Hye Sharzhoom Armenian Action
Staff Report
Famed basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian passed away at age 84 on Wednesday, February 11, at a Las Vegas-area hospital with his family by his side. He is survived by his wife, Lois, four children and seven grandchildren.
Tarkanian was born on Aug. 8, 1930, in Euclid, Ohio. His mother, Rosie, was a refugee from the genocide of Armenians growing out of World War I. In his taped Hall of Fame induction speech, Tarkanian said his mother had “fled her homeland on horseback with only the clothes on her back after her father and eldest brother were beheaded by Turkish soldiers.”
He was 13 when his father died, and his stepfather criticized his love of sports. “I would never amount to anything — so much was sports all the time,” Tarkanian recalled his stepfather saying. “I should look into becoming a barber.”
But his mother encouraged him and he went on to play basketball for Fresno State, graduating in 1955. He coached high school and junior college basketball in California before becoming Long Beach State’s coach in 1968. Tarkanian, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September 2013, coached for the Fresno State Bulldogs from 1995-2002.
“Jerry Tarkanian was a great coach, mentor and citizen in the Central Valley. Mary and I enjoyed visiting with him at Bulldog games, including when his jersey was retired at the Save Mart Center last year,” Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro said. “We at Fresno State send our deepest condolences to Lois and the entire family. His many positive contributions to Fresno State are deeply appreciated by his colleagues and friends in our community.”
The family of Coach Jerry Tarkanian requests that donations in his memory be made to the Armenian Studies Program at Fresno State, said Amy Tarkanian, the coach’s daughter-in-law.
Donations may be made online at
https://www.fresnostate.edu/advancement/giving/givenow.html (check the “Other” box and type in: Tarkanian. Or checks — payable to Fresno State Foundation (memo: Gift in Memory of Coach Tarkanian) — may be mailed to: Office of University Development, California State University, Fresno, 5244 N. Jackson Avenue, M/S KC45, Fresno, CA 93740-8023.