They may have been tough times then.
But these days University of Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan claims to have nothing but fond memories of his brief fling with the Jazz, with whom he had a couple of preseason tryout sessions in the late 1980s.
"I remember Frank Layden as one of the funniest men I've ever been around in my entire life," Donovan, who has guided his Gators into Monday's national championship game, said of the former Jazz coach, general manager and president.
"I (also) remember playing on a basketball team with the largest front line I'd ever seen — Mark Eaton, Darryl Dawkins, Thurl Bailey, Marc Iavaroni and Mel Turpin. I remember one story where we were in the locker room, right before a game, and against one wall it was Mel Turpin, Mark Eaton, Darryl Dawkins and Thurl Bailey. And Frank Layden walked in and said, 'Two of you guys get up and go to the other side of the room. I don't want the room to tip over.' "
Donovan can laugh now, as he did when asked during Final Four prep week to recall his days of trying to make it as a professional basketball player. That, though, was a time when Donovan's future career path would be determined — and it wasn't to include a long playing career in the NBA.
"Billy Donovan was the heart and soul of the Providence Friars in that really glorious run where the Friars were the underdogs," said current Jazz assistant coach Gordon Chiesa, who was an assistant at Providence when the Friars went to the 1987 Final Four. "He was grit. He was a terrific college player that mastered how to play the game."
What Donovan was not, however, was primo NBA material. The 5-foot-11, 3-point shooting guard played briefly with the New York Knicks, including 44 games in the 1987-88 season, then drifted to coaching after he failed to stick with the Jazz.
Donovan, Chiesa said, had too many physical limitations — size, speed and quickness — to stay in the NBA.
But he certainly had what he took to become a coach, including tutelage from a Providence staff that included head coach Rick Pitino, who is now coach and president of the Boston Celtics; first assistant Chiesa; second assistant Stu Jackson, now general manager of the Vancouver Grizzlies; part-time assistant Herb Sendek, now head coach at North Carolina State; and young graduate assistant Jeff Van Gundy, now head coach of the Knicks.
"He played like a coach, so it's no surprise (he's become a good one)," said Chiesa, who was hardly shocked to see Donovan get his Gators to the Final Four. "Plus, he was groomed by us."