Jim O'Donnell: A grateful goodbye - Stan Albeck, Michael Jordan and the telling look

STAN ALBECK WAS the head coach of the Bulls for a solitary season - 1985-86.

It was Michael Jordan's second year with the team.

Albeck had the extreme misfortune to have His Ascending Airness break a foot in the third game of the season.

Albeck died Thursday at age 89 in his beloved San Antonio. It is impossible for some incredible memories not to come back.

He was hired in part because he had always shown a consistent respect beforehand to Jerry Krause. Not all NBA mainstays did.

They were back-channeled through Bradley University. Albeck had been a reserve point guard on some very good teams. Krause was a pesty annoyance around the basketball and baseball programs.

ALBECK ALSO ASSISTED The Daily Herald in nailing an impossible deadline on one of the most bizarre evenings in the history of the Bulls.

It was Wednesday, March 12, 1986, and rumors were rife that Jordan may or may not be returning for the final five weeks of the season.

Shortly after 7 p.m., Tim Hallam notified Chicago media there would be a 9:15 p.m. news conference at Jerry Reinsdorf's Skokie office to discuss Jordan's future.

The media gathered. The potential impact of whatever was going to be announced was enormous.

It turned out that Jordan, Albeck, Reinsdorf and Krause, along with Jordan agent David Falk and Bulls orthopod Dr. John Hefferon, were behind closed doors or on speaker phones.

Later, some confirmed the conversation got pointedly heated.

Jordan - his foot essentially 100% healed - wanted back immediately.

Krause and Reinsdorf, with supportive medical projections about risk/reward in hand, wanted him to sit the rest of the season. That would assure the team a choice draft pick.

A FEW MINUTES BEFORE 10 P.M., primarily for the benefit of TV news crews, Hallam came out and announced that the meeting was "continuing."

The Daily Herald had a drop-dead sports deadline of 1 a.m. in those days - the most favorable in the Chicago region. The insouciant had a feeling the meeting was going to press right up against it.

During a break around 10:45, Albeck stepped out to go to the men's room.

The insouciant followed and got a complete update.

Albeck said, "Michael's not budging. He's even talking about asking to be traded."

The insouciant thought very quickly and asked, "Stan, do me a huge favor. If everybody gathers to make the announcement anytime after 12:30, find my face and make eye contact. If he's returning, look up for a second.

"If he's not, look down."

Albeck chuckled and said, "This is real 'Get Smart!' stuff. Couldn't I just call your shoe phone?"

ALL WRITERS WERE hammering away on rather primitive portable computers.

Stock background could be written easily. It was the first three or four paragraphs - the breaking news - that would be critical.

Sure enough, at 12:50 a.m., the media was ushered into the conference room for the delayed payoff.

The insouciant located a phone in the rear of the room so the Radio Shack TRS-80 connection could be made.

Before Reinsdorf or Krause said a word, Albeck looked up.

The Daily Herald desk received copy at 12:57 a.m., the first time in his NBA career that Jordan was "Baaacck!!!"

HIS RETURN WAS TEMPERED by a limited-minutes scheme concocted by Team Reinsdorf. The Bulls promptly lost five straight.

But with Jordan's heart taking command and Albeck attempting to abide by the crazy Reinsdorf-Krause rules, the Bulls went 6-4 down the stretch.

By thin air, they earned a No. 8 seed in the NBA-East playoffs - and a best-of-five date vs. the Boston Celtics, a mere 40-1 at Boston Garden that season.

Game 1, Jordan scored 49 points and the Bulls lost.

Game 2 - Jordan's "Beatles on Ed Sullivan" breakout national performance - No. 23 scored 63 in a double OT loss.

During the first overtime, with Jordan somewhere in the 50s and counting, a CBS-friendly timeout was called.

Albeck, clipboard in hand, turned to his right to face the first five people on courtside media row - Hallam, assistant Corrine Zartler, Mark Vancil, the insouciant and Bob Sakamoto.

He smiled that corn-eating grin, honed in Downstate Chenoa, Ill., motioned toward Jordan and told the wide-eyed quintet:

"Like I (bleeping) have something to tell him."

LESS THAN A MONTH LATER, Reinsdorf and Krause rambled through some venal semantics and fired Albeck.

Shortly after, he caught an odd break when Dick Versace got his whistle in a midsummer ringer at Bradley and BU quickly hired Albeck.

He inherited the great Hersey Hawkins, merely married Versace's offense to his own with Jordan's Bulls and George Gervin's Spurs and the Braves were an NCAA tournament team.

Albeck returned to the NBA in the '90s, working for the revered Lenny Wilkens. He was one of the most respected assistant coaches in the game.

While with the Raptors, he suffered a debilitating stroke in the locker room before a 2001 game. His recovery was arduous and never fully complete.

AT THE 1948 PONTIAC CHRISTMAS TOURNAMENT, playing for Chenoa High, he met a gorgeous cheerleader from the host school named Phyllis Mann.

They married in 1952. She was then there every dribble of the way, eventually with five children, until her passing in October 2017. That's 65 years, including 18 basketball moves.

They say a sports writer falls in love and stays in love with the first "good guy" coach or manager he or she ever covers, kind of like a high school romance.

In one fellow's career, George Allen and Kevin Loughery came first. Both were extremely engaging men - affable, quirky and big-league to the gills.

Then came Stan Albeck.

With his nasal twang and folksy realism, he had a transcendent genius for sprinkling professional interface with trust, fun and such elevating life force.

And he proved that the old adage about a sports writer's first professional love is true.

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.