Jazz believe Sloan will return as coach

Even as they mourned the passing Friday of Bobbye Sloan, praising her as a caring and giving women who is the primary reason husband Jerry Sloan has continued to coach basketball, Jazz officials hoped and wondered about the same subject as so many fans of the NBA franchise:

Will Sloan return for a 17th season in Utah?

"I believe Jerry will be back," Jazz president Dennis Haslam said Friday, shortly after Bobbye Sloan, 61, died following a fight with pancreatic cancer.

"We certainly want to support him in whatever endeavor he chooses, but I think he will want to keep himself busy," Haslam added. "If he should choose to retire, that's certainly his choice."

Haslam said he has discussed the issue with Jazz basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor, and "We fully expect him to be back in the saddle."

Sloan, mourning with family members Friday, has previously said his plans are to return in the fall. Jazz owner Larry H. Miller, speaking Friday, encouraged Sloan to follow through with those intentions.

"I'm not trying to anticipate what he'll really wind up doing," Miller told the Associated Press, "but I certainly hope he'll stay with the team."

The Jazz owner was effusive in his praise of Bobbye Sloan.

"She was such a positive, upbeat person," the AP quoted Miller as saying Friday. "There was a lot of energy and strength of character, with a really positive image. It's the image I hope that all of us who know her will keep of her."

It was Bobbye Sloan's strength, Haslam suggested, that allowed her to insist Jerry Sloan should keep coaching, even after she was diagnosed last winter with pancreatic cancer that would soon spread to the liver.

"After Bobbye went through her bout with breast cancer (in 1997)," Haslam said, "I think she and Jerry became much more close and much more dedicated to each other, and I think that was obvious to those of us who were close to the organization.

"I think she and Jerry were really, really close the last few years, and she supported him all the way," he added. "I think she gave Jerry a lot more support than others might have realized. If it hadn't been for Bobbye, on at least one or two occasions Jerry might have just walked away from coaching."

Sloan, who nearly quit at one point in the 2002-03 season and again when his wife went public with her plight last January, earned Sporting News Coach of the Year honors after leading the Jazz to a 19th consecutive winning season in 2003-04.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com