Buddhism and Basketball

Sacred Hoops

Sacred Hoops may not sound like the title of a book about basketball, at least not your normal book about basketball. But then, Phil Jackson, the author of the book is not your normal basketball coach. And now that Jackson's Los Angeles Lakers have made the flip from being a ho-hum team eliminated early in the playoffs last year to a league leading record and a tenacious post-season ending in the World Championship, you have to give as much credit to Jackson's "Christian Zen" approach to life (and basketball) as you give to the "triple post" offense and Shaquille O'Neal.

A Spiritual Journey

Jackson's interest in Buddhism is documented back to at least the time he retired from the New Jersey Nets as a player coach in 1980. The majority of his playing career was with the New York Knicks, where he was a relatively undistinguised teammate of Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere, and where he often rode his bicycle to games. His spiritual connections began early in life, as his parents were fundamentalist ministers. He grew up in a spartan home, but when he went to college was able to look into more esoteric religious topics, especially the Eastern philosophies. Zen Buddhism seems to have become a favorite. Jackson also has had a long-standing interest in Native American beliefs, and worked on reservations during the summers. He has been said to cleanse his office space by burning sage smudge sticks.

Mindful Basketball

Jackson has brought his concept of "mindful baskeball" to talented athletes like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaq, Kobe Bryant, and even (gasp) Dennis Rodman. Los Angeles Magazine notes that he meditates daily and "believes in it as a vehicle for finding peace and promoting harmony for himself and his teams." Although the players may not always understand what's going on - Jordan was quoted by CNN/Sports Illustrated as calling it "that Zen Buddhism stuff", but he also said at the time of his retirement "'Living in the moment' is something that I will continue to always understand and associate with my life. " - the six titles the Chicago Bulls won with Jackson at the helm are hard to deny. Kobe Bryant notes in Time Magazine in March, "It sounds like a minor thing, but it's very big when you're playing at this level to really be aware of everything around you." Jackson's Buddhist thinking seems to be rubbing off, and he is poised to demonstrate his ability to win another world championship with a whole new group of players. And, while many famous coaches get quoted by other coaches, Jackson gets quoted by university leaders like President Coleman of the University of Iowa. Big stuff!

More Reading

Here's a few more links for those of you who want to know more about this interesting guy.

Comments on Jackson lead off an article in Common Boundary on Buddhism in America.
Jackson's comments on The NBA at 50 offers interesting insights on basketball, coaching, and Zen.
Read Jackson's official NBA biography
And don't forget you can find out the most about NBA Basketball at the About Pro Basketball site.

Coda

Please feel free to respond to this feature, and let me know what you think, or suggest other topics for future attention. Until next time, Peace!

Want to discuss this topic further?

Drop in to the "Virtual Sangha". The VS is open all the time. Stop by and see who else is in the room!

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BUDDHISM
COMES HOME

American Buddhism has evolved quite differently from its Asian counterpart,
attracting more lay practitioners who are choosing mortgages
over monasticism and families and careers over celibate reclusion.

BY JEAN LATZ GRIFFIN

Common Boundary
(January/February 1999)

The day Phil Jackson resigned as coach of the Chicago Bulls and rode his red and black motorcycle out of town, the headline in the Chicago Tribune read: "And Zen he was gone." Even in the predominantly Judeo-Christian Midwest, no explanations were necessary. It was well known that Jackson had included Buddhist meditation techniques in coaching his incredibly diverse team—from superstar Michael Jordan to cross-dressing Dennis Rodman to boy-next-door Steve Kerr—to six NBA championships.

Jackson had been linked with Zen hundreds of times in local newspaper articles and had written Sacred Hoops about his spiritual journey and use of Buddhist and Native American teachings in coaching. Several players had been quoted as saying they had used the Buddhist lessons in their lives. "When I got injured with the broken shoulder, I really started to practice what Phil said," Kerr told the Chicago Sun Times . "It helped me understand what stuff matters and what does not."

Jackson's unique style of basketball coaching and his application of Buddhist principles in the seemingly inhospitable domain of a highly competitive professional sport is just one example of how far Buddhism has penetrated the culture. Movies about the Dalai Lama and the political problems of Tibet are box office hits. Buddhist monks are on TV commercials and CDs of their chanting sell well. Mindfulness meditation has become part of mainstream medical treatments, spreading out from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to medical centers across the country.

Beyond the popularized tip of American Buddhism that has broken into the consciousness of most Westerners, hundreds of thousands of men and women throughout the country are quietly forming their daily lives around the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who lived 2,500 years ago in India and came to be known as the Buddha (the Awakened One) after he reached enlightenment under a Bodhi tree.

Growth in the numbers of Americans practicing some form of Buddhism has been phenomenal. Enrollment in the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, the country's only accredited, contemplative-based institution of higher learning, has doubled in the past two years, and more than a thousand meditation centers have sprung up in North America since the 1960s, half of them in the last decade. A parallel but much smaller growth has taken place among Asian immigrants who have brought their traditions with them and built temples that use their native languages and are centered in mostly devotional Buddhist practices.

But American Buddhism has developed differently from Asian Buddhism. For example, most Buddhist practitioners here are lay men and women with families and jobs rather than monks and nuns living in monasteries and convents. In the West, women are more likely to be leaders, not just of other women, but of mixed-gender sanghas and retreat centers. And the structure of the sanghas themselves is more democratic than hierarchical, with many people contributing their ideas and insights.

Engaged Buddhism, in which social action is considered essential to Buddhist practice, has become a strong thread in American Buddhism. One can trace its roots to the Vietnam War when Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk, began doing peace work in the form of underground support for Vietnamese draft resisters, social relief programs, and lectures in the United States. Because of his efforts, Nhat Hanh was forced into exile, settling in France. His ideas, however, have spread throughout the world. According to Nhat Hanh, the only way one can effect social change is to first change oneself.

In the U.S., several organizations and sanghas practice engaged Buddhism. The Buddhist Peace Fellowship, founded nearly 20 years ago, has 4,000 members who explore personal and group responses to political, social, and ecological suffering in the world. The White Plum Buddhist AIDS Network has supporters around the country and the San Francisco Zen Center sponsors the Zen Hospice Project. Zen teacher Bernard Tetsugen Glassman has created a comprehensive array of services based on Buddhist principles to help the homeless and the poor become self-sufficient in Yonkers, New York. Most recently, Glassman started the Zen Peacemaker Order, an interfaith community dedicated to making peace in their own lives and in the world.

Another segment of American Buddhism focuses inward. Robert Thurman, head of the American Institute of Buddhism at Columbia University and author of several books, including Inner Revolution , once described Buddhism as "a therapy the Buddha developed for demented human beings." Although Thurman has also called Buddhism a world religion, a contemplative discipline, a counter-force to militarism, and an "evolutionary sport," the mental and emotional benefits of Buddhist meditative practice make it a natural companion of psychotherapy.

Kenneth Porter, a New York psychiatrist who has been a Vipassana practitioner for 13 years, says Buddhism has become closely linked to psychotherapy because meditative approaches that help people let go of attachments are similar to techniques that Western psychotherapists use to help patients overcome certain problems. In addition, Porter said, the Buddhist teaching that the core of all human beings is a sane and healthy "Buddha nature" is a welcome, healing corrective to the feelings of self-hatred that plague so many people who enter therapy.

"The Judeo-Christian tradition in which most of us have been raised emphasizes what one might call unworthiness," Porter explained. "I don't mean to say that this is the essence of either religion, but when they are presented institutionally, their spiritual core is sometimes lost.... So the concept of a inherent and good Buddha nature is a way for a therapist to help patients see that their conviction that there is something basically wrong with them might be a misunderstanding of who we are as human beings."

Western Buddhism is also much more ecumenical than it is in Asia, both within its own house and in relationship to other world religions. The three major traditions—Zen, Tibetan, and the Vipassana branch of Theravada, which have been separated for thousands of years in different Asian countries—are learning from and influencing each other through shared practices and cross-fertilization here. In addition, many Americans are combining Buddhist meditation with their Christian or Jewish religious practices.

Yvonne Rand, meditation teacher at the Redwood Creek Buddhist Temple in Muir Beach, California, says she knows many people "who are absolutely committed to their Christian or Jewish faith traditions, but are also dedicated Buddhist meditators." Rand says she has no problem with this eclectic approach, and quotes one of her teachers, Shunryu Suzuki, the author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind , as saying that "Buddhism coming to the West would help people be better Christians."

However, Rand warns that a superficial smorgasbord approach to spirituality does pose a particular danger. "We are likely to end up with not much taproot if we just take a little of this and a little of that," Rand said. "There is a point in one's spiritual practice where going deep is very important."

Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, who has practiced Buddhism for more than 20 years and has written Thoughts Without A Thinker and Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, sees all these trends as "part of the American democratic ideology interacting with an ancient tradition," and consistent with the history of Buddhism as it has traveled through the world since 500 BCE.

"Wherever Buddhism has moved, it has adapted itself to the ideas that were already prevalent," Epstein said. "In China, the nature language of Taoism was prevalent, and that became its Chinese character. In Tibet, it was the tribal, shamanic culture. We see the same thing happening now. America will create its own cultural trappings."

In China, Tibet, and Japan, the development of new forms of Buddhism took hundreds of years. But the Dharma has come to America in a time of automobiles, telephones, airplanes, fax machines and Web sites. The result: The rapidity of change in our culture has produced a unique form of Buddhism within decades rather than centuries and is forcing the first generation of Western-born Buddhist leaders to ask some difficult questions. How do you keep the essence of the Buddha's teachings while letting go of the Asian cultural trappings that don't speak to Western sensibilities? How much interaction between the Zen, Tibetan, and Vipassana traditions can take place without losing their unique contributions? Will too much popularization of Buddhism—in movies, music and elsewhere—water down the Dharma? Could what has been called "Dharma-Lite" be dangerous if people try to meditate without a trained teacher? And how do you build relationships between teachers and students that are free of the abuses of power that have plagued not only Buddhism but other religions in America?

These questions are being asked gently but firmly, with great respect for the generations of teachers who have gone before them, but with a clear sense that what current Western teachers do now will have a lasting impact.

"When I studied with my teacher (Taizan Maezumi Roshi), I felt I had to take the whole thing. I couldn't distinguish between what I thought was good and what was bad. I had to swallow the whole fish," said Dennis Genpo Merzel roshi of the Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City and author of The Eye Never Sleeps and Beyond Sanity and Madness . "We may have all swallowed the whole fish with our first teachers, but now it is time to spit out the bones. It is time to look at what is fruitful and relevant and what are the things we don't want to carry forward."

Longtime Naropa professor Judith Simmer-Brown calls the waning years of the twentieth century "auspicious and dangerous" for the first generation of Western Buddhist teachers. "We need to know if Buddhism, as it has been transmitted to this country, is resilient enough to last from one generation to the next," she says. "We have to ask ourselves if our children have what they need to practice. We can't be deceived into thinking that the current popularity of Buddhism shows that it is taking hold. We could miss seeing that the foundation isn't solid."

A solid foundation, Simmer-Brown said, would include good English translations of Buddhist texts; transmission of the essence of Buddhism to the American Dharma heirs of Asian teachers; a strong base of American patrons; and a solid tradition of monastic life to complement lay practice.

In addition, she warned, Buddhism can't let itself be co-opted "as just another status symbol. We have the Dalai Lama on Apple computer billboards and reporters are in our classrooms at Naropa. This is very seductive. We can't let the consumer society turn Buddhism into just another commodity. I feel it even here [at the 1998 Buddhism in America conference]. We are all supposed to have our tapes and books out and I'm a little concerned because I don't have a marketing plan in order."

But while some Buddhist leaders worry that the Dharma will be diluted or overly commercialized, Thurman, one of the more controversial Buddhist writers, has predicted that "Buddhism will not be able to succeed in its mission in America unless it is able to perform that mission without being Buddhism." In other words, Thurman told the first "Buddhism in America" conference held in 1997, Buddhist teachings will have to enter American society somewhat surreptitiously, without creating tensions with existing religions or requiring Americans to adopt cultural baggage from Japan or China or Tibet.

"If we try to bring Buddhist teachings to America on a religious basis, it's a hopeless project," he said. "Americans can pray to Jesus or Mary or Moses, it doesn't matter. But the heart has to be open." An example of a successful strategy that inserts Buddhist principles into a crucial arena of American life without creating tensions between existing religions is Jon Kabat-Zinn's work in which Buddhist meditative principles are applied in a program aimed at easing chronic pain.

The core teaching that Buddhism can bring to America, according to Thurman, is that "individuals, one by one, person by person, begin to live beyond life and death. You have to feel connected to the future infinitely, so that what you do is infinitely significant."

Teresa and Chris Buczinsky and their four-year-old son, Zachary, may well be the face of American Buddhism as it moves into the twenty-first century.

Teresa, 37, and Chris, 39, met in college, "where we were losing our faith together in an existentialism class," Teresa recalled. Outwardly, their life appears too routine to be part of a cutting-edge spiritual movement. They live in Arlington Heights, a comfortable suburb 25 miles northwest of Chicago. Teresa, whose Buddhist name is Kenpo, teaches English in a suburban public high school; Chris runs a business with his brother and has his first book of children's poetry in the hands of an agent.

Teresa has been practicing Buddhism for six years and for the past two years has been part of a small Zen sangha that meets in a Unitarian Universalist church. She attends weekend or week-long silent retreats called sesshins whenever she can, and frets about juggling family life, a job, and a deepening meditation practice. Chris was the instigator of the couple's investigation into meditation, but is a bit of a lone wolf in his practice, less likely than Teresa to join a group. Zachary helped celebrate Buddha's birthday this year through ceremonies and a children's play on the life of the Buddha. But Zachary also attends Sunday school at the church where the Zen group meets and is fascinated by the Bible stories. Teresa even teaches Sunday school there. "Zachary is at the age where he needs a concrete God," Teresa said. "Much of what I love about Buddhism, he is too young to understand."

Teresa's link to Buddhism's 2,500-year tradition is her teacher, Susan Myoyu Andersen, 48, an ordained Zen Buddhist priest, who began practicing Buddhism more than 25 years ago and now leads the Great Plains Zen Center. The contrast between how the two women came to Buddhism and the similarities between how they now fit it into their busy lives is a window into the first two generations of American Buddhism.

Andersen is one of 12 Dharma heirs of Maezumi Roshi, an original Asian Zen teacher who profoundly influenced American Buddhism. (Two of the other eleven are Merzel and Glassman.) Dharma heirs of a teacher are similar to the priests ordained by a bishop. But the relationship is considered much more personal in Buddhism, with the student and teacher having spent many years studying together. A respected teacher is considered to be the embodiment of the entire lineage of Buddhist teachers, and when a student receives the transmission, he or she also embodies the lineage. It is an indication of the strong role of women in American Buddhism that four of Maezumi Roshi's twelve chosen spiritual descendents in the United States are women.

Andersen began studying with Maezumi Roshi as a graduate student in music in the early 1970s. She finished her master's degree while living at Maezumi Roshi's Zen Center of Los Angeles, took the precepts, was ordained a monk, and became a full-time staff member. "I had my head shaved for five years," she recalled. "I didn't have an outside job. I was living a fully monastic life on a stipend of $25 a month."

She met her husband Ken at the Zen Center, and with Maezumi Roshi's blessing, they were married and had a child. She says she never felt any discrimination because she was a woman. In fact, she said, some of Maezumi Roshi's peers in Japan "looked askance" because he gave so much authority to women. The Andersens left the center to be closer to Ken's mother, who was sick, then decided to stay near Chicago. They now have two children, 8 and 11. A trained accountant, Andersen is getting an advanced degree in occupational therapy. Her dream is to build a suburban Chicago center in her teacher's name that will help people with disabilities, especially children.

As one of Maezumi Roshi's successors, Andersen has personal experience in figuring out which of the bones from that time should be spit out. She was at the Center when the information became public about Maezumi Roshi's alcoholism and his sexual relationship with a student. "It was a tough situation," she said. "We all saw his drinking, but even though they set up AA meetings that we all went to, we lacked the technical experience to know how to deal with it," Andersen said. "Most of us did not know about the affair. For months after that came out, he would open every talk with a heartfelt apology, no holds barred. He would say, ‘I am totally responsible. I am so sorry. This was a terrible thing I have done.'"

"The way I have made peace with the situation is to say there were things I liked and things I didn't like about him, and to trust myself to know the difference and carry on," Andersen said. "What is clear to those of us who are his successors is that what he had to offer was his understanding and how he gave his life to the Dharma."

In contrast to Andersen's early years in a monastery, Teresa Buczinksy's first several years of Buddhist practice have been completely in the world. But what Susan Myoyu Andersen and Teresa Kenpo Buczinsky share is a determination to make Buddhism work for American families, especially mothers.

Integration of Buddhism into family life, even though it is stronger in America than in Asia, is still difficult. That is part of the challenge of bringing a monastically focused practice to a new land and trying to adapt it in a way that fits into a busy family life. In Asia, families practice Buddhism by performing devotions in temples and giving alms to the monks and nuns. But most do not engage in serious meditation practice. In contrast, the prevalent religions in the United States—Christianity and Judaism—emphasize family involvement.

"When I was starting out, the first obstacle was the idea that to be a serious practitioner you had to leave everything and go to a monastery," Andersen said. "On the one hand, the intensive practice is very important and I am glad I have that under my belt, I also see that most people simply can't leave their jobs and families for years or even three months." One solution that Buddhist sanghas and centers across the country are developing is to offer weekend or week-long silent retreats and encourage people to do as much as they can without pushing them or making them feel guilty that they can't devote their entire lives to meditation. Most meditate alone daily and with a group once or twice a week. Another solution to the dilemma is to recognize everyday life as a practice. Andersen said that realization hit her full-force when she had her first child.

"Caring for a baby is incredibly similar to monastic practice," she said. "Your time is not your own, you're tired all the time, you are there to serve another human being. And a lot of time, it doesn't seem like you are really accomplishing anything. You learn to appreciate just holding the baby for its own sake. Some day you will go back to gardening and redecorating your living room, but right now, you are just holding the baby."

To Pat Enkyo O'Hara, sensei of the Village Zendo in Greenwich Village, the major task of the next 25 years of Buddhism in America will be a search for a middle path between extremes that have developed, especially between "hanging on to all the Asian aspects of Buddhism and discarding so much that important teachings are lost."

"I see a lot of self-correction happening right now in myself and in the sanghas," O'Hara said. "Teaching people about self-awareness and relaxation is great, and I'm glad cancer patients are meditating and seeing their cancer cells as part of themselves. But the danger is that if we don't link all this to Buddhism, it will lack the wisdom of generations of people who have learned how to avoid the pitfalls."

As an example, O'Hara says people who meditate without a sufficiently trained mentor could get stuck in self-absorption or even become depressed and fall into nihilism. "They may get caught up in a sense of emptiness, and forget that have to get up and water the plants and feed the baby. People get stuck in different places when they begin to meditate and a good teacher is needed to suggest what are called ‘skillful means' to move them along." And although O'Hara is deeply involved in socially engaged Buddhism as part of Glassman's Zen Peacemaker Order and the Buddhist AIDS Network, she is concerned that a desire to help without having looked deeply into oneself can result in misguided efforts.

"When we all started years ago, the idea was to go off and get enlightened. We didn't think so much about helping people. After you really look into yourself, however, and see reality, you naturally take care of everybody, and so many of us turned to social action," O'Hara said. "But what I am seeing now is people who may be jumping into social action too quickly without going deeply enough into meditation."

O'Hara cautions that social injustice in the form of poverty or unfairness can incite anger. "But you need to learn how to work with anger so that it is pure energy and doesn't hurt others, so that it doesn't solve some problems but create another war," she said. "That comes out of years of practice and is not an easy thing. Without it, we risk becoming just another bunch of do-gooders, rushing in to solve a problem before letting go of our fixed ideas. The only way I know to do it is through practice. That is a really key thing for us to be aware of in the next millenium."

As Buddhism changes and is changed by its interaction with American society, growing into a more ecumenical, psychologically oriented, lay-based, and gender-equal system than it has ever been before, leaders point to two strengths that are likely to carry it through future generations—its relative lack of institutionalization and its adaptability.

"Buddhism is a religion, but a funny kind of religion," said Porter. "It is as much of a spiritual technology, which is compatible with many different religions, as it is a path in itself. It doesn't require the same kind of total ideological loyalty that some other religions require."

In addition, Buddhism in America is part of a broader movement in which people want to develop the spiritual dimension of their lives. "It is part of the stage our society is in," Porter said. "Since the essential, transcendent core experience that makes up spirituality can lose its spark when it becomes institutionalized into religion, [many people] may find the Judaism and Christianity they grew up with somewhat ossified. Buddhism is new and fresh."

Jean Latz Griffin is a freelance writer and former reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Copyright © 1999 Common Boundary, Inc. All rights reserved.

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A CONVERSATION WITH THE FORMER BULLS HEAD COACH
The NBA at 50: Phil Jackson

Back in 1996, in conjunction with the year-long celebration of The NBA at 50, NBA Entertainment conducted a number of interviews with some of the most memorable and influential personalities of the NBAs first half-century. Now, the full, uneditied transcripts of those interviews have been made available exclusively to NBA.com. Check back often, as well continue to bring you the best from the NBA at 50 archives!

Today, we share an interview with Phil Jackson, conducted at the NBAE Studios in Secaucus, New Jersey on April 9, 1996.

Q: How would you sum up a job description for an NBA coach?

Jackson: I think the most important thing about coaching is that you have to have a sense of confidence about what you're doing. You have to be a salesman and you have to get your players, particularly your leaders, to believe in what you're trying to accomplish on the basketball floor. We have a statement in our organization, "It's not what you do, but it's how you do it that matters." It's not whether you run the triangle offense like the Bulls run it, but whatever you do, as long as everybody does it and executes it. So you have to be able to preach that. You have to be able to manage a group of guys. In "Casey Stengel-ese," you have to keep nine guys happy and three guys not so sure whether they're unhappy or happy or just happy to belong to a club, because nine guys are going to get to play, the 10th a little bit and the 11th and 12th will have to be balancing it off. So they can't be a disruptive force.

You have to be able to psychologically help your players, support-wise, be in touch with them, so I think managing people is very important. You've got to understand the scheduling of a season. You've got to know what an NBA player's body is going through and I think having been a player helps in that regard. You know the duress these players physically are under, what kind of travel schedule they have, the pressures they have in their home, their families and how to manipulate the season, so it's at least palpable to have a family or a lifestyle so they can continue to have a reasonable life going along at a very hectic schedule. So those are some of the things. The rest of the staff is important. Your medical staff, your trainers, general manager, all those things that support a coach are really important to have the stability of people. You have to be thoughtful about the process, understanding the immediacy of the day for coaching but seeing the long term aspect of the team.

Q: You have been called a "philosophical" coach. Is it important to get your players on the same philosophical page?

Phil Jackson coached the Bulls to six championships in eight years.

Jackson: I think it's the expansion of a player from college student into an adult, and leading them into a professional life. When you do that, it's real important to keep an open mind. There's a statement that goes, "Along with reading an open book, brings an open mind." So that's one of the reasons why I give them books because books open an avenue to the kind of life that you have to be able to play in the NBA. You're dealing in a totally different environment that you've come from. Sixty percent or so of our players come from a background, the black American background, and all of the sudden are exposed to a very different setting when they come to a NBA situation. Our audience, the lifestyle, the movement, all of those things change dramatically for these kids. And I think they need to have an open mind and expand it and continue their education. That's why I do it. I think it's really important.

Q: You feel it's important to nurture them as people as well?

Jackson: Yeah, it's got to be more than basketball. This game can get old if it's just basketball, if that's your interest. When a lot of these young players come in, sodden with money, an agent giving them advice, wanting to spend money and wanting to have a good time, and all of the sudden, life opens up for them. Suddenly, all the other stuff that they've been doing for four years of college, if they have gotten the four years of college, falls by the wayside. And I think that a coach has to continue that learning process. Basketball is a learning process. You go through maybe five or six NBA seasons doing a lot of learning about the game. And suddenly, you realize, "I'm a pro and I've learned it and now I can subsist in this game." You've got to keep your body together. So, the sooner you can get that person the idea that they have to learn and educate themselves not only in life, but in basketball, the better you are.

Q: Is it more difficult to coach today in the NBA than it has been in the past?

Jackson: Well, I'm one of those people that disagree with the theory that now is different than before. I think that the players come with perhaps even a better attitude about their professional career than they did before. Perhaps they've been tainted a little bit because there are so many attending figures around them. Agents, you know, the whole process. Sometimes those agents go back to when the players were 14 or 15 years of age and they've been nurtured since junior high school, chased when they were in high school by colleges and agents. And suddenly, not only tennis shoe people that have attended them for years, but also, a full-time agent that's after their life, as opposed to 25 years ago when that did not happen. But the players are basically the same. Their interests are immediate. They want instant gratification. A lot of it to do with sports is basically a warrior's mentality, and I think that the warrior's mentality is pretty the same except the players now see it as a longer term process. Something they're going to do for 12 years or 10 years, as opposed to coming in and maybe playing for a few years like they did when I was coming out of college.

Q: What do you try to achieve with pregame talks?

Jackson: My philosophy is that you don't motivate players with speeches, you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in and those are the guys that are competitive. You can not teach competitiveness. Now occasionally, it's important to get a focus on a game, as to what's important in that game, be it that a playoff game has more intensity. But the players understand that. That's what they are. These are young men that are bred and built on championship desires. And when you draft winners and have winners in your organization, like the Bulls have been fortunate to have, it's like turning them loose in a ballgame. So a lot of it has to do, in my aspect of motivation, with trying to get a focus, trying to find players being aware because the energy's going to be there. But when they step on the court, they have to have the full capacity of all of their senses so that they could be aware of all the things that are happening, not just their own desire and energy, because these are high energy games.

Q: So focus is sometimes more important than any particular strategy?

Jackson: Yeah, that's it. A lot of times a silent moment is sometimes how we start out. Let's take a few deep breaths, be quiet and settle in, be quiet, until we can still ourselves a little bit and listen. Stop the inner motors from working in the mind. It's sometimes the best way to start out a pre-game talk for me.

Q: What about when the team is in a huddle?

Jackson and Michael Jordan embrace after completing the team's second three-peat.

Jackson: I don't jump in the huddles. I wait until the noise of an intermission or whatever is going on. A lot of our arenas have a variety of acts or entertainment acts that go on for 45 seconds when the timeout begins. The next 30 seconds of the timeout is the time when I step in, usually consult with my staff, allow them to settle in, get a drink, towel themselves off, stand up and join together as a group and talk. And sometimes we have to get the whole collective group together, in the huddle, so everybody hears. But, for the most part, this is just a break. It's a break, take a breath, get refocused, let's go back and play.

Q: What's the most rewarding part of the job?

Jackson: I think the most rewarding part of the job, and I think most coaches would say it, is practice. If you have it, a very good practice in which you have 12 guys participate, and they can really get something out of it, lose themselves in practice. I think those are the most rewarding times.

Q: You try to get them all back to that focus?

Jackson: That's it. It's refocusing the group, it's getting the team re-energized and getting back to the basics of what basketball's about and it's about just playing and enjoying the game. When they do that, they kind of exercise their basketball spirit. It makes for good teamwork and it makes for better game coming up the next one around the bend.

Q: Did that need for teamwork lead to the now-famous triangle offense with the Bulls?

Jackson: Well, the understanding behind that was that we were isolating Michael (Jordan). We've been, "Okay Michael, here's the ball, you take over. You'll go one-on-one and beat this team." And in reality, when you're running an offense that has a system involved in it, everybody is an integral part of it, and it's very easy to drop the ball onto somebody else's shoulders, someone that's as talented as Michael Jordan. But the reality was we needed a five-man offense out there because the defense was coming to Michael in twos and threes almost and tripling, and we weren't getting ourselves involved in the team offense. So, I didn't want the players to just isolate him. Include him in the offense, include yourself in the offense when he touches the ball.

Q: What was the chemistry like when you played for the Knicks?

Jackson: Well, it was an interesting mixture of players because we had a number of players who competed so dramatically against each other in the college level. In the case of Cazzie Russell and Bill Bradley, two players of the year in '65-66 and subsequent years, both being draft picks, both were competitive against each other, both on and off the court. After Bradley joined the basketball club in his rookie year in the middle of the season, in mid-December, it was a process then over the next six years of a development of a team. And in the process, some players had to be broken away from the group. The trade of Walt Bellamy and Howard Komives for Dave DeBusschere, in the next year, really solidified the team. And in the process of doing that, I think the leadership that we had, with Bradley as a subtle leader, the leadership of Willis Reed emerged and the team became a unit, with the unselfishness that Red Holzman preached.

Q: When Willis Reed got hurt [in the 1970 Finals], was it the collective will of the team that helped beat the Lakers?

Jackson: Well, there was no doubt about it the fact that it was a "David vs. Goliath" type of attitude. Willis was 6'8", 6'9" and stretching it against one of the greatest scorers in the game, a seven-footer in Wilt Chamberlain. And the ball in those days was regulated where you couldn't double-team a center. You couldn't double team, although you could sink in his lap as long as you weren't illegal on defense. But we didn't double-team and rotate like the NBA basketball in the '90s. So isolation is really what everybody thought NBA basketball was about. You couldn't help and we had to have Willis basically on Wilt. He'd had a 40-point night against us in the sixth game against Nate Bowman and they had won again out in the Forum to tie the series at 3-3, so Willis just said, "I'm gonna play regardless." And I think the city of New York just took it on that they were going to be the sixth man in that game and they were because of the energy that was behind that game. When Willis walked on the floor with a couple of minutes left in warm-ups and took a shot or two, and started the game and hit the first basket, the crowd provided the energy. It looked like L.A. was moving in slow motion and the Knicks were moving in high speed. And I've seen that before in seventh games, been on the back end of that before in seventh games. There's nothing like the energy that a crowd gives a basketball club.

Q: How did the team find that inner strength to overcome and to win?

Jackson: It was resolve, I think, resolve and the bond of strong will was really the glue that held them together. They had real good defensive instincts, and Red Holzman taught defense from the 94-foot level which really wasn't a common thread of pro basketball at that time. Chicago and New York were basically the two defensive stalwarts of the NBA, and offense was really the proponent of the game at that time. 120 points, 115 point games were not unusual. From that standpoint the team was very unselfish, because they knew they were all good offensive players. But they had to bond together defensively, which was really what the key was to this team becoming very, very good. And I think players were basically given moments to play because of their defense. I, for one, knew that I wasn't a great offensive NBA player. Dean Meminger, another member of the team that came off the bench, was a very good defensive player. We knew that we played because of our defense and knew that that's what held us together, the fact that we shared an offensive philosophy. Get the ball, hit the open man, keep moving, don't stand still, that was a proponent also an extension of our defensive philosophy.

Q: How was the game changing through the 70s?

Jackson currently owns the highest winning percentage in NBA history (.738).

Jackson: Well, the game was changing dramatically because when I came out of college, and the Phillips 66 Oilers actually made a very good bid for my services. They were an industrial firm, a petroleum firm that could offer me $11,000 a year starting salary. The New York Knicks -- I was drafted in the second round, I suppose the 15 or 16th pick, something like that -- could offer me $13,500. There was a small difference but there was really longevity. They were an industrial companies that still had Goodyear tires. There were a variety of teams like Marathon Oil that had industrial basketball clubs, so players could play amateur ball, get paid for their job, have the possibility of having a full-time job, and still play the ball that really brought them really joy in college, and use their college education for a future.

The NBA was not really looked on as really a serious pro sport. Baseball had a great pension. Football was just becoming a strong force in the professional ranks. And suddenly in the late 60's, basketball took off and salaries doubled and suddenly guys came out of college and wanted to play pro basketball instead of forfeiting it and going to an industrial league and having a future as a career businessman. So, it became something that was chosen and really made a professional choice to play basketball. Guys took their summer off and played basketball. Dave Cowens, his first couple of years, came to the Rucker League, came to the Baker League. Bill Bradley, after being at Oxford, a Rhodes scholar, came back and played summer basketball so he could become a professional ballplayer to the standards that he felt he had to play. And before that a lot of people did what I did. They went back to graduate school. Terry Dischinger became a dentist. I was working on a Ph.D. in psychology and going to three years of summer school during my professional career.

But, people saw that it was going to be a television sport. It was going to be an entertainment sport. And actually in the 70s, Sports Illustrated said, "Basketball is the sport of the 70s," and it died a little bit in the mid-70s for whatever reason. Whether bringing together both leagues, the ABA and the NBA, and there were just too many teams suddenly for people to stay attached to, or whatever happened to the league, it died a little bit. But the energy was there in the early 70s, with Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) coming into the league, and really great players like Doc (Julius Erving) coming into the league and playing NBA ball. It had a great future but it was marketing, I think, a lot of it. And there's also a generation that had grown up with basketball, that loved basketball, that made it a spectator sport.

Q: Was there a culture clash between the NBA and the ABA?

Jackson: There was. There were a lot of guys that forfeited their college education, and when they did that, they went to the ABA because they were doing a lot of hardship drafting early. Spencer Haywood was one of the first ones. Doc was another one who came out and George McGinnis was another one who came out. As a consequence, the ABA had kind of a renegade attitude, a kind of loose, fast-flowing offensive game that people played. It was an eight-team league, a 10-team league, and a six-team league suddenly. It was a lot of teams moving around, but it had some very talented young players in the league. And when they joined with the NBA, they brought in four very unusual and different types of teams to the league. There were also a lot of players, Moses Malone as one of them, a premier player, who came in without a team to go to. He was moved around successively through a few teams and finally ended up in Houston. So, we were inundated with some players and I think it changed the game significantly in that time. The three-point line became a status of part of our game which dramatically changed our game. Different types of defense came from the ABA including the double teams, on the post, jump and rotate on screen and rolls. That really changed the format of how we played basketball and I think a lot of good ideas came from that union.

Q: How did team-oriented NBA players feel about the individualism of the ABA players?

Jackson: Well, I think we were real curious to see them. Part of our exhibition seasons had included ABA/NBA games that were very spirited exhibition games. Kentucky, they had great teams. There had been some New York Nets teams that had had some good runs. The Denver Nuggets at that time had had some good teams and we had opportunities to play them in the exhibition season. We knew there were legitimate teams and there had been some wins, some losses. Indiana had had some real good teams that had won in the ABA, and every year they would come against us. We won the championship in the NBA and we played Indiana, that won the championship in the ABA, in an exhibition.

We felt that it was a legitimate league and the players were legitimate players, it was just that they weren't all good teams. There weren't so many good teams. There was just a handful of good teams and then a lot of guys, as you said, were individualistic players. When they came to the NBA, there were a lot of people who were ready to challenge them. But they didn't come in mass group, a lot of them came in sporadically and either left the league or changed leagues and moved back and forth. And they were adapted into the league, but I still think there was this kind of free-flowing nature that came with them. The run-and-shoot type of game that came with them. So there's a little bit of different philosophy that joined the NBA at that time.

Q: Michael Jordan represents the best of both, as far as team play and individual ability, doesn't he?

Jackson: Well, you know we always felt Michael has had great instincts, first of all. Probably that starts in the parental type atmosphere of a home. And secondly, at North Carolina, with James Worthy and Sam Perkins and the variety of good players that were there. Michael learned from Dean Smith that the group is stronger than the individual.

Q: How has Michael changed the league?

Jackson: I think he's had a big effect on the young players that have come out of college and have seen his individual prowess of what he can do. I think it stretches the imagination, as probably Julius Erving stretched Michael's imagination and his basketball inventiveness. I think that these are the things that make for greater players. My generation saw (Elgin) Baylor and (Jerry) West and Oscar Robertson as the proponents of what's new and what's going to happen in the game. And my generation provided Earl Monroe and Jimmy Walker, who showed new dribbling and skill, and Pete Maravich. And I think Michael has done that. But also, the attitude and the courage that he's come in with, I think philosophically and psychologically, has been real good. A solid person, a person that values education and family, those things have really helped in our league.

Q: How hard is it for Michael to maintain focus with all of the demands he faces?

Jackson: I don't think that's a problem, because I think one of the things that anybody whose been around Michael or the Bulls, or seen him up close realizes, is that this man can concentrate at a very quick pace. He can be at one place dealing with media. He can be dealing with a celebrity, he could be meeting a mayor before a possible game. But gametime comes and the focus is there and it's quickly done. He's able to get his mind on the spot, at the moment of that point. There are different levels which he goes into that and I think that's real important. And sometimes he brings it to a practice the day before a big game and lets everybody know that this is a big game, let's get ourselves focused on this big game. That starts 24 hours before the game, it's not just that it starts in one minute. But the fact that you bring that focus to your game quickly is the thing that makes him great.

Q: What is the biggest challenge for the players who have and will follow Michael into the NBA?

Jackson: Well, the challenge for them is to be themselves. The players that are coming up cannot emulate anybody because you can't follow in anybody's footstep. You can see what they've done before, that's a good model, and use it as kind of a forerunner. But I think that the thing young ballplayers have to realize is the amount of commercial things, the amount of excesses that are from the outside. One of the things that Michael has always done is never interfered with practice. Basketball is the priority. That's what's gotten him to the place where he's at, so basketball remains the priority. There's never been any excesses that interfere, where I have to say, "Oh well, you can miss the bus. Oh, practice, forget about it," or, "Shoot, on a day of a game, a commercial." No, those things all are put aside and fit in somewhere else offseason, in-between practices, on days off. So that the priority remains the same, basketball comes first.

Q: What's the best part of basketball?

Jackson: Well, the best part of basketball, for those people on the inside, is the bus going to the airport after you've won a game on an opponent's floor. It's been a very tough battle. And preferably, in the playoffs. And that feeling that you have, together as a group, having gone to an opponent's floor and won a very good victory, is as about as high as you can get.

Phil Jackson, who boasts a lofty .738 (545-193) regular season winning percentage in nine seasons as head coach of the Chicago Bulls, was named the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers on June 16, 1999. Prior to Jackson’s arrival, the Lakers were a team loaded with talent but couldn’t get past the second round of the playoffs. Now, they hope that Jackson’s mastery of the playoffs (.730 (111-42) Playoff/Finals winning percentage, six NBA titles) will help to get the franchise back into the Finals, a place they have not been since the 1991 season.

Phil Jackson is a study in adaptability. As a boy in the 1950s he conformed to the wishes of his parents, who were evangelical ministers. As a college student in the 1960s he followed a popular path by expanding his spiritual opportunities in the classroom and through real-life experimentation. As a basketball player in the 1970s he adopted the New York Knicks' unselfish, team-oriented style of play. And as a coach in the 1980s and 1990s Jackson turned a team built around the game's outstanding individual player into a six-time NBA champion.

Deep inside, however, Jackson has remained remarkably consistent -- self-possessed, focused and confident. These defining qualities have been put to best use in his role as coach of the Chicago Bulls. It is certainly the role that has brought the former flower-child the most acclaim and professional success. Jackson's winning percentage of .738 as head coach of the Bulls is the best in NBA history, as is his playoff winning percentage of .730. In directing the Bulls to three straight league titles from 1991 to 1993, the league's all-time best record of 72-10 in 1995-96 and three more championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998, Jackson's steady hand and unpretentious leadership style brought out the best in each of his players. Firm but not severe, Jackson neither babied nor bullied his players. Instead he gave them the opportunity to learn for themselves how to succeed -- and how to win as a team. Jackson reached 200 wins faster than any coach in league history.

Jackson did something that Wilt Chamberlain's coaches had been unable to do -- build a consistently winning team around a megastar. With help from his assistants, Jackson designed complex offensive and defensive strategies that actually enhanced Michael Jordan's greatness by making his teammates better players. A court full of competent performers, Jackson reasoned, would make it tougher for opposing teams to stop Jordan. He was right. Jordan's scoring dropped slightly after Jackson took over, but the superstar's all-around effectiveness soared. Jackson's 13-year playing career, spent primarily with the Knicks, prepared him for such a challenge. With stars Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Cazzie Russell, New York won not by featuring individual greatness but by maximizing collective achievement. Jackson, a low-scoring specialty player, learned to understand the value of each player as a part of the whole and learned how an overdependence on any one player can cause a team to fall apart. With his broad, pointy shoulders and herky-jerky movements, "Jax" was an oddity on the court, although in true Jackson style he used these qualities to his advantage. He also picked up valuable experience as an award-winning head coach in the Continental Basketball Association and as an assistant coach in Chicago under the fiery Doug Collins.

Jackson was born in 1945 in rural Montana to two fundamentalist evangelical preachers who had sworn an oath of poverty. (Jackson believes it was the many years of carrying buckets of water down from the mountains that gave rise to his improbably wide shoulders.) The Jacksons denied young Philip access to movies, comic books, dances and other perceived evils; his only diversions were music and sports. In addition to attending numerous church services every week, Jackson learned the piano and trombone and became an excellent all-around athlete.

In high school he was a split end, defensive lineman and linebacker on the gridiron; a fireballing pitcher and first baseman on the diamond; and a rangy, aggressive center on the hardwood. Angular, thin and already at his full height of 6-8, Jackson played semiprofessional baseball in South Dakota in his late teens. His wildness on the mound kept hitters on their toes but prevented Jackson from advancing very far on his college baseball team at North Dakota. On the basketball court, however, Jackson used every inch of his arms, legs and shoulders to become a menace. He dove for so many loose balls that he became known as "the Mop." He played defense like a point guard. And his strange-looking, lefthanded hook shot carried him to an average of 27.4 points per game as a senior in 1966-67. Under future NBA coach Bill Fitch, the Fighting Sioux consistently went to the NAIA postseason tournament. In the classroom Jackson took courses in philosophy, religion and psychology. He eventually broke away from his parents' spiritual yoke and explored Eastern thought-sometimes with the help of psychoactive drugs. He grew his hair and a beard and developed an affinity for the Grateful Dead and author Carlos Castaneda as well as a distaste for meat.

With Reed and Russell already aboard, New York obtained the makings of a championship team in one summer. In the 1967 NBA Draft, the Knicks picked Walt Frazier in the first round and Jackson in the second (17th overall). And they finally got Bill Bradley, a Rhodes scholar from Princeton coming off two years of studying at Oxford. The brawny Dave DeBusschere was added during the 1968-69 season, giving the Knicks a plethora of stars who were taught how to play as a team by Coach Red Holzman. The Knicks won league titles in 1970 and 1973. Jackson, called "Head 'n' Shoulders" by his teammates, missed the first championship season after undergoing spinal fusion surgery. (He traveled with the team that year and took pictures.) Never a great scoring forward--his 11.1 points per game in 1973-74 was his highest output--Jackson positively annoyed opponents with his awkward, almost klutzy defensive and rebounding style. Many fans, even some in the home crowd, poked fun at Jackson's ungainly appearance. On the other hand, many less-traditional Knicks fans who frequented the cheap seats were drawn to Jackson, who played all-out every minute, rode his bicycle to games at Madison Square Garden from his Manhattan loft, and insisted on keeping his longish hair and unconventional beliefs. Jackson played in New York until 1978, when he went to the New Jersey Nets as a player-assistant coach. He retired in 1980 after 13 years in the league, having averaged 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds over 807 contests. All the while, he worked on Native American reservations during summers and struck up a friendship and political rapport with Bradley, who was later elected to the U.S. Senate.

At age 35 and unsure of his long-term future, Jackson headed back to Montana with his family and got a job running a health club near beautiful Flathead Lake. After a year he rejoined the Nets and did some color commentary on television. He didn't like it. He returned to basketball a year later, taking a job as head coach of the Continental Basketball Association's Albany Patroons. Now 40, Jackson retained many of the beliefs he adopted during the 1960s. He and his family rented a house near Woodstock, a full 55 miles from the arena where Jackson worked. In the summers he coached in Puerto Rico--in part, to bring in some extra money. In five seasons in Albany, Jackson steered the Patroons to a league title and won a CBA Coach of the Year Award. Also during that time, he was invited to interview for an assistant coaching job with the Chicago Bulls. Jackson showed up wearing a weathered Panama hat he had bought one summer in Puerto Rico. Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause liked Jackson but hated his hat; he hired someone else. Jackson quit the Patroons after the 1986-87 season with a 117-90 career record, filed for unemployment benefits, and kicked around the idea of going to graduate school to study psychology. That fall Krause called again and suggested that Jackson come in sans hat and stubble. This time Jackson got the job. "It was time to conform," Jackson told The New York Times in 1992. Jordan had just won his first of seven straight scoring titles in 1986-87, but under Doug Collins the Bulls had gone 40-42. Collins' essential philosophy was, "Give the ball to Michael and get out of the way." Jordan averaged 35.0 points in 1987-88, but Jackson knew that was no way to win an NBA title.

The turning point came on December 17, 1988. The Bulls trailed by 14 points when the combative, high-strung Collins was ejected early in the game. With Jackson taking over in what normally is a placeholder role, something strange and wonderful happened. He implemented a different defensive approach and told his players to just go out and play. Forward Horace Grant later told The New York Times, "It was like we were let out of a cage. We won the game because we were so relaxed -- and we knew that Phil should become a head coach." The following spring the Bulls lost to Detroit in the conference finals. Two months later Collins was out and Jackson was in. Big changes were quick in coming. First came an emphasis on defense. Jackson unleashed Jordan and previously underutilized forward Scottie Pippen ("the Dobermans") on opposing teams through relentless presses, traps and double-teams. Then Jackson moved away from the popular isolation-style game to a highly patterned offensive approach. He worked with assistant coach Tex Winter on implementing the "triple post," in which constantly moving players have a variety of passing and scoring options at their disposal. When running on all cylinders, "it's an art show," Jackson told The New York Times. The system's inherent unselfishness harkened back to Jackson's days with the Knicks and was reflective of his own personal and professional ideals. The challenge, of course, was incorporating Jordan's open-court wizardry into such a system. With a combination of tact, diplomacy, intelligence, and, when necessary, some friendly orders, Jackson pulled it off. "I'm not a controller," Jackson once told HOOP magazine, "but I'm strict." Jordan, of course, was still allowed to score pretty much whenever he wanted. But other players were expected to do more; when they did, Jordan became even more deadly and the Bulls became virtually unbeatable.

Knicks Coach Pat Riley, who oversaw a dynasty of his own while with the Los Angeles Lakers, said of Jackson in a 1991 Sports Illustrated interview: "A man with a great perspective, a great base of reference, a lot of dimensions. These days, coaches have to offer more. You've got to bring more to the table. And Phil Jackson brings more to the table than most coaches I can think of." In fact, Jackson acknowledged in HOOP that he brought so much to the table that he didn't always "take the linear path, the logical path." Rather, he "sometimes [used] random selection and intuition." Then again, all the great coaches have been known to play their instincts instead of the percentages. Not all the greats, however, cleansed their offices with Native American smudge-sticks made of sage.

By 1990-91 Jordan's scoring was down to 31.5 points per game. Beyond Jordan, the Bulls as a team were truly something to watch. They finished the season at 61-21 and brought home the 25-year-old franchise's first title with a five-game spanking of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. In 1991-92 the Bulls repeated as champions, like the Pistons and Lakers immediately before them. Their 67-15 regular-season record was the fourth best ever. The following year, despite a spate of injuries and a weakened bench, the Bulls established themselves as one of the league's all-time great teams by taking their third straight title. The only clubs to match the feat were the Boston Celtics, who won eight in a row from 1959 to 1966, and the Minneapolis Lakers, who won three straight from 1952 to 1954. After that season Jordan shocked the basketball world by retiring. Against all expectations, Jackson coaxed 55 wins out of his "Air-less" team in 1993-94, then guided the Bulls to the conference semifinals. Chicago battled the Knicks in a tough seven-game series, falling in the final contest, 87-77.

The 1994-95 seasons started without Jordan but ended with him, as he came out of retirement and rejoined the club in March. The Bulls put on a late run and finished with 47 wins, but lost in the conference semifinals once again, this time to Orlando. The 1995-96 season may well have been Jackson's finest effort. With Jordan on hand from the start of training camp, and having dedicated himself to once again proving his greatness, the challenge was to fit all the pieces in around him, and Jackson proved up to the task. Pippen settled comfortably back in his role as the team's second star, Luc Longley assumed the pivot role formerly played by Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper emerged as a defensive force and Steve Kerr became the designated three-point shooter. Finally, in what would prove to be a daring coup, the Bulls obtained controversial Dennis Rodman in preseason. Jackson handled Rodman to perfection, blending his talents with the rest of the players and giving him enough personal freedom so he did not feel repressed. The results were spectacular. Jordan won the scoring title for the eighth time and Rodman won his fifth consecutive rebounding crown. The Bulls roared through the regular season to a 72-10 record, the best in NBA history, three games better than the mark of 69-13 set by the 1971-72 Lakers. In the playoffs they lost just one game in the first three rounds, then raced to a 3-0 lead in the NBA Finals against Seattle before losing a pair of games prior to wrapping up the title in Game 6. Chicago's combined record, for the regular season and playoffs, was 87-13, the best in NBA history. For an encore, the Bulls came back and won 69 games in 1996-97 to match the second-best mark in league history, and successfully defended their NBA title by beating the Utah Jazz in six games in the 1997 NBA Finals-their fifth Western Conference rival in five trips to the title series. Longtime Bulls guard John Paxson, who hit the memorable three-pointer to wrap up the 1992 Championship against Phoenix, explained the key to Jackson's success to The New York Times: "He's so confident that he doesn't need to rant and rave. He's even-keeled, and it's rubbed off -- it's why we play with the poise we do." Amid speculation of Jordan’s retirement, the Bulls returned in 1997 with one vision – three-peat, again.

The 1997-98 season was one typical of Bulls teams of the recent past, dominating. Jordan took home his unprecedented 10th scoring title, and led the team into the Playoffs with a promising end in site. The Bulls faced off against the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals, again. In Game 6, with the game on the line, the game’s best-ever player was in the spotlight for one last time. Michael Jordan would leave the game he dominated in only a way that he could. With just seconds remaining in the game, Jordan got the ball, and hit the game-winning shot as time expired. The amazing trio of Jackson, Jordan and Pippen had accomplished something never done before in NBA history, two separate three-peats. Jordan left the sport at the top of his game, and Jackson retired from coaching as well. Pippen decided to leave the franchise and headed for Houston. Phil Jackson watched the 1998-99 season not from the bench, but rather from the television.
      Deep inside, however, Jackson has remained remarkably consistent -- self-possessed, focused and confident. These defining qualities have been put to best use in his role as coach of the Chicago Bulls. It is certainly the role that has brought the former flower-child the most acclaim and professional success. Jackson's winning percentage of .736 as head coach of the Bulls is the best in NBA history, as is his playoff winning percentage of .733.
      In directing the Bulls to three straight league titles from 1991 to 1993, the league's all-time best record of 72-10 in 1995-96 and two more championships in 1996 and 1997, Jackson's steady hand and unpretentious leadership style brought out the best in each of his players. Firm but not severe, Jackson neither babied nor bullied his players. Instead he gave them the opportunity to learn for themselves how to succeed -- and how to win as a team. Jackson reached 200 wins faster than any coach in league history.
      Jackson did something that Wilt Chamberlain's coaches had been unable to do -- build a consistently winning team around a megastar. With help from his assistants, Jackson designed complex offensive and defensive strategies that actually enhanced Michael Jordan's greatness by making his teammates better players. A court full of competent performers, Jackson reasoned, would make it tougher for opposing teams to stop Jordan. He was right. Jordan's scoring dropped slightly after Jackson took over, but the superstar's all-around effectiveness soared.
      Jackson's 13-year playing career, spent primarily with the Knicks, prepared him for such a challenge. With stars Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Cazzie Russell, New York won not by featuring individual greatness but by maximizing collective achievement. Jackson, a low-scoring specialty player, learned to understand the value of each player as a part of the whole and learned how an overdependence on any one player can cause a team to fall apart.
      With his broad, pointy shoulders and herky-jerky movements, "Jax" was an oddity on the court, although in true Jackson style he used these qualities to his advantage. He also picked up valuable experience as an award-winning head coach in the Continental Basketball Association and as an assistant coach in Chicago under the fiery Doug Collins.
      Jackson was born in 1945 in rural Montana to two fundamentalist evangelical preachers who had sworn an oath of poverty. (Jackson believes it was the many years of carrying buckets of water down from the mountains that gave rise to his improbably wide shoulders.) The Jacksons denied young Philip access to movies, comic books, dances and other perceived evils; his only diversions were music and sports. In addition to attending numerous church services every week, Jackson learned the piano and trombone and became an excellent all-around athlete. In high school he was a split end, defensive lineman and linebacker on the gridiron; a fireballing pitcher and first baseman on the diamond; and a rangy, aggressive center on the hardwood.
      Angular, thin and already at his full height of 6-8, Jackson played semiprofessional baseball in South Dakota in his late teens. His wildness on the mound kept hitters on their toes but prevented Jackson from advancing very far on his college baseball team at North Dakota. On the basketball court, however, Jackson used every inch of his arms, legs and shoulders to become a menace. He dove for so many loose balls that he became known as "the Mop." He played defense like a point guard. And his strange-looking, lefthanded hook shot carried him to an average of 27.4 points per game as a senior in 1966-67. Under future NBA coach Bill Fitch, the Fighting Sioux consistently went to the NAIA postseason tournament.
      In the classroom Jackson took courses in philosophy, religion and psychology. He eventually broke away from his parents' spiritual yoke and explored Eastern thought-sometimes with the help of psychoactive drugs. He grew his hair and a beard and developed an affinity for the Grateful Dead and author Carlos Castaneda as well as a distaste for meat.
      With Reed and Russell already aboard, New York obtained the makings of a championship team in one summer. In the 1967 NBA Draft, the Knicks picked Walt Frazier in the first round and Jackson in the second (17th overall). And they finally got Bill Bradley, a Rhodes scholar from Princeton coming off two years of studying at Oxford. The brawny Dave DeBusschere was added during the 1968-69 season, giving the Knicks a plethora of stars who were taught how to play as a team by Coach Red Holzman. The Knicks won league titles in 1970 and 1973.
      Jackson, called "Head 'n' Shoulders" by his teammates, missed the first championship season after undergoing spinal fusion surgery. (He traveled with the team that year and took pictures.) Never a great scoring forward--his 11.1 points per game in 1973-74 was his highest output--Jackson positively annoyed opponents with his awkward, almost klutzy defensive and rebounding style. Many fans, even some in the home crowd, poked fun at Jackson's ungainly appearance.
      On the other hand, many less-traditional Knicks fans who frequented the cheap seats were drawn to Jackson, who played all-out every minute, rode his bicycle to games at Madison Square Garden from his Manhattan loft, and insisted on keeping his longish hair and unconventional beliefs.
      Jackson played in New York until 1978, when he went to the New Jersey Nets as a player-assistant coach. He retired in 1980 after 13 years in the league, having averaged 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds over 807 contests. All the while, he worked on Native American reservations during summers and struck up a friendship and political rapport with Bradley, who was later elected to the U.S. Senate.
      At age 35 and unsure of his long-term future, Jackson headed back to Montana with his family and got a job running a health club near beautiful Flathead Lake. After a year he rejoined the Nets and did some color commentary on television. He didn't like it. He returned to basketball a year later, taking a job as head coach of the Continental Basketball Association's Albany Patroons. Now 40, Jackson retained many of the beliefs he adopted during the 1960s. He and his family rented a house near Woodstock, a full 55 miles from the arena where Jackson worked. In the summers he coached in Puerto Rico--in part, to bring in some extra money.
      In five seasons in Albany, Jackson steered the Patroons to a league title and won a CBA Coach of the Year Award. Also during that time, he was invited to interview for an assistant coaching job with the Chicago Bulls. Jackson showed up wearing a feathered Panama hat he had bought one summer in Puerto Rico. Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause liked Jackson but hated his hat; he hired someone else.
      Jackson quit the Patroons after the 1986-87 season with a 117-90 career record, filed for unemployment benefits, and kicked around the idea of going to graduate school to study psychology. That fall Krause called again and suggested that Jackson come in sans hat and stubble. This time Jackson got the job. "It was time to conform," Jackson told The New York Times in 1992.
      Jordan had just won his first of seven straight scoring titles in 1986-87, but under Doug Collins the Bulls had gone 40-42. Collins' essential philosophy was, "Give the ball to Michael and get out of the way." Jordan averaged 35.0 points in 1987-88, but Jackson knew that was no way to win an NBA title.
      The turning point came on December 17, 1988. The Bulls trailed by 14 points when the combative, high-strung Collins was ejected early in the game. With Jackson taking over in what normally is a placeholder role, something strange and wonderful happened. He implemented a different defensive approach and told his players to just go out and play. Forward Horace Grant later told The New York Times, "It was like we were let out of a cage. We won the game because we were so relaxed -- and we knew that Phil should become a head coach."
      The following spring the Bulls lost to Detroit in the conference finals. Two months later Collins was out and Jackson was in. Big changes were quick in coming. First came an emphasis on defense. Jackson unleashed Jordan and previously underutilized forward Scottie Pippen ("the Dobermans") on opposing teams through relentless presses, traps and double-teams.
      Then Jackson moved away from the popular isolation-style game to a highly patterned offensive approach. He worked with assistant coach Tex Winter on implementing the "triple post," in which constantly moving players have a variety of passing and scoring options at their disposal. When running on all cylinders, "it's an art show," Jackson told The New York Times. The system's inherent unselfishness harkened back to Jackson's days with the Knicks and was reflective of his own personal and professional ideals.
      The challenge, of course, was incorporating Jordan's open-court wizardry into such a system. With a combination of tact, diplomacy, intelligence, and, when necessary, some friendly orders, Jackson pulled it off. "I'm not a controller," Jackson once told HOOP magazine, "but I'm strict." Jordan, of course, was still allowed to score pretty much whenever he wanted. But other players were expected to do more; when they did, Jordan became even more deadly and the Bulls became virtually unbeatable.
      Knicks Coach Pat Riley, who oversaw a dynasty of his own while with the Los Angeles Lakers, said of Jackson in a 1991 Sports Illustrated interview: "A man with a great perspective, a great base of reference, a lot of dimensions. These days, coaches have to offer more. You've got to bring more to the table. And Phil Jackson brings more to the table than most coaches I can think of."
      In fact, Jackson acknowledged in HOOP that he brought so much to the table that he didn't always "take the linear path, the logical path." Rather, he "sometimes [used] random selection and intuition." Then again, all the great coaches have been known to play their instincts instead of the percentages. Not all the greats, however, cleansed their offices with Native American smudge-sticks made of sage.
      By 1990-91 Jordan's scoring was down to 31.5 points per game. Beyond Jordan, the Bulls as a team were truly something to watch. They finished the season at 61-21 and brought home the 25-year-old franchise's first title with a five-game spanking of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. In 1991-92 the Bulls repeated as champions, like the Pistons and Lakers immediately before them. Their 67-15 regular-season record was the fourth best ever.
      The following year, despite a spate of injuries and a weakened bench, the Bulls established themselves as one of the league's all-time great teams by taking their third straight title. The only clubs to match the feat were the Boston Celtics, who won eight in a row from 1959 to 1966, and the Minneapolis Lakers, who won three straight from 1952 to 1954.
      After that season Jordan shocked the basketball world by retiring. Against all expectations, Jackson coaxed 55 wins out of his "Air-less" team in 1993-94, then guided the Bulls to the conference semifinals. Chicago battled the Knicks in a tough seven-game series, falling in the final contest, 87-77.
      The 1994-95 seasons started without Jordan but ended with him, as he came out of retirement and rejoined the club in March. The Bulls put on a late run and finished with 47 wins, but lost in the conference semifinals once again, this time to Orlando.
      The 1995-96 season may well have been Jackson's finest effort. With Jordan on hand from the start of training camp, and having dedicated himself to once again proving his greatness, the challenge was to fit all the pieces in around him, and Jackson proved up to the task. Pippen settled comfortably back in his role as the team's second star, Luc Longley assumed the pivot role formerly played by Bill Cartwright, Ron Harper emerged as a defensive force and Steve Kerr became the designated three-point shooter. Finally, in what would prove to be a daring coup, the Bulls obtained controversial Dennis Rodman in preseason. Jackson handled Rodman to perfection, blending his talents with the rest of the players and giving him enough personal freedom so he did not feel repressed.
      The results were spectacular. Jordan won the scoring title for the eighth time and Rodman won his fifth consecutive rebounding crown. The Bulls roared through the regular season to a 72-10 record, the best in NBA history, three games better than the mark of 69-13 set by the 1971-72 Lakers. In the playoffs they lost just one game in the first three rounds, then raced to a 3-0 lead in the NBA Finals against Seattle before losing a pair of games prior to wrapping up the title in Game 6. Chicago's combined record, for the regular season and playoffs, was 87-13, the best in NBA history.
      For an encore, the Bulls came back and won 69 games in 1996-97 to match the second-best mark in league history, and successfully defended their NBA title by beating the Utah Jazz in six games in the 1997 NBA Finals-their fifth Western Conference rival in five trips to the title series.
      Longtime Bulls guard John Paxson, who hit the memorable three-pointer to wrap up the 1992 championship against Phoenix, explained the key to Jackson's success to The New York Times: "He's so confident that he doesn't need to rant and rave. He's even-keeled, and it's rubbed off -- it's why we play with the poise we do."

C A R E E R C O A C H I N G REGULAR SEASON POSTSEASON

YEAR TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT WINS LOSSES PCT

89-90 Chicago 55 27 .671 10 6 .625

90-91 Chicago 61 21 .744 15 2 .882

91-92 Chicago 67 15 .817 15 7 .682

92-93 Chicago 57 25 .695 15 4 .789

93-94 Chicago 55 27 .671 6 4 .600

94-95 Chicago 47 35 .573 5 5 .500

95-96 Chicago 72 10 .878 15 3 .833

96-97 Chicago 69 13 .841 15 4 .789

97-98 Chicago 62 20 .756 15 6 .714

99-00 L.A. Lakers 67 15 .817 14 7 .667

TOTALS 612 208 .746 125 48 .723

C A R E E R C O A C H I N G		REGULAR SEASON			POSTSEASON
YEAR	TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	PCT	WINS	LOSSES	PCT
89-90	Chicago	55	27	.671	10	6	.625
90-91	Chicago	61	21	.744	15	2	.882
91-92	Chicago	67	15	.817	15	7	.682
92-93	Chicago	57	25	.695	15	4	.789
93-94	Chicago	55	27	.671	6	4	.600
94-95	Chicago	47	35	.573	5	5	.500
95-96	Chicago	72	10	.878	15	3	.833
96-97	Chicago	69	13	.841	15	4	.789
97-98	Chicago	62	20	.756	15	6	.714
99-00	L.A. Lakers	67	15	.817	14	7	.667
TOTALS		612	208	.746	125	48	.723