicated legacy

By Kels Dayton
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Updated: February 15, 2015

In this April 2, 1990, file photo UNLV head coach Jerry Tarkanian flashes a big smile during a press conference prior to facing Duke in the NCAA Final Four in Denver. Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian, who built a basketball dynasty at UNLV but was defined more by his decades-long battle with the NCAA, died Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, in Las Vegas after several years of health issues. He was 84. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

By: Kels Dayton

Jerry Tarkanian was a rebel in every sense of the word.

He was a towel-chomping, second-chance-giving, authority-clashing independent; head of the renegade Runnin’ Rebels, the perfect coach for an out-of-nowhere team from Vegas that shook up the college basketball world in the early ’90s.

Tark’s towel-chomping during games was just one of his many idiosyncracies that made him one-of-a-kind. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke, File)

I didn’t know Jerry Tarkanian personally, nor was I even old enough to really remember his 1990 UNLV squad, a modern-day dynasty that monster-trucked its way to 45 straight wins and a stirring national championship. That team was full of future pros, including Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon and Larry Johnson, and it crushed opponents with its brash, up-tempo brand of basketball that meshed talent and system as perfectly as Las Vegas meshes fun and sin.

But I do know that he cared deeply about his players, and transferred that care into an overwhelming, nervous-habit-forming, will to win that manifested itself in him chewing on towels and sweating through his shirt and tie during games.

I’ve met Chris Herren, the one-time basketball prodigy from Fall River, Mass., who got swallowed up in drug abuse and burned his chance at playing at Boston College. When Herren was kicked out of BC in 1995, Tarkanian gave him a second chance.

“All Tark needed to say was, I’m starting over in Fresno, and I think you’re a good fit here, because you’ll be starting over too,” Herren said in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary Unguarded. “That’s all he needed to tell me, and I was ready.”

Of course, Tark was starting over in Fresno because he himself had meshed a little too much sin with his fun. He clashed with the NCAA over rules violations, and after a photo surfaced of convicted game fixer Richard Perry in a hot tub with three UNLV players, the NCAA ousted Tark, telling him the 1991-92 season would be his last at UNLV. But like his teams always did, Tarkanian fought back, winning a $2.5 million lawsuit against the NCAA after claiming that it had tried to ruin his career.

Herren with Tarkanian after announcing he would be leaving Fresno State in 1997 to deal with his drug addiction. (Photo: Tomas Ovalle/Associated Press)

Even after he resurfaced at Fresno State, Tark again was cited for NCAA violations, and accused by many of fielding a team of gang members. Maybe his players weren’t all first-class citizens when they came in, but maybe that’s why Tarkanian took them in the first place. Maybe that’s what he felt his mission in life was, or his reason for coaching beyond piling up wins and enduring a few losses. Maybe he wanted to help them find their way just as he was finding his.

Though Herren’s battle with drugs continued well past his days at Fresno State, Tark’s love for him was always apparent. Like many of his players, Tarkanian was often moved to tears when he talked about Herren. He simply cared that much.

No, Tark wasn’t perfect. You could argue that no Hall of Fame coach was more maligned, or more obtrusively complex.

No coach challenged authority of the NCAA like he did, like when he famously quipped about the NCAA being so mad at Kentucky, they’re going to give Cleveland State another year of probation. That was Tark, always jabbing at the establishment, always standing up for his convictions in his own, unique way.

I’ll always think of Tark as the college basketball version of a lovable mobster, playing the part with his sleepy eyes, raspy voice and aw-shucks attitude. He always made me laugh.

Like most rebels, there probably aren’t a ton of people outside of his direct path who really know and understand Jerry Tarkanian.

But you can admire a guy from afar.

Also See: The time Dean Smith took his team to New Haven