NEW YORK — Apparently, there was a pact all along . . . Jerry Sloan came in around the same time with Hosni Mubarak, and damned if he isn't going out with him.

Unlike Mubarak, Sloan, the longest-tenured coach in North American professional sports, can take a hint . . . minus mob scenes to facilitate his decision-making process or ESPN to hype it.

After 22-plus seasons of completely controlling how the Jazz players conducted themselves in his presence on and off the court, his mind and his "energy-drained" body signaled the authoritarian was fighting a losing battle.