Behind him is the requisite family portrait, the young, shining faces of a growing brood. The twins, whom he could tuck neatly under each arm if he wanted, the two teenage daughters and the mother of the group, who could easily be the third daughter. Then there’s the proud, dark-haired dad at the center, brimming with the good fortune his first NBA championship has bestowed.
It is a portrait of innocence and promise and just four years later, it’s aged. The boys are now young men, one encroaching on 6 feet tall. Both daughters will be in college this fall. And the mother has, among other things, completed her master’s degree since then.
The dad will turn 50 this September, has gone gray, and two more NBA titles have left him with the same wry if somewhat weary grin. He has satisfied most of what he has set out to accomplish professionally, but if there is wisdom in age, there are also more questions. And whether he likes it or not, Phil Jackson finds himself at a crossroads.
Jackson has one year left on his contract as coach of the Bulls, and in NBA terms for longevity with one team, he’s almost a dinosaur. With six seasons under his belt, Jackson is second only to Utah’s Jerry Sloan (seven years) in longest active tenure with the same team in the league.
Jackson clearly is at the top of his profession, and yet he will not allow that thought to alter his perspective.
On his desk lies an old phone message he can’t throw away, one from a friend and former teammate who called him for a unusually intimate conversation eight months ago, then died suddenly of a heart attack just days later while playing basketball.
He has been to too many funerals lately, Jackson says, and recently, while at another for the wife of a friend, he was standing with two former Knicks teammates, Sen. Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere, when another friend walked over to the group. “Don’t take anything for granted,” he told them.
“It’s very realistic,” says Jackson now. “I’m trying to remember that daily.”
He could take his success for granted if he wanted, for he now finds himself in one very enviable position–one year left on his contract, Michael Jordan making it clear that Jackson’s future plans will reflect his own, and the reputation as one of the finest coaches in the league.
Reportedly, New York coach Pat Riley has been offered about $3 million annually to stay on with the Knicks, and surely Jackson, who earned $800,000 this past season, should command one of the top coaching salaries in the NBA.
When Jackson and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who declined to comment for this story, sat down in Phoenix last February, Jackson said he would be ready to commit to two more years.
“He asked me point-blank if I wanted to be part of a rebuilding situation here and the fact that if you do it, it’s a case where you may be winning 25 games or so,” says Jackson. “At that time, we were seriously considering the chances that if we didn’t dramatically turn the season around in February, having to go through a rebuilding process.
“I’m not the kind of person who wants to be given the first chance to jump ship because it’s sinking. I’d like to think I can survive those kinds of things. I try to have as even a temperament as possible and I felt I did a pretty good job this year as far as handling losing situations and handling a roller-coaster season, but it takes its toll. And emotionally, you have to steel yourself against losing.”
So, like any coach, he looks to the immediate future and can only hope it includes both Jordan and Scottie Pippen.
Jackson and General Manager Jerry Krause met with Jordan last week. “He has talked about being back,” Jackson says somewhat cryptically of Jordan, who also has one year left on his contract. “There are some things he feels strongly about. He has concerns and he has expressed some things he’d like to see happen. But my coaching staff is also hoping to see certain things. And I’d like to see certain things happen, too. In the last year of my contract, I’d like to see us move ahead.”
Burnout, says Jackson, citing the example of former Golden State coach-GM Don Nelson, is largely the result of losing the connection to your floor leaders, whether due to injury, trade or faltering relationships. It is one reason he says he wants to see Pippen remain with the Bulls.
“In our situation, having Pippen and Jordan here and knowing they know what direction I want the game to go is satisfying,” he says.
“Anything’s possible . But it’s not in my mind that Scottie is not going to be here. I can’t imagine him not being here. That’s how strongly I feel about coaching him. When you’re a coach, you envision how your team is going to play. Already I have a vision of how this team next year will play and when I look at that and the changes I want to make, I always see Scottie Pippen out there as part of the action.”
He admits this season was a trying one, particularly with a 9-15 record in games decided by five points or less.
First-year assistant coach Jimmy Rodgers said it was during those times when he developed the most respect for Jackson. “We lost games this year that we seemingly had under control,” said Rodgers, “and yet Phil was able to take from those experiences all the frustration but also build the competitive fire and find ways to win games we shouldn’t have won.”
Jackson says one of the keys to his relative longevity with the Bulls is a somewhat “normal lifestyle.”
After this season ended with the Bulls’ loss to Orlando in the second round of the playoffs, Jackson allowed that the only positive was being able to videotape his daughter at her senior prom. This past week, he attended her graduation when the Bulls could well have been at Indiana.
June Jackson, his wife of 21 years, laughs. “He’s not totally absorbed but he does put in major hours,” she says. “He’d like to think he doesn’t but he does. It generally takes him up to six weeks to decompress after the season.”
The family will, as they always do, travel to Montana this summer. Jackson will run one camp in New York, with the proceeds going to the family of his late friend and teammate, Eddie Mast. He will run another at an Indian reservation in North Dakota. A book he co-authored on his “mentoring techniques and philosophies” is soon to be released.
“The thing that this guy has done that should be picked up by coaches at all levels is that he knows how to disconnect, how to be out of reach,” says former coach Al McGuire, who often sends Jackson inspirational sayings that Jackson hangs onto.
One saying that Jackson repeats is: “If you can’t accomplish something in an eight-hour day, then you’re not qualified in the first place.”
“Where Phil can counter burnout is Montana,” says McGuire. “He gets re-energized, drinks from the rivers. He could easily make $400,000 to $500,000 doing appearances if he wanted to hang around Chicago all summer, but he has the smarts not to.”
Jackson says he’s only glad he’s not a football coach or baseball manager, both jobs he sees as more demanding. “There are a lot of positive things about this job that still incorporates large doses of intense time with your family,” he says. “Then again, there are times when June will say, `You’re here but you’re not here.’ And she’s right. There are times when you have to put it aside. But it’s a very difficult job to leave at the office.”
It may be even more difficult next season. It is not inconceivable that with the current labor negotiation between NBA players and owners still in flux, Jackson’s contract extension will not be worked out before the season begins.
“I don’t think it will bother me,” he says. “You see coaches like P.J. Carlesimo come in and get major contracts and people are talking about Pat Riley leaving and there’s all this speculation about coaches and the fact that they’re getting paid an awful lot of money. But without a agreement set, a lot of things are unstable.
“The fact that I haven’t gotten a contract extension at this time is no surprise and not something I can’t deal with, and certainly not something that is going to encroach upon my ability to do the job next year.”
At one time, he and June point out, leaving Chicago before their kids graduated from high school was out of the question. Both admit it meant a lot more to their daughters than it would to their sons, who will be juniors next fall, but they still hesitate. And there is also June’s completion of her social work certification–she’s already licensed–to consider.
“My first premise for taking an extension to my contract was to see the kids through school,” Jackson says. “But I really tied it to Michael Jordan’s contract basically because I thought there would be a big change or a decision being made in this organization when his contract is up next year too.”
Beyond that he has ruled out nothing, including general managing. “There will be a time in Phil’s life when he wants to get out of coaching,” says Krause. “How soon that will be, I’m not sure. There will be a time when he’s going to need to get away from it for a while or maybe completely. Only he can determine that time.”
“I’ve seen players I’ve respected become coaches then GMs, guys like Jerry West who move gracefully into that position and do a heck of a job,” Jackson says. “But that’s a position that before you take it, you have to be at peace with what you’ve done as a coach. You have to get it out of your system.
“I want to win another championship. And when I have players like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and feel the connection between them and myself, I have to think we can win another championship. I’d like to win a fourth, without a doubt. And I know these guys want to, too.”
