Jerry Sichting

David Benner

Dave Twardzik summed it up best. "If you didn't like George Irvine, something was wrong with you," said Twardzik, one of George's best friends who worked with him from 1986-89 with the Pacers. "The word great is thrown around too frequently, but in George's case, it fits. He was just a great guy."

Irvine, a former Pacers' head coach from 1984-86 and on an interim basis in 1988, passed away Monday night at the age of 69. While with the Pacers, he also served as an assistant coach and an assistant to then General Manager/President Donnie Walsh. Later in his career, Irvine would coach the Detroit Pistons.

And Walsh is well aware of George's impact on him. When Irvine was named Pacers' head coach in 1984, he hired Walsh to be an assistant. In 1986, Walsh became general manager and, as they say, the rest is history.

"George Irvine brought me to Indiana and in my mind he was the beginning of NBA basketball with the Pacers in our building process for the years to come," said Walsh. "He had a great basketball mind, which allowed him to function at a high level as a coach, administrator and purveyor of talent. George was a once-in-a-lifetime friend and one of the best men in my life."

When Irvine was head coach, his teams struggled to a .293 winning percentage. But the fact, according to another team executive at the time, was "You've got a good coach, you've got good guys, unfortunately you have a lot of young players."

One of those young players was a promising forward out of Ohio State, Clark Kellogg. When Irvine became the head coach, Clark's career was coming to an end due to a knee injury.

"I enjoyed him from the standpoint that he was knowledgeable and fun to be around," said Kellogg. "He had a good sense of humor, he was a good teacher, but I enjoyed his personality. I was young, cutting my teeth in the NBA and I never got a chance to be healthy and play for him at my best because of my knee. He was quick with a story, and he had plenty of them, and he was quick with a laugh."

Another young player was Jerry Sichting. He and George found common ground when Irvine was an assistant coach.

"George was an assistant coach when I was a rookie and he gave me a lot of insight," said Sichting. "There weren't four, five assistants like now, so he was basically the only guy. He let me know what to expect. The game was different back then and you had to make your mark as a rookie. He had gone through a lot of the same things as a player in the ABA and took the time to relate those things to me. He loved basketball, he was a very knowledgable coach. We weren't great back then, but he stayed positive. He knew we weren't going to win the NBA championship, so he tried to develop us, he looked at himself as a teacher, made it fun and kept it fun."

"I thoroughly enjoyed him," said David Craig, the Pacers' long-time trainer. "George cared about all  the people who worked with him. He really cared about his players. We struggled a lot those years from a win-loss situation but he always stayed upbeat, kept his sense of humor and had consideration for all those involved. He was a very strong influence on my life. He was just a down to earth, great guy to be around."

remembering-george-irvine

Remembering George Irvine

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Jerry Sichting has done just about anything a man can do in professional basketball over the past 36 years, from playing to broadcasting to coaching. The entire career, however, hangs by the single, unlikely thread of an informal tryout one summer's day at Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Sichting will be on hand when the Pacers recognize their players from the 1980s at halftime of Saturday's game with New York at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, but might not be available for the halftime on-court ceremony. He's an assistant coach for the Knicks and duty will be calling in their locker room. That seems appropriate for someone who has been more places and done more things than just about anyone to emerge from Indiana's basketball tradition.

Consider that his grandmother went to high school with Johnny Wooden in Martinsville, and that Wooden was still a legendary presence in the community while he was growing up there. He was coached at Martinsville by Sam Alford, whose young son Steve ran around in a cowboy outfit and annoyed the players before and after practice. He played at Purdue, earning all-Big Ten recognition and leading the conference in free throw percentage, and later played with the likes of George McGinnis for the Pacers and Larry Bird for the Boston Celtics.

1980s CENTRAL: Learn More About the Decade at Pacers.com/1980s »

He's run camps, worked as a broadcaster, and helped coach high school, college and NBA teams. He was an assistant to former Indiana University star Randy Wittman in Minnesota and Washington, to former IU star Keith Smart at Golden State, and to current IU coach Tom Crean at Marquette. He's also been an assistant to Jeff Hornacek in Phoenix and, now, in New York.

All because of a couple of twists of fate in 1980.

Sichting, who graduated from Purdue in 1979, was a fourth-round pick of the Golden State Warriors that year. He was a late cut after playing in all six exhibition games, and then gave a Continental Basketball Association team in Bangor, Maine a try. He left camp after two days, though, once the chaotic and unprofessional conditions convinced him he'd wind up hating basketball if he stayed.

Returning to Indianapolis, he worked for a local sports goods firm, The Athletic Department, in team sales, and played in AAU leagues on the side. His future seemed as uncertain as a halfcourt heave until the Pacers offered a lifeline.

After Jack McKinney was hired as coach to replace Slick Leonard in June of 1980, the franchise conducted an open tryout for a few invited players and other candidates interested in taking a shot at making an NBA team. The primary purpose was to give McKinney, who had been injured in a bicycle accident a few years earlier, a chance to get back on the court and coach again, as well as generate some off-season publicity.

It was meant to be a two-day tryout. Sichting called and asked for a tryout, but was so exhausted after the first day he had decided not to return the next day. McKinney, however, had seen enough and canceled the second day's session. He announced he would keep Sichting and a few others for a Summer League team.

If you want to call it a team. The Pacers sent five players to California for the league, but no coach. Former NBA player Walt Hazzard was hired to direct the squad, which included some players who didn't belong to the Pacers. From there, Sichting earned an invitation to training camp, and from there he earned a roster spot.

Still, he was playing on thin ice. He played sparingly early in the season and feared getting cut after veteran guard Don Buse was acquired in a trade on Nov. 25. Someone was going to have to be released to make room for him, and Sichting knew it would either be him or Kenny Natt. With the players waiting nervously in the locker room to have a team photo taken a few days after the trade, assistant coach George Irvine walked in and asked Natt to report to the coaches' office.

"It was one of those moments when you think, Boy, this is a tough business here," Sichting recalled.

Buse became a mentor for Sichting, who grew his playing career from the ground up. He averaged 2 points as a rookie, then 4.2, then 9.3. He started all 80 games he played his fourth season, averaging 11.5 points on 53 percent shooting, then came off the bench most of his fifth season after Vern Fleming was drafted.

By then he had established himself well enough as a solid role player that Boston offered a free agent contract. The Pacers could have matched it and wanted to do so, but Sichting – realizing the building effort that awaited a team that had just won 22 games– asked to be set free.

"I knew it was still going to be two or three years before the team jelled," he said. "They had a nucleus, but I knew it wasn't going to happen when I was there."

The Pacers wound up signing him and trading him to the Celtics for two second-round draft picks. He then played three seasons with Bird in Boston, and came off the bench all 82 regular season games for the team that won the 1986 championship.

He can't help but wonder how his life would have turned out if not for that summer tryout in 1980.

"I'm sure it would be totally different," he said. "I have no idea where I would be or what I would be doing. I don't know. Looking back, it seems like destiny. Everybody knows one decision here or there in their life that completely changes things.
"Everything fell in for me after that."

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Sichting Built a Wide-Ranging Career Out of a Single Moment

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Indianapolis (Oct. 6, 2011) -- Jerry Sichting knows full well the hand fate can play in guiding a career path.

Consider his senior season at Purdue. In 1978-79, Lee Rose's first season on the bench, the Boilermakers shared the Big Ten title with Michigan State and Iowa. In the era of the 32-team NCAA Tournament, no more than two teams from any conference could receive bids, so a tie-breaker had to be applied, which sent the Spartans and Hawkeyes into the NCAAs and left Purdue with an NIT berth.

"Unfortunately, it didn't work our way," said Sichting. "We had split with Michigan State but we lost both times to Iowa. I think we had maybe one guy suspended and two guys sick when we played Iowa at home so we lost that game and it ended up costing us a chance to go to the NCAA. We were ranked, I think, 11th or 12th in the country and won 27 games but we had to go to the NIT."

That, of course, set up two dramatic championship games, one universally remembered, one not so much. Earvin Johnson led the Spartans past Larry Bird and Indiana State in the NCAA championship game that changed basketball forever.

Sichting's Boilermakers wound up losing to arch-rival Indiana 53-52 in the NIT Final.

Had the tie-breaker gone the other way, the world might've seen Sichting vs. Bird. It would've lacked the magic but that would've been fine with the scrappy guard from Martinsville.

"It was (painful)," Sichting said. "That was probably the last year the NIT was good because they changed the rules and all the good teams were going to the NCAA. But to show you how good the Big 10 was, the (NIT) Final Four was us, Ohio State, Indiana and Alabama. We matched up with I.U. in the final game and I actually missed the last shot that could've won the game for us, so that made it particularly distasteful."

The following year, the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 48 and the restriction limiting no more than two teams per conference was lifted. Rose guided Joe Barry Carroll, Keith Edmonson and the Boilers to a Final Fourth berth, while Sichting, a fourth-round pick of the Warriors, was out of work after being cut.

His hoop dream could've died there. As it turned out, it was just beginning to be realized.

He signed with the Pacers in 1980, not only making the team but establishing himself as a solid NBA player, averaging 8.3 points and 4.1 assists while shooting .501 from the field in five seasons.

"I barely made the team as a rookie," said Sichting. "I was a free agent, I'd been cut the year before at Golden State. We had a pretty good team my rookie year but the owner of the team at the time was a guy named Sam Nassi and he didn't want to sign any of the veteran guys.

"We made the playoffs my first year, then when guys became free agents he either traded them or let them go outright. But what it allowed me to do was kind of get a foothold in the league. Out of necessity, they kind of had to play me so I ended up getting a niche in the league."

Sichting knew his days with the Pacers were numbered when the Simons purchased the team in 1983. When his contract expired in 1985, it didn't represent the end, but yet another new beginning. Sichting joined Bird in Boston.

"It was difficult because I had never lived anywhere but Indiana and I wanted to see what it would be like," he said. "I knew I wasn't good enough to make that much of a difference with the Pacers in terms of helping turn their team around. I knew I was a role-player. I started a couple of years out of necessity because we didn't have anything else. I got to where I at least proved I could play in the league.

"To me, it was a chance to go to a really good team, a team that had already won a couple of titles, and it was a chance to see if I could play on the big stage coming off the bench. It was quite a thrill that first year when we went ahead and won the championship."

In that 1986 NBA Finals series against Houston, Sichting's name was forever stamped in league history when the 6-1 guard was involved in a fight with 7-4 Rockets center Ralph Sampson. Sichting was battling Sampson in the post, a mismatch forced by transition, when the big man took exception, turned and threw two punches to ignite a melee. Sampson was ejected. Sichting played on. The Celtics lost that game but won the title.

"I've never spoken to (Sampson) since," Sichting said. "I kind of got 15 minutes of fame out of it. People remember that fight and I get asked about it a lot but I've never spoken to Ralph. He just kind of threw a sucker punch, I don't know. It was a crazy atmosphere down there, it was a wild game."

Sichting would move on to play for the Trail Blazers, Hornets and Bucks before retiring in 1990, launching a diverse post-playing career that included broadcasting, scouting pro and college players, serving as an assistant coach in the NBA and at the college level (including three seasons with Tom Crean at Marquette), most recently with the Golden State Warriors in 2010-11.

New head coach Mark Jackson assembled a staff for 2011-12 that did not include Sichting, who is now, as he put it, "a free agent."

With his broad range of experience, Sichting has much to offer -- still the ultimate role-player -- and hopes to return to the league this season.

"I just would like to be with a good organization either coaching or in the front office," he said. "Coaching's probably my first love but I enjoy scouting, being a part of basketball, being a part of the game, no matter what (role) it is."

A career that seemed ill-fated in 1979 turned out to be anything but. Sichting spent 10 seasons in the NBA as a player, won a ring with the Celtics, and has remained closely involved with the game for more than two decades.

"My career was really kind of funny because when I was a kid, my favorite pro teams were the Pacers and the Celtics and I ended up playing for both of them," he said. "Basketball was it when I was growing up through high school and college. Being from Indiana, that's what it was, trying to be a basketball player or a coach, try to play for your varsity team. … It's most kids' dream and I was able to live it."

Jerry Sichting

Remembering George Irvine

Sichting Built a Wide-Ranging Career Out of a Single Moment

Sichting living his hoops dream