It turns out Will Hardy worked for the Utah Jazz organization 13 years ago. Here’s how

Ever since news broke last week that Will Hardy would become the Utah Jazz’s new head coach, much has been made about the fact that he is only 34 years old.

As young as that may seem to some, it turns out Hardy has already had experience working in the Jazz organization — almost half of a lifetime ago.

On Monday afternoon, the Jazz released a snippet of an interview Hardy has done with team broadcast analyst Holly Rowe in which Hardy revealed that he was an intern on the business side of the organization during the summer of 2009 under now-team president Jim Olson.

Hardy said that the internship took place during the summer in between his junior and senior years at Williams College (he broke into the NBA as an intern with the San Antonio Spurs after graduating in 2010).

He described the eight-week experience as a “do it all” opportunity, from giving tours of Vivint Arena (it was called EnergySolutions Arena then) to working with the Salt Lake Bees.

The video snippet posted Monday showed Hardy and Olson reconnecting in person after Hardy was hired to replace Quin Snyder as head coach.

“It took a few seconds to put it together,” said Olson, who was senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Jazz at that time, according to a press release when he became team president in 2019.

“As he started talking about some of the things he was doing, helping us over at the Bees and doing tours at the arena, it all came back together. After five or 10 seconds, it all came back to me, and I was like ‘I do remember this kid.’”

The video snippet concludes with Hardy saying, “Yeah, who knew that the summer internship on the business side is a feeder program to be the head coach?”