The World Has Changed

"The arrogance of every generation is to think that the onward march of world history lead to this peak that is its generation, and it's now going downhill"

David Greenberger

Jeff Fisher coached the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Oilers/Tennessee Titans for 16 years until getting canned two weeks ago. Jerry Sloan coached the Utah Jazz for 23 years until today. I suggest that Tony La Russa might want to start forming contingency plans before spring training. Why? Because old school is officially dead.

Professional sports used to be a world where coaches were heroes who demanded and received near unconditional respect. If Vince Lombardi told you to run through a brick wall, you didn’t ask questions… you just did your best Kool-Aid man impersonation. As the winds of change swept through society and the sports world, our reverence for authority figures began to wane.

via Flickr user kris247 

At the same time, professional sports became a big money proposition. Players went from having off-season jobs to being multimillionaires with a growing voice not only in their own career trajectories but in the operation of the franchises which employ them. If players demanded certain changes to be made, the franchise owners came to learn the importance of placating these very important employees.

The Jazz, however, have always been different. No, Ronnie Price doesn’t work at Best Buy, a la Ron Artest. But in Salt Lake City, Jerry Sloan represented an old-school authority figure who still commanded complete respect. He called the plays, he made the rotations, and he decided whether the players tied their left shoe first or their right.

For twenty-three years, Sloan and Johnson were old-school guys in an increasingly new school world. At first, it was a little quaint when they insisted on players tucking in their jerseys at practice. But over time, it was more than a quirk; it became a statement… a way of life. Maybe you out there in Memphis and Charlotte might have your own way of relating to today’s players, but in Salt Lake City it was still 1960. If you can’t handle the way Coach Sloan does things, then there are 29 other teams potentially interested in your services, but the Utah Jazz are not among them.

As fans we ate it up. We knew and trusted Sloan. People on other teams might be rolling with the tide and accepting the realities of the 21st century, but we Jazz fans could revel in the comfortable familiarity that things got done around here the way they always have. It was a story we could tell ourselves about how the kids are alright and all is well with the world. The sun rises and the sun sets and every day Jerry Sloan and Phil Johnson wake up thinking about preventing layups in pick and roll defense.

All the while Modernity kept knocking. At first we scoffed, and figured she didn’t understand what was going on here. Go bother other teams, Modernity, we still do things old school. But modernity didn’t give up and she didn’t stop knocking. So Coach Sloan tried to make small concessions to her. When Andrei Kirilenko broke down and cried in the playoffs, Sloan tried to make the game more fun for him in the future. When Kyrylo Fesenko paid no attention whatsoever in the huddles, Sloan tried to shrug it off and hope that the kid would grow out of it. But Modernity wasn’t satisfied with these token gestures.

In the end not even Jerry Sloan could hold back the tides of history. He did a phenomenal job for 23 years. He did a phenomenal job coaching, obviously; but he also did a phenomenal job staying true to the old way even when it became harder and harder for those around him to understand and appreciate the value of doing things his way. Wednesday night, Modernity finally caught up with him. He looked at his team, and he looked at himself, and it became clear that it wasn’t worth the effort of pushing the rock up the hill one more time.

I’m not going to speculate as to whether he resigned of his own volition or was forced out either by management or by the players. I’m sure there will be plenty of time for that today, and perhaps one day we might even learn the whole truth. Ultimately, Jerry and Phil’s retirement shouldn’t be a sewing-circle story about who wanted what and who had the right to decide things. Ultimately, their retirement should be a story about who they are and who we are.

Phil Johnson and Jerry Sloan are stubborn but immensely effective representatives of the old school way of doing things. Under their guidance, the Jazz went places they had no business going and won games that they wouldn’t have won under the guidance of almost any other coach. There’s a good reason Phil Johnson has two Coach of the Year trophies and Jerry Sloan has his name enshrined in Springfield.

But we… we are a different world from the one they represent. It’s not their fault that things have changed and it’s not the players’ fault that they don’t always understand the coaches’ way of doing things. We no longer tell our children to accept authority unconditionally; we tell them to ask questions and form their own opinions.  We no longer expect employees to work their way up in the same organization for 40 years; we expect them to take charge of their own careers. The new school way isn’t inherently good or bad, but every day it becomes less and less compatible with the way things used to be.

For as long as I can remember, Jerry Sloan has coached the Utah Jazz and he did it old school. But this season, he just couldn’t get the kind of traction with the team that he was able to rely on in years past. So old school is gone, and Modernity has finally made her home in Salt Lake City. This is a time to mourn the passing of what was. This is a time to celebrate the things that are to come. This is a time to look back, look forward, and most of all to look in the mirror. Modernity is here, and we brought her with us. Now that she is here, how are we going to behave?

Thank you for 23 wonderful years, Coach Sloan. Thank you for 18 wonderful years, Coach Johnson. Thank you, Modernity, for waiting so long for your turn.

The old is out. The new is in. We used to be old-school fans of an old-school franchise. Now who are we? That’s what we need to figure out.