Legendary Utah Jazz coach and GM Frank Layden dies at 93

Legendary Utah Jazz coach and general manager Frank Layden has died. He was 93.

When the Jazz made the move to Utah from New Orleans in 1981, Layden came with them. He served as general manager of the team from 1979 to 1987 and head coach from 1981 to 1989.

He’s turned around a then-ailing Jazz — eventually taking the team to five NBA playoff championships.

Layden was always a man with a laugh. He joked when the NBA Coaches Association gave him the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.

“I don't really believe I deserve this award,” he quipped. “But having come from and having reached a high level of mediocrity in the coaching profession, on behalf of all the C students in the world I’m going to take it anyway.”

Born in New York Jan. 5, 1932, Layden said he grew up playing basketball on the playgrounds of Brooklyn and saw it as a way to get a university scholarship. He played at Niagara University and went on to coach there. He led the team to its first NCAA championship in 1970.

Later in the decade, he served as assistant coach for the NBA Atlanta Hawks.

And he was anything but “mediocre.” In 1984, Layden won NBA coach of the year, executive of the year and the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. The NBA called it a “rare feat” to be recognized with all three in the same year.

“Frank Layden made a lasting impact on the Jazz, the state of Utah, and the NBA,” the Jazz said in a statement Wednesday. “There will never be another like him. Our thoughts go out to his family as we join in mourning his loss and celebrating his life. Rest easy, Coach.”

For Layden, it was about teamwork. He built the Jazz to include greats like John Stockton and Karl Malone. He also wasn’t afraid to trade away players. In 1982, the team needed cash to make payroll, so Layden came up with the idea of sending their new No. 3 draft pick Dominique Wilkins to the Atlanta Hawks for $1 million.

Known for his own toughness courtside, that didn’t mean Layden wasn’t having fun along the way. Even though he said at times former Jazz owner Larry Miller may have resented it.

“Life is too short and there’s only going to be one winner,” he told Craig Bolerjack on the Utah Jazz podcast Courtside. “We’re gonna give it our best shot, but in the end, we’re going to have the most fun. Playing for me is going to be fun.”

When he retired in 1989 after 33 years, he said it was because he wasn’t actually having fun anymore. Fights over players contracts and vicious fans had taken away from the culture of basketball he loved.

But Layden never gave up on Utah.

He said he stayed because of the people and because his family was here. He and Barbara, his wife of 68 years, had three children — including two who followed him to the court. Scott Layden served as Jazz assistant coach and general manager for both the Jazz and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Mike Layden joined his father as assistant coach for the WNBA’s then-Utah Starzz when Frank came out of retirement to coach women for the first time in the 1998-1999 season.

And Frank Layden kept having fun in the community. A loyal Salt Lake Bees fan, he would lead the ballpark in singing at the 7th inning stretch. For more than two decades, he also served as chairman of the Rotary Club of Sugar House’s chili open golf fundraiser. In 2021, he was inducted into the Utah Boys & Girls Club Hall of Fame, while at the same time earning the national distinction.

Layden had been a member of the Boys & Girls Club as a child himself. In a press release at the time of the award, he shared what he had learned.

“The Boys Club taught us how to win, how to lose, how to accept success and how to live with defeat. It made us stronger,” he said

It’s a lesson he brought to basketball — and to Utah for over four decades.