Jerry Krause is inept and occasionally insensitive. Jerry Krause can’t generally manage his way out of a paper bag. Jerry Krause inherited the greatest basketball player of all time and lucked into six world championships.
Jerry Krause is loyal and often sentimental. Jerry Krause takes his job and his responsibility to his hometown very seriously. Jerry Krause inherited the greatest basketball player of all time and found the right coach and players to surround him so the Bulls won six NBA championships.
As usually is the case with complex public figures, the truth about Jerry Krause lies somewhere amid the various perceptions of him.
This much is certain:
Few people care about the Bulls as much as Jerry Krause. He still tears up when discussing the hug he, wife Thelma and Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf shared after the team’s first title in 1991.
This sentimental side also is revealed when Krause talks about another lifetime thrill–having his stepdaughter, Stacy, ask him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Pictures of his granddaughter, 3-year-old Collette Cooper, adorn his office at the Berto Center. Another granddaughter is due in January.
But Krause also can be gruff and vindictive. A picture of him and Charles Oakley that had sat in his office for 16 years is now gone after Oakley’s crash-and-burn second tenure with the Bulls last season. Agents trade stories of times Krause has tried to bully them in negotiations.
There are two sides to any coin and, as Bulls fans have painfully come to know, two sides to a franchise’s success. Krause has been on top, and now he is at the bottom. But he remains optimistic and rarely on vacation.
This is Jerry Krause, in his own words. On the eve of his 18th season as Bulls general manager, Krause, 63, sat in his office and spoke candidly on a variety of subjects in a wide-ranging interview. These are the highlights:
Q: What are your strengths as a general manager?
A: I think putting people and teams together. Scouting. Evaluating players. I probably have a softness underneath the toughness that enables me to feel for people. People who know me know I’m a puppy. People who don’t know me think I’m a tough, gruff old guy. What I’ve tried to do here and hopefully have proven somewhat is that I can build an organization, literally from scratch twice. We had Michael and 11 guys we didn’t want. No scouts. No coaches. Nothing. Now we’re rebuilding it again.
Q: Does the public perception of you bother you?
A: No. I understand the public perception of me is through the media. Jerry [Reinsdorf] said to me once, `Why can’t you be more like [former White Sox general manager] Roland Hemond was?’ Roland had the uncanny ability to [charm] the media for three hours and not tell them anything. I don’t have that ability. Early on I got off on the wrong foot with some people, but some of it was on purpose. You just can’t be close to people in the media and do your job well, I think. My predecessor [Rod Thorn] was very close to people in the media, and that was part of the reason I got the job. I’ve never believed in being close to people in the media. As a result, I’ve gotten a reputation. Do I care about it? Not really, because the people who know me know who I am.
Q: What about the perception that Jerry Reinsdorf is blindly loyal to you?
A: We’ve been together 21 years now. There’s a reason he’s loyal, and there’s a reason I’m loyal to him. He recognizes my strengths, recognizes who I am, knows me, trusts me. I know who he is. Our record has proved it. He saw it with the White Sox [Krause was a scout] and put me here when I don’t know how many other people would’ve put me here. He had faith in me originally. He has faith in me now. I don’t know that he’s been blindly loyal. There are times where he’s been under pressure, but we share a lot of the same beliefs. There have been incidents where someone wanted to speak with me from another franchise and he came to me and said, `Do you want to talk to them?’ I’d say, `No.’ He’d say, `Good, because I turned them down anyway.’ I don’t want to work for anybody else. Is there a closeness? Sure. But I’m proud of the fact that a man as bright as he is would see who I am and what I am.
Q: What are your weaknesses as a general manager?
A: At times I can get too sentimental. At times I can get too emotional. I get very down on people who are not loyal or who are not organization people, and that affects me in my dealings with them. I’m huge on loyalty and I’m very tough on people who are not loyal. I’m vindictive. If somebody messes with us, it may be years, but I’ll be there. When I was younger, I tried to get too involved with players. I found out you can’t. I’m stubborn, which is both a plus and a minus. I used to be too introspective and it affected my job. I knew in my heart I made a couple of mistakes [on players] and it bothered me for years and years afterward. I can get too serious about vowing to correct things that I did wrong and that can take away from what you’re trying to do now.
Q: Were you too introspective because you’re insecure?
A: No, I’m a perfectionist. Where I get very introspective is in drafting people and signing players. I’ll go over and over and over them after they’re done. Sometimes you just have to go with your guts. There was one time in my 17 years here where I didn’t go with my guts, and it was a mistake and I agonized about it for too many years afterward.
Q: Can you name that situation?
A: It was a draft situation.
Q: Can you give us a name?
A: No. The player is still active in the league. But I think the situation shows you can get too self-blaming. I don’t think I’m insecure. But every human being who is a perfectionist doesn’t like to make mistakes.
Q: What are the accomplishments you’re most proud of?
A: The championships. I’m proud that I picked Phil Jackson out of the CBA when nobody would give him a job. I’m proud that I took Tex Winter when he was ready to retire and he spent the next 15 years here. I’m proud that I hired [strength coach] Al Vermeil and the things we’ve built here as a scouting group. I’m proud that we’re recognized around the colleges as an organization that comes in, does its work and gets out. We don’t talk a lot. We do things in a precise manner. I’m proud of the organization that we’ve built. I’m proud that so many people have stayed so long. If I were such a grouchy old guy who was a bad character, I don’t think they’d all be here. And now I’m proud of the organization that we’ve rebuilt. It was a very tough time for me for three years. I knew it was going to be a tough time. But maybe I made it harder on myself. I’m also proud of the fact that I think I’ve become a better family man over the last few years. The first few years, I wasn’t. Thelma [his second wife of 23 years] raised the kids. I’ve tried to be more with the family now and with the grandbaby. I’ve tried to be more well-rounded. What I’ve tried to do is be a person that my father would’ve been proud of and my mother, who’s still living, is proud of. I can say that they are.
Q: What are your biggest mistakes?
A: Most of my mistakes are still running around in other uniforms. Sure, we’ve been down for a few years. But somebody told me years ago, `When things go rough, take names and numbers.’ As we get better, I’ll remember the names and numbers. And we will win again.
Q: Do you have regrets about the Tim Floyd situation?
A: I do and I always will. Tim is a fine basketball coach and a very good person. I had every confidence in the world he would do the job here. The job didn’t get done for a whole lot of reasons. There wasn’t enough talent. It took longer than I thought it was going to take. I think the losing affected Tim more than I thought it would. And I had something to do with that because I didn’t get the talent quick enough. We had a very close friendship, and that’s been affected. That bothers me. I’m proud of picking him because he’s a good coach. But I’m not proud of what happened.
Q: You built a championship team around a shooting guard. Now you’re trying to build a championship team around two players out of high school. Similarities?
A: You take two 18-year-olds in one shot and, sure, you’re winging it because nobody’s ever done it before. But you’re winging it with more education than you did the first time. Michael and I had a different relationship than I do with Eddy [Curry] and Tyson [Chandler]. I learned from that relationship and applied it with Eddy and Tyson.
Q: Does it bother you that you don’t have a relationship with Michael?
A: I was always afraid that if I kissed Michael, it wouldn’t be good. Both of us are extremely combative individuals. And we were more combative with each other than with other people. Do I look back on it and say I could’ve done it differently? Maybe. Would it have resulted in any more wins? I doubt it. Would it have made me more popular with him? Maybe. But you know something? That wasn’t what I was after. I was after winning.
Q: When are you going to retire?
A: I don’t have any plans for it right now. Thelma and I, and Jerry and I, have talked about it some. But this group has refreshed me. I want to win again–badly. I don’t know if I stopped and smelled the roses on the first six championships. But if we win that seventh one, I’m going to smell a lot of roses. And I can see it coming. I can see a change here.
