I had a blog entry planed for this week-end and already half typed but, as I was browsing the internet in the middle of a sleepless night, I learnt something I had to write about: yesterday, Friday the 20th, Larry H. Miller died. This made me think about how this person I never met or even really cared for until recently was one of the main reasons I was 8000km away from home in Salt Lake City about a year ago. Rest in Peace L.H. Miller and thank you so much!

Now comes the explanation to this unusual and mysterious message. Anyone who really knows me is aware of my passion for basketball and this long faithful relationship I have with the Utah Jazz. I’m probably not your regular nba fan and I don’t really recognize myself in the average urban street baller who wears a Lebron James’jersey and listen to Eminem. However, I am a die hard nba fan. Like many Europeans, I was blown away when I saw the Dream Team sent by the USA in 1992 to Barcelona to reclaim the basketball Olympic gold medal. In all honesty, I didn’t even know before then how many players were supposed to stand on a basketball court. But Magic, Bird, Malone, Jordan, Barkley, Stockton, Mullin, Robinson etc… were just like aliens came to earth to demonstrate how a sport becomes an art form.

I surely will talk again about how and why I became a fan of the Utah Jazz but, not even a year after I started to follow the nba, this was my team. I liked the Suns of Barkley, KJ and Majerle, I enjoyed the first seasons of the Chalotte Hornets (now based in New Orleans) but the Jazz always had something different. Something more real and meaningfull to me than anyother team. The almost unheard of long term comitment of their two stars Stockton and Malone who played 20 and 19 years for the team respectivelly. Their hard-nose down to earth coach Sloan (who currently holds a record in US pro sport with his 21th consecutive season leading the same team) reminded me of some of the facinating old school fencing coaches I knewn and admired such as my father. I guess I can’t quite explain it but the Jazz became my team and will allways be. I watched until 3.00 in the morning the All-Star game of 1994 when Stockton and Malone became co-MVP at home. I was crushed when Jordan denied twice in row a title the Jazz fought so hard for. I secretly droped a tear when Stockton retired after 20 years of ball wizzardery. I was pissed at Malone for joining the Lakers in 2003 only to forgive him later. And, almost like a pilgrim, when I crossed the Atlantic for the first time in my live last year to attend a conference in Orlando, I traveled to Salt Lake City. I saw the Energy Solution Area from inside and cheered with a crowd of strangers which I felt was like family. I was in this very same building I saw on TV so many times. I was truly moved when I faced the statues of my teenage icones in front of the arena. It was a very important moment of my life. I trip I made alone because it would only make sense to me… but it made so much sense!

Today, while I read the news of his death, I realized none of this would have happened without Larry H. Miller. This man had been a figure of the state of Utah for several decades and was, among other things, known as the owner of the Utah Jazz. He bought half of the team in the mid-80s to save them financially and prevent the franchise to move away from Salt Lake (one of the smallest market of the nba). A year and a half later, he bought the other half to try to save them once more and made them the organisation they are now. He paid a huge amount for the Delta Center a few years later to make sure Utah had as good an arena as any other team in the league. For more than two decades, he shaped the Utah Jazz on the basis of fidelity, continuity, respect and constant work. This man made the team I loved so much… and I only really realized that the day he died at age 64 from complications of diabetes.

Rest in Peace Larry H. Miller and thank you for everything. Thanks to the man without whom, I probably wouldn’t even be able to locate the state of Utah on a map of the US and thanks to the man without whom I would probably still be a basketball fan but surely not quite the same.

May the Jazz win soon the title you would have loved them to see conquere.

PS: I took a few pictures of Salt Lake City when I was there but not with my digital camera. I’ll scan them and post them some day when I’ll talk again about the Jazz… because I’m pretty sure I will.

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