Jerry Krause was born in 1939 and grew up in Chicago. He played high school baseball as a catcher at Taft High School in Chicago and received a scholarship to Bradley University where he worked for basketball coaching staff and played baseball until he suffered a shoulder injury.  Jerry was inducted into the Bradley University Athletic Hall of Fame.

After college he went to work as a scout with the Baltimore Bullets. Early on Jerry gained a reputation of being able to eye talent as evidenced by the drafting of two Hall of Fame players, Earl Monroe and Wes Unseld, and three Rookies of the Year in Monroe, Unseld and Alvan Adams and the only player whose number has been retired by the Bulls-Jerry Sloan.

After a few years with Baltimore, Jerry worked as a scout with the Phoenix Suns and Chicago Bulls in the 1970s before he left pro basketball to scout pro baseball instead. He played major roles in moves that brought Ozzie Guillen, Tom Seaver, Greg Luzinski, Ed Farmer, Julio Cruz, Greg Walker, Daryl Boston, Ron Karkovice to the White Sox.  He was scouting for the Chicago White Sox when in 1985 he received a call from new Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf to join the Bulls as their new General Manager and once again work in pro basketball. 

Jerry began to build a champion around Michael Jordan, who was already considered one of the greatest players in the NBA.  He is credited with surrounding Jordan with the role players that finally brought the Bulls an NBA championship.  He was voted NBA Executive of the Year 1987-88.  He drafted Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, B.J. Armstrong, Will Perdue, and Toni Kukoc; signed John Paxson, Treant Tucker and Scott Williams as free agents and traded for Bill Cartwright. 

In 2003, Krause retired as GM.  He is the only man is sports history to be an executive in both Major League Baseball and Basketball.  He now lives in suburban Chicago with his wife and appears occasionally on sports radio as an analyst.