He is a player universally admired, both for his skill and his comportment. Gordon Chiesa, the Jazz assistant, captured Hornacek best when he said, "He has inner peace." He is a remarkably relaxed, comfortable, imperturbable man who was never changed by the NBA pitfalls of money and adulation. What a man does for a living is not important, he said. He is still the aw-shucks, family man from mid-America who married a farmer's daughter.

"He's one of the few guys that you get a Christmas card and a birthday card from," says Frank Layden, the former Jazz president. "My wife's brother passed away, and he acknowledged it. He called. He was very concerned. That's the type of guy he is."

Hornacek of course never expected to be a professional basketball player; he was going to be an accountant and then got sidetracked — permanently, it turns out. Every step of the way his career was given a nudge by quirks of fate or accidents, in some cases literally. He cracked the starting lineup as a high school junior when a teammate was suspended after an auto accident. Hornacek went to work in a paper cup factory following graduation, but his father, John, a freshman coach at another high school in Chicago, arranged a tryout with Iowa State. ISU gave him a scholarship when several teammates flunked out of school. Ignored by NBA scouts, Hornacek interviewed with several accounting firms after graduation, but his father called Bob Knight, who called Jerry Colangelo of the Phoenix Suns, and Hornacek was invited to a pre-draft camp. The Suns made him the 46th pick of the draft.

Even after he was drafted, Hornacek interviewed with another accounting firm. He only hoped to survive the first couple of months with the Suns because league rules would then guarantee a full season's salary. Later he hoped only to make enough money so his wife wouldn't have to work and could stay home with the kids. Fourteen years later, Hornacek is one of only 20 players ever to collect 15,000 points and 5,000 assists.

As a player, he was an earth-bound oddity, an Oldsmobile in a field of Ferraris. He can't even dunk, for crying out loud. Much has been made of his lack of athleticism, at least as it is commonly measured today. His coaches concede that Hornacek ranks among the bottom half of his teammates in speed and jumping ability, but his hand-eye coordination, so essential in shooting, passing and ball-handling, is uncanny.

"He's not the fastest guy or the best jumper," says teammate Adam Keefe, "but if you had him play the bar sports, nobody would touch him. Pool. Ping-pong. Darts. I've seen it. We (Jazz players) play those games when we get together, and he beats the snot out of everybody. His hand-eye coordination is amazing."

Sweet shot