Jim Harrick

Jim Harrick
Sport(s)	Basketball
Biographical details
Born	(1938-07-25) July 25, 1938 Charleston, West Virginia
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1979–1988 1988–1996 1997-1999 1999-2003 2006-2007	Pepperdine UCLA Rhode Island Georgia Bakersfield Jam
Head coaching record
Overall	470-235
Accomplishments and honors
Championships NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship: (1995) Pac-10 Regular Season Championship (1992, 1995, 1996) West Coast Athletic Conference Regular Season Championship (1981-1983, 1985, 1986) Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship (1999)
Awards Naismith College Coach of the Year (1995) Pac-10 Coach of the Year (1992, 1995, 1996) West Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year (1982, 1983, 1985, 1986)

Jim Harrick (born July 25, 1938) is an American former basketball coach who coached at Pepperdine University, UCLA, the University of Rhode Island and the University of Georgia over a combined total of 23 seasons.

Biography

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Harrick graduated in 1960 from Morris Harvey College, now known as the University of Charleston. He is of Lebanese ancestry. On November 20, 2009 Sally Lee Harrick, his wife of 49 years, died aged 70 from complications of scleroderma.

College coaching career

Harrick's coaching career began at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California where he served as an assistant coach from 1964–1969 and as head coach from 1970–1973. He was then hired as an assistant coach at Utah State from 1974–1977. Harrick then spent two seasons as an assistant coach at UCLA from 1978–1979. His first collegiate head coaching job was at Pepperdine University in 1979, where he led the school to four NCAA Tournament appearances and was a conference coach of the year four times.

UCLA

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 1994–1995 season, he led UCLA to the school's eleventh national championship, 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. Harrick did not tell the athletic department accurately about who attended a recruiting dinner with a $1000 expense report from Monty's Steakhouse, where two extra current team members joined the table. He is the third-winningest coach in UCLA history, behind John Wooden and UCLA's current coach, Ben Howland.

Rhode Island

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 10 Conference title. Actually Lamar was recruited in 1997,but was not able to play until the Fall semester of 1998.

Georgia

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 public light.

Later career

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 head coaching position for the recently-created Bakersfield Jam, a 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 Prime Ticket, the Southern California affiliate of Fox Sports Net.

Controversy

Harrick was investigated at UCLA and fired for filing false expense reports. Harrick says he has a letter from the NCAA exonerating him from any wrong-doing regarding this incident.[1]

At Georgia, Harrick's son, Jim Harrick, Jr., a Georgia assistant, got into trouble for paying $300 in expenses for one of his players, Tony Cole. He also gave an "A" to Cole, Rashad Wright and Chris Daniels for a basketball strategy class even though they never attended the class. After the story broke, Georgia pulled out of the 2003 SEC Tournament and withdrew from postseason consideration. The school suspended Harrick, Jr. on February 28, 2003 and fired him five days later. Harrick, Sr. was suspended on March 10 and resigned on March 27 after being told his contract wouldn't be renewed.

An NCAA investigation not only substantiated the previously mentioned violations, but found that six players didn't pay for over $1,500 of long-distance telephone calls in December 2001, but Georgia didn't report the violations until July 2003. In 2004, the NCAA placed Georgia on four years' probation for the violations. It also forced the Bulldogs to vacate half of its wins from 2001–02 and all of its wins from 2002–03—30 games in all. Harrick, Jr. was slapped with a seven-year "show-cause" order for his role in the academic fraud, as well as telling two of the players involved to lie to the NCAA. The "show-cause" effectively blackballed him from the college ranks until 2011 at the earliest.

Head coaching record

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Pepperdine (West Coast Athletic Conference) (1979–1988)
1979-80	Pepperdine	17-11	9-7	T-5th	NIT
1980-81	Pepperdine	16-12	11-3	T-1st
1981-82	Pepperdine	22-7	14-0	1st	NCAA Second Round
1982-83	Pepperdine	20-9	10-2	1st	NCAA First Round
1983-84	Pepperdine	15-13	6-6	T-4th
1984-85	Pepperdine	23-9	11-1	1st	NCAA First Round
1985-86	Pepperrdine	25-5	13-1	1st	NCAA First Round
1986-87	Pepperdine	12-18	5-9	7th
1987-88	Pepperdine	17-13	8-6	4th
Pepperdine:		167-97	87-35
UCLA (Pacific 10 Conference) (1988–1996)
1988-89	UCLA	21-10	13-5	3rd	NCAA Second Round
1989-90	UCLA	22-11	11-7	4th	NCAA Sweet Sixteen
1990-91	UCLA	23-9	11-7	2nd	NCAA First Round
1991-92	UCLA	28-5	16-2	1st	NCAA Elite Eight
1992-93	UCLA	22-11	11-7	3rd	NCAA Second Round
1993-94	UCLA	21-7	13-5	2nd	NCAA First Round
1994-95	UCLA	32-1	17-1	1st	NCAA Champion
1995-96	UCLA	23-8	16-2	1st	NCAA First Round
UCLA:		192-62	108-36
Rhode Island (Atlantic 10 Conference) (1997–1999)
1997-98	Rhode Island	25-9	12-4	2nd (East)	NCAA Elite Eight
1998-99	Rhode Island	20-13	10-6	2nd (East)	NCAA First Round
Rhode Island:		45-22	22-10
Georgia (Southeastern Conference) (1999–2003)
1999-2000	Georgia	10-20	3-13	6th (East)
2000-01	Georgia	16-15	9-7	3rd (East)	NCAA First Round
2001-02	Georgia	22-10*	10-6*	T-1st (East)*	NCAA Second Round*
2002-03	Georgia	19-8*	11-5*	3rd (East)
Georgia:		67-53**	33-31**
Total:		471-234
National champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference tournament champion       Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference division champion

*Georgia vacated 11 wins in 2001–02 and all of its wins in 2002–03, as well as its share of the 2002 SEC East title and its 2002 NCAA Tournament appearance, due to an academic fraud scandal. Official record for 2001–02 is 11–10 (0–6 SEC), official record for 2002–03 is 0–8 (0–5 SEC).
**Record at Georgia is 37–53 (3–30 SEC) without vacated games.

Awards

• 1999: Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship (Rhode Island)
• 1995: NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship (UCLA)
• 1995: National Coach of the Year (Naismith, NABC)
• 1992, 1995-1996: Pac 10 Conference Championship (UCLA)
• 1992, 1995-1996: Pac 10 Coach of the Year (UCLA)
• 1990: Morris Harvey College-University of Charleston Golden Eagle Sports Hall of Fame
• 1981-1983, 1985-1986: West Coast Athletic Conference Championship (Pepperdine)
• 1982-1983, 1985-1986: West Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year (Pepperdine)

• 14-Time NCAA Division I Tournament
• Winning Percentage: 451-227 (.665)