July 27, 2004

Auburn Hills, Mich. - Detroit Pistons President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars announced on Monday that the team has signed Gar Heard, Phil Ford and Pat Sullivan as assistant coaches. Per team policy, terms of the contracts were not disclosed.

Ford and Sullivan served as assistant coaches at the University of Carolina in the 1990s along with Dave Hanners, who also is an assistant coach with the Pistons under former Tar Heel player and Hall of Famer Larry Brown. Former Carolina player John Kuester, a longtime assistant to Brown with both the Philadelphia 76ers and the Pistons, left the Detroit franchise earlier this summer to take an asisstant coaching job with the New Jersey Nets.

Ford joins the Pistons coaching staff after serving as an assistant coach at North Carolina under Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge from 1988 until 2000. Most recently, Ford spent the last four years as a vice president in the Rams Club, the non-profit organization that provides grant-in-aids for UNC's varsity student-athletes.

He won the Wooden Award as a senior in 1978 and was a first-team All-America on three occasions. He was the ACC Player of the Year in 1977 and 1978. The highlight of his NBA playing career was being named NBA Rookie of the Year in 1979 as a member of the Kansas City Kings. Ford played seven seasons in the NBA, averaging 11.6 points and 6.4 assists in 482 games.

As a UNC assistant coach, the Rocky Mount, N.C., native was part of six Final Four appearances, six NCAA Regional titles and five ACC Tournament titles. He coached 12 NBA first-round draft picks, including current Piston Rasheed Wallace, 1998 National Player of the Year Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, George Lynch and Jerry Stackhouse.

Sullivan served as the club's video coordinator/assistant coach last season and will move to the bench for the first time in 2004-05. The Bogota, New Jersey native has 11 years of basketball experience under his belt as either a player or coach. As a player at North Carolina, Sullivan played in three NCAA Final Fours (1991, 1993, 1995) and coached in three as an assistant coach at UNC (1997, 1998, 2000). He played at North Carolina with current Piston Rasheed Wallace as well as former Pistons Jerry Stackhouse and Hubert Davis.

Heard joins the Pistons for the second time as an assistant coach, previously serving as an assistant on Alvin Gentry's staff during the 1998-99 season. Since his time with the Pistons, Heard was head coach of the Washington Wizards during part of the 1999-2000 season and was an assistant with Atlanta under Lon Krueger. Heard brings with him 25 years of NBA experience including 11 seasons as a player, 13 as an assistant coach and one as a head coach. Heard has served as an assistant coach under Larry Brown in previous years, spending four seasons with Brown in Indiana (1993-1997) and one year in Philadelphia (1997-98).