Yerevan

In 1977, college basketball icon, Jerry Tarkanian, came to the proverbial fork in the road when the Los Angeles Lakers offered him the team’s head coaching job. For an Armenian-American who spent his adolescence just up the freeway in Pasadena, seven years in the Los Angeles Community College District’s coaching ranks and an unprecedented run with California State University, Long Beach, the honor of coaching the city’s premier franchise could have been the defining pinnacle of a career.

When I asked Tarkanian this very question, he said, “It was certainly one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” as he recounted the day he declined the chance of coaching the pre-Showtime Lakers after having committed verbally.

So how does a man like Tarkanian, who was steering the ship with the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV Rebels) and executing decisions effortlessly on the hardwood come to the verdict of refusing one of the most prestigious honors a coach can ask for — twice? “Loyalty,” he said, a trait that Tarkanian credits to his Armenian roots.

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