Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
Jerry Tarkanian, 82, at a recent U.N.L.V. game.
LAS VEGAS — It is a Monday afternoon, and one of the most controversial figures in college basketball history sits quietly at the end of a rectangular table at Landry's, a seafood restaurant on West Sahara Avenue that is, both physically and metaphorically, a long, long way from the glitz and glitter of the Strip.
The man's silence is jarring. All around him people are talking about the glory days of Nevada-Las Vegas basketball, but the man, Jerry Tarkanian — the Shark, the coach who won more than 700 games, earned a national championship and went to four Final Fours, all while fighting the N.C.A.A. and chomping wet towels on the sideline — stays mum.
When Harvey Hyde, a former U.N.L.V. football coach, recalls how Frank Sinatra tried to help with basketball recruiting a few times, Tarkanian barely raises his head. (Sinatra was not all that successful; one of his targets, a New York prospect named Jim Graziano, went to South Carolina to play for Frank McGuire instead.)
When Brad Rothermel, the former athletic director, laughs as he recalls the day Tarkanian heard some assistant coaches talking about how Bo Derek "was a 10" and said, with absolute sincerity, "We need to start recruiting him right away," Tarkanian does not chortle with the rest. He does not even look up.
The stories keep flowing: the time when Tarkanian nearly got the coaching job at Indiana (the Hoosiers ended up hiring a man named Bob Knight); the back story to his nickname (it came from a Los Angeles Times columnist); even the history of Tarkanian's predilection for sucking on those towels. His son, Danny, explains that Tarkanian began the practice while coaching a high school team that played in a gym so hot it perpetually left Tarkanian with cotton mouth.
"He couldn't very well keep running to the water fountain!" Danny says. The others giggle; Tarkanian barely moves.
As glasses clink and the room fills around them, Tarkanian stays hunched over, his fork going up and down slowly, like a rickety elevator. At one point Danny whispers beneath the din, "You O.K., Dad?" and Tarkanian stirs. "I'm ... good," he croaks, but then he stares, quizzically, as Danny gestures over and over at his own chin. Eventually, Danny sighs; after a quick glance around, he surreptitiously reaches across the table to wipe a speck of salad from his father's mouth.
"It is different now," Danny says softly to the man sitting next to him. "There are different issues."
Jerry Tarkanian is 82. His health, which began deteriorating about four years ago when he fell while walking in San Diego, has declined to the point that basic movements are difficult. When someone comes by for an introduction during the meal at Landry's, Tarkanian shakes hands with his left hand because his right is anchored to the table, as if to keep him from slumping over. His eyes, which drooped like week-old balloons when he was 40, now seem to hang to his neck. After eating, as Tarkanian makes his way to the parking lot, he hesitates as he steps down from the curb, putting his hand on the shoulder of a visitor and grunting hard as he guides his walker a few inches in front of him.
His Division I coaching career, which covered 31 seasons, 3 colleges and countless hearings, depositions and court dates as he fought the governing body of the sport he loves, feels far away. In the car on the way back to the family home, a two-story Spanish-style house that Tarkanian and his wife, Lois, bought in 1973, he is asked about his years of plenty. He nods twice when the championship team of 1990 is mentioned. He shakes his head when asked to remember coaching against John Wooden. "Played him three times," he says slowly. "Lost all three." He looks out the window. "Should have won one of them."
As the car pulls into the driveway, past the mailbox with the basketball on it and around the corner from the small backyard court where friends and relatives and college students and celebrities have played casual games, Tarkanian is asked if he still watches basketball. For the first time all day, his face brightens. He smiles. "It's on all the time," he says. "We didn't have so much TV when I was coaching."
And what does he think when he watches these days? Tarkanian turns in his seat and hacks through a laugh. It is almost as if he is trying to chuckle.
"I think," he says as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, "that it looks familiar."
Ahead of His Time
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