hard to get into 1st gear

No throw out bearing rides on the input shaft, the front bearing retainer has a sleeve that covers the input shaft and that is what the throw out bearing rides on, this way it does not move untill it slides foward and touches the pressure plate levers. Then only the bearing portion of the throw out bearing assembly touches and spins allowing you to release the pressure on the disc, this is where the adjustment comes in when travel needs to be added if the disc is not getting released 100% by the pressure plate which will cause hard shifting. Mopar, ferd, chebby, imports, the theory is the same.

I don't think I am saying anything different than you. The sleeve you mention is part of the bearing assembly. If the clutch rod is not adjusted correctly, the bearing can remain in constant contact with the pressure plate fingers and spin long enough to overheat, burn off the grease and then start spinning the sleeve. Then the spinning sleeve also causes the input shaft to rotate, causing problems getting it into gear. I've seen this happen many times on Chebbies.

When all things are adjusted and working properly, your assessment is correct, but when something is wrong, as this OP was saying, then something must be causing the problem.

In the end, it seems that his problem was a simple misadjustment of the clutch rod. The simplest of fixes.