Jerry Tarkanian, who built Nevada-Las Vegas into a national powerhouse in college basketball with an insatiable will to win, created the persona of Tark the Shark and ignited a long-running feud with the NCAA. over accusations that he ran outlaw programs at three different universities, died on Wednesday in Las Vegas. He was 84.
His son Danny announced his death via Twitter.
Tarkanian was one of the college game’s most successful and colorful coaches in his 19 seasons at UNLV, a baldheaded, sunken-eyed presence on the bench nervously chewing on towels during games.
In his 31 years as a major-college coach, he won more than 700 games, fashioning a high-scoring running game and smothering defensive play while recruiting junior college players that other coaches had ignored.