Jim Harrick
From Hoopedia
Jim Harrick (born July 25, 1938 in Charleston, West Virginia) is a former college basketball head coach who coached at Pepperdine University, UCLA, the University of Rhode Island and the University of Georgia.
Harrick graduated in 1960 from Morris Harvey College, now known as the University of Charleston. He is of Lebanese ancestry.
Harrick's coaching career began at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California where he served as an assistant coach from 1964-69 and as head coach from 1970-73. He was then hired as an assistant coach at Utah State from 1974-77. Harrick then spent two seasons as an assistant coach at UCLA from 1978-79. His first collegiate head coaching job was at Pepperdine University in 1979, where he led the school to four NCAA Division I Men's Tournament appearances and was a conference coach of the year four times.
In 1988, he returned to UCLA to assume head coaching duties after the firing of Walt Hazzard. During the recruiting period before his first season, he recruited Don MacLean which was the most significant recruit to commit to UCLA in several years and helped start a revival of the basketball program. During the 1994-95 season, he led UCLA to the school's eleventh national championship in school history and its first since the 1974-75 season. Shortly before the start of the 1996-97 season, he was accused of falsifying receipts at a student-athlete recruiting dinner, although the NCAA exonerated Harrick of this offense. UCLA fired him for lying to university investigators. He is the second-winningest coach in UCLA history, behind only John Wooden.
After a one-year hiatus, Harrick returned to coaching by accepting the head coach position at Rhode Island. He coached the Rams for two seasons (from 1997-99), where in both years they qualified for the NCAA Tournament. During the 1998 tournament, the Rams upset Kansas in the second round and reached the Midwest Regional finals but were defeated by Stanford 79-77. In his second season, he managed to recruit Lamar Odom and led the Rams to their first Atlantic Ten Conference title.
After the season, he left URI to become the head coach at the University of Georgia. He served there for four seasons (1999-00 through 2002-03), leading the Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament twice following a losing record. He resigned from his position and retired from coaching after several scandals during his reign at Georgia came to light.
After Georgia, Harrick worked as a scout for the NBA's Denver Nuggets and helped develop basketball in China.
On June 13, 2006, Harrick accepted the recently created head coaching position for the Bakersfield Jam, an NBA Development League expansion team. Harrick resigned for personal reasons in December 2007, after the Jam struggled to a 2-14 record.
He is now serving as a college basketball analyst for the southern California affiliate of Fox Sports Net, FSN Prime Ticket.
