Enduring image of Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was kindness, humor on my secret day

Jerry Sloan was dying. Back in 2014, nobody knew this. Dementia is like that; it slowly robs you of your body until you're reliant on others to complete the most simple tasks. 

If you knew Sloan at all though, he'd let anyone do anything for him--over his dead body. Until he passed away at age 78 on Friday, May 22, 2020, he did things his way. However, the way he made my now ex-wife and I feel alive on a day I really needed to, well, it's something I'll never forget. 

She and I walked into Tepanyaki Steakhouse, a nondescript Japanese eatery in West Jordan, Utah in April 2014. We were celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary, according to most who knew what we were doing. 

That doesn't have a thing to do with the legendary Utah Jazz coach--or maybe it does. Controversy always comes under inauspicious circumstances; most of the time--as Sloan often pointed out in press conferences when a reporter said something the coach didn't like--he addressed this immediately. Sloan never minced words. 

But, everyone has secrets. In Utah, the elephant in the room was that, well, the legendary basketball coach had a few vices. All of us sports reporters knew this. A year after Sloan's wife died from battling cancer for years, he met and then later married Tammy Jessop in a move in small circles that came as a surprise to many.  And to some it didn't. 

The reason those series of events ties into this story is actually quite simple.  12 years after first being together, my longtime fiancee and I weren't actually celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary at Tepanyaki--we were celebrating the fact that after 12 years of being together we were newlyweds. 

We had a quickie wedding that day at a local LDS church attended by just our ward bishop and a neighbor who was our witness. Two total pictures were taken at the event, which lasted 20 minutes. We also kept this secret from our own kids, most of whom were now into their teens and already assumed we'd tied the knot years earlier. 

What a strange coincidence then, that Sloan would happen to lumber into this Japanese steakhouse with Tammy, his new wife, moments after we'd been seated at this long rectangular table. The look on my face and my wife's was total shock, one of those Oh-my-God-do-you-know-who-that-is situations. 

Everyone at the table--all 20 of us--had about the same reaction when Sloan and Tammy walked in and sat down. To which he replied, "Relax, people! I'm just here to eat like you!" That put everyone at ease. 

Then after someone said they knew who he was, he replied, "I know! And for the record, that doesn't mean I'm paying for everyone's food." 

That led to the Fu Manchu type chef wielding a Samurai-sword exclaiming, "Well, for that, YOU will earn YOUR food today!" Everyone was busting up laughing; the water I was drinking shot right up my nose. 

Without any prompting, Sloan barked to me. "You gonna be okay there, buddy?" My wife was patting my back because I'd started choking. "Yeah, cat just got his tongue," she said. 

"Happens to me all the time," replied Sloan. Tammy agreed with Sloan's assessment, telling the audience that he needed to start going easy on the glass of water he was guzzling--lest that happen to him. 

"You don't worry about me, honey," retorted Sloan. "I'm a big boy; I can take care of myself--as you well know," he said, winking at her and making an oblique reference to, yeah, everyone got the point. 

This colorful exchange went on for about two hours, as Sloan exchanged a playful banter with everyone seated at the table and engaged in a heated showdown with the Samurai chef, placing small dollar wagers on how much shrimp, steak and vegetables the chef could slice and dice up and then flip into Sloan's mouth from varying distances. 

Little by little, Sloan would either add dollars to the table for every successful attempt--"your tip jar," he said--or take it away with a michievous grin and nod. 

For the record, Sloan won just about every bet--as well as a side bet with Tammy which they were going to settle back at home, he added. My face was about as red as the bell peppers the chef was chopping up gleefully as he went. 

Sloan noticed my face, of course. "What's wrong with you, young man?" he said. "He'll be alright," my wife replied, adding that I'd probably been drinking too much. "I completely understand," added the coach. Tammy opined, laughing heartily, "Yeah, believe me, he understands." 

I couldn't talk because I was in awe at how easily this guy could work a room. (I'd also had several beers that Sloan kept ordering for himself, me and several others in the room.) He was emceeing the whole event unofficially, and so when they came out with a little wedding cake for my wife and I--and a birthday cake for another guest--he toasted us and the young man whose birthday it was. 

"To many more happy returns, I wish the both of you well!" exclaimed Sloan as the 20 of us newfound friends ate our cake and ice cream--but only after the trick candles exploded to everyone's delight upon trying to blow them out. 

"They got you on that one," Sloan said to me. "Believe me, I understand. It's my birthday too," he said, eliciting a playful punch in the arm from Tammy for that snide remark. 

As the night drew to a close, and we all staggered out of our chairs filled with food, drink and merriment, Sloan got up and handed something in a wad to my wife and something smaller to the kid, wiching us his congratulations. "Watch out for this guy," he added, pointing to me. "He's a real character." 

And with that, Sloan lumbered out of the room, out of view and into that good April night, as visible as he entered, the visage of his John Deere hat, polo shirt, Levi's and basketball shoes cutting a stark image across the Wasatch Mountains in the distance.