Phoenix Coach Alvin Gentry is a normal guy, and that's not average Try as hard as maybe it appears here at times, I don't dislike everyone in sports. How could I? I've spent time with Alvin Gentry. Sifting through the thousands of athletes, coaches and administrators over the decades of having done this, it's the ones who prove to be human who stand out. Too often it is an athlete being an athlete and the gap widens with reality as fame, money and the crowd of admirers swells. "My dad passed away three years ago," Gentry says, "But I clearly remember something he liked to say: 'It's hard work to be a jerk.'" You have no idea. "Grant Hill and I were talking about this," he says. I wonder if there's a gene in some players that makes them be a jerk. It's so much easier to be nice to people. Isn't it innate in all of us anyway to be nice to everyone? There are better coaches than our Pollyanna, of course, and a record book full of those who have won more games than they have lost. Gentry can't say that. So how has he lasted so long in such a competitive business, working steadily in the NBA for 23 years, a head coach for more than 600 games? "I think he's a good coach," says Lakers Coach Mike Brown. A good guy, and he's got presence. Brown got his job as a San Antonio assistant, which led to a championship ring while replacing Gentry, who went on to coach the Clippers. When you say it out loud, as I did Tuesday night, you can understand why Brown was laughing so hard. It's hard to make a case, I guess, to just write about Gentry because he's a good guy. But isn't it nice on occasion to note civility with bad manners so often being criticized? Besides, I like the fact he tried working a regular job - once. Lasted six months as a shoe salesman; making the Clippers' job not look so bad to him later. Ask most fans, though, and he's probably just a name in their memory bank. After all, someone has to coach the teams that don't have any chance to win year after year. Gentry is coaching one of those teams this year, the Phoenix Suns. It's not a very good team and because Steve Nash and Hill are so old, he doesn't always play them when the team plays back to back. The Suns begin a road trip Sunday in San Antonio, move on to Chicago, New York, Boston and Dallas before being declared dead. Gentry laughs; he knows dead. He was the Clippers' head coach in 2000, and buried before the end of his third season.