Bobbye fighting new cancer

Already she has defeated it once.

With her high school sweetheart and husband of 40-plus years sitting by her side, her hand interlocked with his, Bobbye Sloan vowed Thursday to battle it yet again.

Cancer, that is.

"Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to come out of this thing alive, and I'm not saying that this is going to be fun — because it definitely isn't," said Sloan, the 60-year-old wife of Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan.

"But," she added, "I'm gonna do whatever I have to to stay here with this wonderful man as long as I can. And we're gonna do this thing together."

Bobbye Sloan, a breast-cancer survivor for the past 6 1/2 years, now has been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her pancreas, Jazz physician Dr. Russell Shields said during a news conference at the Jazz practice facility.

Jerry Sloan, the Jazz's head coach since December 1988, will miss the team's game tonight at Denver so he can be with Bobbye when she meets today with her University of Utah oncologist to formulate a treatment plan.

Chemotherapy, Shields said, is the typical first step in a fight against a pancreatic tumor. The malignancy, he added, is unrelated to both Sloan's previous breast cancer and the flulike symptoms from which she has been suffering for the past several weeks.

"It hasn't been easy," Bobbye Sloan said, "because we really thought we had this all licked in the past. But we're just gonna start again."

Jerry Sloan said he did have second thoughts about continuing to coach the team, but at Bobbye's urging he has decided to stick with the job he began when former coach Frank Layden resigned 15-plus years ago.

"Yes I did," Jerry Sloan said, his emotion-filled voice cracking, "and the only reason I am (not quitting) is because of her."

"I told him he can't take the fun of those games away from me," Bobbye Sloan said, picking up where her husband trailed off. "I've enjoyed this team so much this year. I said, 'I have to have something really good and positive to look forward to — and those games are.'

"I've just enjoyed the players, and the attitude this year has just been so wonderful," she added. "I said, 'You can't take that away from me.' "

Jazz owner Larry H. Miller suggested he would have it no other way, while at the same time also saying Sloan can take whatever time away from the team that he needs.