Norm Sloan
Biographical details | |
---|---|
Born | Anderson, Indiana, U.S. | June 25, 1926
Died | December 9, 2003 Durham, North Carolina, U.S. | (aged 77)
Playing career | |
Basketball | |
1946–1949 | NC State |
Football | |
1948–1950 | NC State |
Position(s) | Memphis State |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 627–395 (basketball) |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
SEC regular season (1989) | |
Awards | |
SoCon Coach of the Year (1957) SEC Coach of the Year (1961) 3× ACC Coach of the Year (1970, 1973, 1974) | |
Norman Leslie Sloan Jr. (June 25, 1926 – December 9, 2003) was an American
Early years
Sloan was born in Anderson, Indiana, in 1926 to Norman and Mary Sloan.[3][4] He attended Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, where he lettered in basketball.
College playing career
Sloan received an athletic scholarship to attend
Sloan quit the basketball team before his senior year (1950–51) due to an ongoing dispute with Case over playing time. On the football field, he became the backup to starting quarterback Ed Mooney and appeared in most games under coach Beattie Feathers. Sloan graduated from NC State with a bachelor's degree in education in 1951.
Coaching career
Presbyterian
Soon after graduating from NC State in 1951, Sloan was hired at
Memphis State (assistant)
Sloan left for
The Citadel
In 1956, Sloan was named the head coach at
Florida
In 1960, Sloan was hired as the first full-time basketball coach at the
North Carolina State
Sloan was named head coach at his alma mater, North Carolina State, in 1966, and his NC State Wolfpack basketball teams won three
Sloan's overall win–loss record at NC State was 266–127 in 14 seasons. His greatest teams included legendary players such as Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Moe Rivers, Tim Stoddard (who went on to pitch in Major League Baseball), Kenny Carr, and Monte Towe. "Stormin' Norman" was as well known for his garish red-and-white plaid sports coat as he was for his ACC battles with Lefty Driesell at Maryland and Dean Smith at North Carolina.[11] He was selected the National Coach of the Year in 1973 by Basketball Weekly, and again in 1974 by the USBWA and the Associated Press.
Great Britain national team
Sloan was named head coach of the Great Britain men's national basketball team ahead of the 1980 Olympic qualifying campaign. Sloan, who had just been rehired by the University of Florida, hosted a month-long training camp for the Great Britain national team on Florida's campus in Gainesville.[12] He then took the team to England for a series of preparation games against Finland and Belgium before competing in the Vienna Tournament in Austria and the European Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Switzerland. Great Britain finished Olympic Qualifying with a 1–3 record and a 5–6 (.455) overall international record for the summer. Sloan was succeeded as the Great Britain National Team head coach by Tom Schneeman.[13]
Return to Florida
A salary dispute with the athletic director at NC State caused Sloan to leave the school, and the construction of the modern
Sloan compiled a 150–131 record over nine seasons in his second stint at Florida, giving him an overall record of 235–194 in 15 years with the Gators.
Resignation
Sloan had already planned to retire at the end of the 1989-90 season. However, was forced to retire on October 31, 1989, just days before the start of the season, in the wake of an NCAA investigation into the Gators program.[15][16][1][17]
In September 1990, the NCAA imposed two years' probation on the Gators for violations dating back to 1985 under Sloan. The Gators' 1987 and 1988 NCAA Tournament appearances were erased from the record books due to Maxwell being retroactively declared ineligible; Maxwell had admitted to taking money from agents without Sloan's knowledge. Sloan had also purchased a plane ticket to Boston for Maxwell in the summer of 1987 so that Maxwell could serve as a counselor at a basketball camp. Two years earlier, one of Sloan's assistants had allowed a recruit's mother to use the return leg of the recruit's airline ticket to return home after the recruit enrolled in summer school. In the NCAA's view, this amounted to the university paying for the travel expenses of recruits and players. It also harshly criticized Sloan, finding that he had engaged in unethical conduct by paying Maxwell's airfare. The basketball program lost two scholarships in 1991-92 and one scholarship in 1992-93 because of the infractions. As severe as these penalties were, the NCAA said it would have imposed even harsher penalties, such as a ban from postseason play and live television in 1990–91, had Sloan not been forced out. Sloan was personally penalized with a five-year show-cause penalty, which had the effect of blackballing him from the collegiate coaching ranks until 1995 at the earliest.[18]
Later, Sloan stated that the situation was "mishandled". In a 1990 interview, Sloan stated his belief that UF athletic director Bill Arnsparger and other university officials "panicked" over relatively minor issues in the basketball program due to recent major violations in other sports. In particular, Florida's football team had been placed on NCAA probation twice in the 1980s; football coach Galen Hall had been forced to resign after the second case. According to Sloan, administrators feared being hit with a "death penalty" if another sport were to be found guilty for major violations. Under NCAA rules, if a school is placed on probation twice in five years, the sport involved in the second violation faces having at least one season canceled. Sloan believed the prospect of such a severe penalty caused Arnsparger and other administrators to overreact and force him out. He also claimed that the university's athletic compliance office was partially to blame for his "unconscious" violations of NCAA travel rules because his requests "went through the channels of athletic administration at the university unquestioned." Overall, he said, "The findings certainly don`t justify what has happened... My reputation was completely destroyed and the careers of two young, promising assistants (Monte Towe and Kenny McCraney, who were also forced to resign) were destroyed. That`s tragic, and the university worked hard at getting it done."[2]
Awards and accomplishments
Sloan's career win–loss record was 627–395, and his victory total ranks him twenty-sixth on the career list of Division I coaches. His 266 wins at NC State are still second in NC State history, trailing only Case. His 235 wins at Florida (232 if vacated games aren't counted) were the best in Florida history until Billy Donovan surpassed him in 2006.[19]
Sloan was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984, the
After coaching
Sloan coached briefly in Greece after leaving Florida, then he retired in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Head coaching record
Basketball
Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Presbyterian Blue Hose (Little Four) (1951–1955) | |||||||||
1951–52 | Presbyterian | 21–7 | 4–2 | ||||||
1952–53 | Presbyterian | 11–15 | 4–2 | ||||||
1953–54 | Presbyterian | 17–8 | 4–2 | ||||||
1954–55 | Presbyterian | 20–6 | 6–0 | ||||||
Presbyterian: | 69–36 | 18–6 | |||||||
The Citadel Bulldogs (Southern Conference ) (1957–1960)
| |||||||||
1956–57
|
The Citadel | 11–14 | 5–9 | 7th | |||||
1957–58
|
The Citadel | 16–11 | 9–6 | 4th | |||||
1958–59
|
The Citadel | 15–5 | 7–4 | 3rd | |||||
1959–60
|
The Citadel | 15–8 | 8–4 | 3rd | |||||
The Citadel: | 57–38 | 29–23 | |||||||
Florida Gators (Southeastern Conference) (1960–1966) | |||||||||
1960–61 | Florida | 15–11 | 9–5 | 4th | |||||
1961–62 | Florida | 12–11 | 8–6 | 4th | |||||
1962–63 | Florida | 12–14 | 5–9 | T–8th | |||||
1963–64 | Florida | 12–10 | 6–8 | T–9th | |||||
1964–65 | Florida | 18–7 | 11–5 | T–3rd | |||||
1965–66 | Florida | 16–10 | 9–7 | T–5th | |||||
Florida (first): | 85–63 | 48–40 | |||||||
NC State Wolfpack (Atlantic Coast Conference) (1966–1980) | |||||||||
1966–67
|
NC State | 7–19 | 2–12 | 8th | |||||
1967–68 | NC State | 16–10 | 9–5 | T–3rd | |||||
1968–69 | NC State | 15–10 | 8–6 | T–3rd | |||||
1969–70 | NC State | 23–7 | 9–5 | T–2nd | NCAA Regional Third Place | ||||
1970–71 | NC State | 13–14 | 5–9 | T–6th | |||||
1971–72 | NC State | 16–10 | 6–6 | T–4th | |||||
1972–73 | NC State | 27–0 | 12–0 | 1st | Ineligible | ||||
1973–74 | NC State | 30–1 | 12–0 | 1st | NCAA Champion
| ||||
1974–75 | NC State | 22–6 | 8–4 | T–2nd | |||||
1975–76 | NC State | 21–9 | 7–5 | T–2nd | NIT Semifinals | ||||
1976–77 | NC State | 17–11 | 6–6 | 5th | |||||
1977–78 | NC State | 21–10 | 7–5 | T–2nd | NIT Finals | ||||
1978–79 | NC State | 18–12 | 3–9 | T–6th | |||||
1979–80 | NC State | 20–8 | 9–5 | T–2nd | NCAA Second Round
| ||||
NC State: | 266–127 | 103–77 | |||||||
Florida Gators (Southeastern Conference) (1980–1989) | |||||||||
1980–81 | Florida | 12–16 | 5–13 | 8th | |||||
1981–82 | Florida | 5–22 | 2–16 | 10th | |||||
1982–83 | Florida | 13–18 | 5–13 | 10th | |||||
1983–84 | Florida | 16–13 | 11–7 | T–3rd | NIT First Round | ||||
1984–85 | Florida | 18–12 | 9–9 | T–5th | NIT First Round | ||||
1985–86 | Florida | 19–14 | 10–8 | 4th | NIT Semifinals | ||||
1986–87 | Florida | 23–11* | 12–6 | 2nd | NCAA Sweet 16* | ||||
1987–88 | Florida | 23–12* | 11–7 | T–2nd | NCAA Second Round* | ||||
1988–89 | Florida | 21–13 | 13–5 | 1st | NCAA First Round | ||||
Florida (second): | 150–131& | 78–84 | |||||||
Florida (combined): | 235–194& | 126–124 | |||||||
Total: | 624–393 | ||||||||
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
|
* NCAA appearances in 1987 and 1988 were subsequently vacated due to Vernon Maxwell being declared ineligible. Official record for 1986-87 is 21-10, official record for 1987-88 is 22-11.
& Record at Florida is 232-192 (147-129 for second stint) without vacated games.
See also
- The Citadel Bulldogs
- Florida Gators
- History of the University of Florida
- List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins
- List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach
- List of North Carolina State University people
- NC State Wolfpack
- University Athletic Association
- Hotel Roosevelt fire
References
- ^ a b Winderman, Ira (Feb 2, 1988). "CONTROVERSY IS THE NORM GATORS' SLOAN HAS BROUGHT A WINNING WAY, BUT IT IS RARELY THE EASY WAY". Orlando Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
- ^ a b Barnes, Craig (Sep 21, 1990). "EX-COACH SLOAN SAYS SITUATION MISHANDLED". Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
- ^ "Norm Sloan's dad dies at age of 82". Gainesville Sun. August 3, 1986.
- ISBN 0313309523.
- ^ "s. North Carolina State" (PDF). GoBlueHose.com. Presbyterian College. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
- ^ "The Citadel Inducts Five in Athletic Hall of Fame". The Citadel Athletics. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
- ^ Knight, Joey (December 10, 2003). "Sloan Brought UF Into Big Time". Tampa Tribune. Archived from the original on September 21, 2004. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
- ^ a b Phillips, Mike (December 10, 2003). "Father of UF hoops passes". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on June 26, 2004. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
- ^ "Ex-N.C. State Coach Norm Sloan Dies at 77". Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 11, 2003.
- ^ "Norm Sloan Dies at 77". NC State Wolfpack. December 9, 2003. Archived from the original on April 23, 2015. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
- ^ "NC State's 2013 Hall of Fame Class: Norm Sloan". NC State Wolfpack. November 19, 2013. Archived from the original on November 28, 2013. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
- ^ Taylor, Richard (1981). Basketball Review. Hull, England: Educational; Design LTD. pp. 144–145.
- ^ "Library Services: Research Collections: Basketball Heritage". library.worc.ac.uk. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
- ^ McCallum, Jack (14 December 1981). "Four on the Floor in Florida". Sports Illustrated.
- ^ Associated Press, "Florida Coach Retires At School's Request," The New York Times (November 1, 1989). Retrieved June 8, 2011.
- ^ Huguenin, Mike (December 10, 2003). "Former Gators Basketball Coach Norm Sloan Dies". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
- ^ Hollyfield, Lawrence (November 1, 1989). "Sloan Out; Assistants Told to Leave". Independent Florida Alligator. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
- ^ 1990 Florida infractions report
- ^ "Billy Donovan". Florida Gators. Archived from the original on March 24, 2013. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
He won his 200th game at UF on Dec. 3, 2005, and broke the school record for wins (236th) on Dec. 20, 2006, doing so in 92 games fewer than previous record-holder Norm Sloan.
- ^ Brockway, Kevin (December 10, 2003). "Ex-Florida hoops coach dies". Gainesville Sun. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
Bibliography
- Dortch, Chris, String Music: Inside the Rise of SEC Basketball, Brassey's, Inc., Dulles, Virginia (2002). ISBN 1-57488-439-5.
- Koss, Bill, Pond Birds: Gator Basketball, The Whole Story From The Inside, Fast Break Press, Gainesville, Florida (1996). ISBN 978-0-8130-1523-1.
- Peeler, Tim, Legends of NC State Basketball, Sports Publishing L.L.C., Champaign, Illinois (2004). ISBN 1-58261-820-8.