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JIM HARRICK
NCAA CHAMPION COACH
Georgia’s improbable berth in the 2001 NCAA Tournament marked the latest in Jim Harrick’s long list of accomplishments as a collegiate head basketball coach.
The Bulldogs posted a 16-15 record in ‘01 – a 6-game improvement from his inaugural season in Athens – and made their first NCAA appearance in four years. Playing the nation’s highest-rated schedule, Georgia struggled early before catching fire in January. Six straight wins pushed the Dogs into the SEC East Division lead at mid-season, a lofty status that no predecessor had ever enjoyed. They finished the regular season in third place, well ahead of their pre-season projections.
The 2001 season proved that Georgia likely could not have picked a more capable coach to restore their program to its national stature of recent years. For 25-plus years in the collegiate ranks, Harrick has enjoyed great success in recruiting and coaching some of the nation’s best players.
Georgia is Harrick’s fourth stop in his 21 years as a college head coach. In each of his first three posts – Pepperdine, UCLA and Rhode Island – he built outstanding teams, winning conference championships at all three and reaching the NCAA Tournament an amazing 14 times. In 1995, his UCLA Bruin squad racked up 31 wins and captured the national championship, an enormous feat given the sky-high expectations of that storied program’s following.
Harrick’s overall 21-year head coaching record is 429-217 (.664). His Pepperdine teams went 167-97, including four NCAA and two NIT berths. At UCLA, his teams posted a 191-63 record with eight consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. In two seasons at Rhode Island, Harrick built a 45-22 record along with two NCAA berths.
Harrick came to Georgia shortly after guiding the URI program to its second straight NCAA showing. His first season in Kingston brought unprecedented results, including a 25-9 record and the highest poll ranking in school history (11). The Rams pulled off perhaps the biggest win of the ‘98 NCAAs, a second-round victory over Kansas, and very nearly knocked off Stanford in the quarterfinal round.
Just as effective as Harrick’s coaching method, however, was the manner in which he conducted his business. The URI faithful warmed quickly to the native West Virginian, whose folksy, friendly, unassuming style and positive energy proved contagious. During his first season there, the Rams’ season ticket sales jumped from 2,200 to almost 5,000, and 29 of their 34 games were carried on television. Harrick and his team created so much enthusiasm that he started a fundraising campaign to construct a new on-campus arena.
The 62-year-old Harrick began his coaching career at Inglewood (Calif.) Morningside High School as an assistant in 1964. He served as head coach from 1970-73, when his Monarch teams posted a 103-16 cumulative record.
In 1973 he moved to the collegiate level as an assistant at Utah State, and after two seasons (1978-79) as an assistant at UCLA, he was named head coach at Pepperdine in ‘79.
As a basketball coach in Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, Harrick cultivated a philosophy founded upon one of the game’s legends. “I follow the John Wooden system,” he says in deference to the great UCLA coach. “It’s not the only way, just the best.”
While at Pepperdine, he was named West Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year four times. In each of those years, his Waves teams reached the NCAA Tournament, and in two other seasons they played in the NIT.
From Pepperdine, Harrick in 1989 made the short move to Westwood as the new head coach at UCLA. For over a decade Bruin teams had floundered while trying to restore the program to its Wooden-era level. It was Harrick who finally proved to be capable of such a daunting task.
All eight of his Bruin squads reached the NCAA Tournament, three won the Pac-10 title and together they averaged over 23 wins per season. Harrick was named National Coach of the Year after his championship season of 1995. Just as impressive at UCLA was the 95 percent graduation rate of his players.
Throughout his career Harrick has proven himself as an able recruiter. In his first month at UCLA he signed Don MacLean, an eventual All-American in 1992 who finished his career as the Bruins’ all-time leading scorer.
In addition, he has signed Ed O’Bannon, a national prep player of the year; Tyus Edney, a ‘94 second-team All-American; Charles O’Bannon, one of the nation’s top high schoolers at the time; and native Georgian Cameron Dollar, one of the nation’s top prep guards. Early in his stint at Rhode Island, he successfully recruited Lamar Odom, the nation’s best high school player in 1997.
Georgia fans got an early taste of Harrick’s persuasive abilities as a recruiter in the spring of ‘99. Starting from scratch, with a late start and a makeshift coaching staff, he lured a pair of highly-regarded junior-college recruits to Athens – Anthony Evans and Shon Coleman – prospects that were being courted by more established programs.
The next recruiting season, they saw another goal of Harrick’s begin to reach fruition. All three of the Bulldogs’ signees for the year 2000 were in-state products, a result of his concentrated efforts to keep the best Georgians within the state’s boundaries.
Perhaps as a by-product of his good recruiting, Harrick has placed an impressive list of players in the NBA. That group includes, from UCLA, first-round picks Ed O’Bannon (New Jersey) and George Zidek (Charlotte), as well as second-rounder Edney (Sacramento), all in the same draft of 1995. Other Harrick pupils in the NBA include MacLean (Phildelphia), Mitchell Butler (Portland), Tracy Murray (Washington), Keith Owens (L.A. Lakers), Darrick Martin (L.A. Clippers), Richard Petruska (Houston), Jerome “Pooh” Richardson (Clippers), Trevor Wilson (Lakers) and Rodney Zimmerman (Detroit). Additionally, Odom was a lottery pick in the 1999 NBA draft (Clippers), and ‘98 Rhode Island alumnus Cuttino Mobley made the NBA All-Rookie second team as a member of the Houston Rockets.
