Bulls coach Jim Boylen remains undeterred by past failure
CHICAGO - In Utah his players and supporters called him "Jimmy Ball."
"Hey, Jimmy Ball," a fan would holler at him in the grocery store. "How's the team looking?"
Jim Boylen so loved the nickname, he copyrighted it. It's still part of his Gmail address.
"I think people in Utah liked my passion," Boylen said from his office at the Advocate Center, where the Bulls train. "I loved it there, and people were great to us. We hung a banner, man."
In Boylen's second season, the Utes shared the regular-season Mountain West title with BYU and New Mexico. They won the conference tournament and earned a No. 5 seed in the 2009 NCAA Tournament. Times were good.
"I loved living there," he said of Salt Lake City. "It's beautiful. My girls were young. We had a great house by a park. Out my window was a view
