Jazz's 'quiet man' Phil Johnson gets into Utah Hall of Fame

SALT LAKE CITY — If you ask Phil Johnson, it was a blend of great mentors, good players and blind luck that landed him a coaching career that lasted 48 years.

The Quiet Man would never admit he was a coaching prodigy, a kid on a rocket ride to the top, yet he was Weber State's head coach at age 27 — scarcely older than his players. Nor would he brag that he was a head coach in the NBA at 32, an age when many players are just hitting their stride.

Even now, after being inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame on Wednesday, he contends his highest aspiration was to be a high school basketball coach.

"I thought, 'Boy, it would be nice to try to be a high school coach.' I didn't know how to do that," he says.

Johnson was the first of his family in Grace, Idaho, to attend college. There must have been insecurity deep in his bones, because it took decades of coaching in the NBA before he finally bought a summer home on Bear Lake in 1997, "just over the hill" from where he was raised. It's no coincidence he didn't go house hunting until the Jazz had made their first run to the NBA Finals.

Finally, he felt secure enough to splurge.

Johnson was inducted into the Utah hall along with Jerry Sloan, former WNBA star Natalie Williams, ex-Ute softball player Annette Ausseresses and former NFL referee Doug Toole.

"I feel lucky, and to receive this honor is just part of that luck," Johnson says.

It stands to reason Johnson and Sloan — who worked side-by-side for 23 years with the Jazz — would enter the hall together. They rode on the team bus, one row behind the other, for decades. Sat side-by-side on the bench. (Actually, Sloan stood and stormed, Johnson sat.) They hung out after the games.

As they coached, they became a complimentary combination — Sloan, swearing and straining to get at the refs; Johnson cool and composed, gently guiding Sloan to the bench. His objective was to keep Sloan from getting tossed, though it didn't always work.

"I think a lot of people think of that," he says. "It's not like it was a big thing to me. I just did it. Jerry is very enthusiastic about the game and it's interesting because I was that way when I was a head coach."

It's true. The unflappable Johnson used to be a yeller. When he was coaching the NBA's Kings, he led the league in technicals two consecutive years. But that doesn't mean he was colorful off the court. The man's as low key as a mortician, always crediting the team, the opponent and sticking to a general breakdown of the game.