Norm Sloan

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Norman Lesley Sloan Jr. (June 25, 1926-1926) was an American college basketball player and mentor.

Sloan, a native of Indiana, played basketball and football at North Carolina State University.

He began teaching basketball at the University of Florida months after graduating from college in 1951, and he was the men's basketball head coach at Presbyterian College, The Citadel, North Carolina State University.

Sloan was named conference coach of the year five times over a career spanning thirty-eight years, and he captured the 1974 national championship at North Carolina State, his alma mater.

He was branded "Stormin' Norman" because of his combative role with the media, his players, and school administrators, and his collegiate teaching career came to an end in 1989, though Sloan said he was treated unfairly.

Early years

Sloan was born in Anderson, Indiana, in 1926 to Norman and Mary Sloan. He attended Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis, where he lettered in basketball.

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College playing career

Sloan received a national scholarship to attend North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he served guard for coach Everett Case's NC State Wolfpack from 1946 to 1949. He was one of Case's original six "Hoosier Hotshots," a group of high school students Case recruited from Indiana. Sloan, a classmate and teammate of Vic Bubas, who later coached the Duke Blue Devils from 1959 to 1969, was a Wolfpack member. Sloan was a member of three Wolfpack teams that competed in the Southern Conference championships in 1947, 1948, and 1949. He spent time on the NC State Wolfpack football team as a reserve quarterback and was a member of the school's track and field team during the fall semesters.

Sloan left the basketball team before his senior year (1950–51) due to a lingering controversy with Case over playing time. He was the backup to starting quarterback Ed Mooney and appeared in all games under Beattie Feathers. In 1951, Sloan graduated from NC State with a bachelor's degree in education.

Coaching career

Sloan was recruited at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, as the school's head basketball coach and an assistant football coach after graduating from NC State in 1951. He coached the basketball team from 1951 to 1955, and his Presbyterian Blue Hose men's basketball teams set a 69–36 record in four seasons, including conference championships and berths in the NAIA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament in his first and last seasons at the university.

In 1955, Sloan joined Memphis State University to serve as an assistant under head coach Eugene Lambert. During Sloan's single season at the university, the Tigers defeated the program for the first time in the NCAA tournament.

Sloan was appointed head coach at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1956, after a basketball program that had won a total of two games in the previous two seasons. Sloan was named coach of the year by the South Carolina Sportswriters Association in 1957, his first Bulldogs team went 11-14 and received the George Mikan Award for Most Improved Team in the country. The Citadel won seasons over the next three years, making their first appearance in the Southern Conference championship game in 1959. Sloan's overall record at the school was 57-38.

In 1960, Sloan was hired as the first full-time basketball coach at the University of Florida, where an assistant football coach had typically been sent to coach basketball due to the school's lack of emphasis on the sport up to that time. In six seasons, his Florida Gators men's basketball teams won their first match over an Adolph Rupp-coached Kentucky Wildcats squad in 1965. During the 1960s, he was unable to get the Gators into postseason play; only one team per conference was guaranteed an NCAA bid. Despite this, he established a foundation for a basketball program that had been "essentially an intramural program at the intercollegiate level," according to Florida historian Norm Carlson. Sloan was dubbed the "father of UF hoops" by the Miami Herald for his 1960s accomplishments.

In 1966, Sloan was named head coach at North Carolina State, and his NC State Wolfpack basketball teams won three Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championships, 1970, 1973, and 1974. His 1973 Wolfpack team was undefeated (27–0), but the NCAA tournament was postponed this year due to concerns regarding the recruiting of high school legend David Thompson. He led the Wolfpack to a 30-1 record and the school's first NCAA national championship a year later. The Wolfpack defeated UCLA Bruins in the NCAA Final Four, snapping UCLA coach John Wooden's tenure of seven consecutive NCAA championships. In the 1974 NCAA championship game, Sloan's Wolfpack defeated Marquette, 76-64.

In 14 seasons, Sloan's overall win-loss record at NC State was 266–127. Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Moe Rivers, Tim Stoddard (who went on to pitch in Major League Baseball), Kenny Carr, and Monte Towe were among his greatest teams. "Stormin' Norman" was as popular for his garish red-and-white plaid sports coat as he was for his ACC contests against Lefty Driesell at Maryland and Dean Smith at North Carolina. Basketball Weekly named him National Coach of the Year in 1973 and then again in 1974 by the USBWA and the Associated Press.

Before the 1980 Olympic qualifying campaign, Sloan was appointed head coach of the United Kingdom's national basketball team. On Florida's campus in Gainesville, Sloan, who had just been hired by the University of Florida, hosted a month-long preparation camp for the Great Britain national team. He then led the team to England for a series of preparation games against Finland and Belgium before qualifying in the Vienna Tournament in Austria and the European Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Switzerland. With a 1–3 record and a 5–6 (.455) overall international record for the summer, Great Britain reached Olympic qualifying with a 1–3 record and a 5–6 (.455) overall international record for the summer. By Tom Schneeman, Sloan was promoted as the Great Britain National Team head coach.

Sloan left the college after a salary dispute with the athletic director, and the University of Florida's new O'Connell Center basketball arena in 1980 encouraged him to return to Gainesville. For the second time in three seasons, he turned the Florida Gators basketball team around, mainly by urging several top high school recruits, such as Vernon Maxwell and Dwayne Schintzius, to attend college in Florida. Sloan's Gators made the first six postseason tournament appearances in program history from 1984, 1985, 1989, and 1989. Sloan's last three squads had each won over 20 games at Florida, which had previously only been achieved once, and his final team took home the school's first Southeastern Conference regular season basketball championship.

In his second stint with Florida, Sloan posted a record of 235–194 in 15 years with the Gators, a record of 151–133.

Sloan was forced to resign on October 31, 1989, just days before the 1989–90 season's start and one year before his first reported retirement date.

The NCAA gave the Gators two years of probation for offences dating back to 1985 under Sloan in September 1990. Due to Maxwell's inability, the Gators' 1987 and 1988 NCAA Tournament appearances were stripped from the record books; Maxwell had confessed to receiving funds from agents without Sloan's knowledge. Sloan had bought a plane ticket to Maxwell in the summer of 1987 so that Maxwell could act as a mentor at a basketball camp. After the recruit was accepted in summer camp, two years ago, one of Sloan's assistants had allowed a recruit's mother to use the return leg of the recruit's airline ticket to return home. This equated to the university paying for the travel expenses of recruits and players, according to NCAA's view. Sloan was also chastised for unethical conduct after paying Maxwell's airfare. In 1991-92, the basketball program lost two scholarships and one in 1992-93 due to the violations. Although these fines were severe, the NCAA said it would have levied even harsher punishments, such as a ban from playing and live television in 1990–91, if Sloan was not barred from participating. Sloan was barred from teaching until 1995, the first time.

Sloan remarked that the situation was "mishandled." In a 1990 interview, Sloan said that UF athletic director Bill Arnsparger and other university officials were "panicked" over relatively minor issues in the basketball program, prompting them to respond and request their dismissal. Since his demands "went through the channels of athletic administration at the university unquestioned," he also pointed to the university's athletic compliance office for his "unconscious" violations of NCAA travel rules. "The findings certainly don't explain what happened," he said; my image was shattered, and two young, promising assistants' careers (Monte Towe and Kenny McCraney, who were then forced to resign) were also ruined. It's sad, and the university worked really hard to get it done."

Sloan's career win-loss record was 627–395, and his victory total rank him twenty-sixth on the career list of Division I coaches. His 266 wins at NC State rank second in the state's history, second only Case. His 235 victories at Florida (232 if vacated games aren't counted) were the best in Florida history until Billy Donovan surpassed him in 2006.

In 1984, Sloan was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1994, the Citadel Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002, and the North Carolina State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013.

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