Jim Harrick

UCLA basketball Coach Jim Harrick and his wife, Sally, have donated $75,000 to the UCLA Athletics Campaign for an endowed basketball scholarship in the men's program. Nine of UCLA's 15 men's basketball scholarships are now endowed through private donations. UCLA Athletic Director Peter Dalis said that the Harricks' "generosity represents a major commitment to UCLA student-athletes.

The pained look on Ben Howland's face — pursed lips and a hard stare — was three decades in the making. The UCLA coach had just watched his team lose badly to Mississippi State, another setback in a terrible start to last season, but he seemed equally concerned that this particular defeat had come at the Wooden Classic. With none other than John Wooden sitting in a luxury suite above midcourt. "It really hurts me that he was here today and we played so poorly," Howland said.

Somewhere there must be a baseball team for which Jim Harrick and his UCLA Bruins haven't thrown out the first ball, or a politician who hasn't congratulated them on their national title. But there aren't many. They threw out first balls for the Dodgers and Angels, and last week Harrick did it for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. They have been honored by the President, the mayor, the California Legislature and have met the defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

For Cameron Dollar, there was no time to blink. He and his UCLA teammates, guided by the steady, veteran hand of senior point guard Tyus Edney, had reached the championship game of the 1995 NCAA tournament. Edney's last-second, length-of-the-court dash against Missouri in the second round two weeks earlier had saved the Bruins' season. But less than three minutes into the Monday finale against Arkansas, Edney was headed toward the bench because of a wrist injury suffered in the semifinals.

A 62-year-old coach with a national championship ring ought to enjoy the late stages of his career enveloped in a cozy blanket woven of stability, strong recruiting, trusted assistants and loyal fans. Jim Harrick is wrapped up, all right, but in a patchwork quilt of contradictions, ironies and monumental challenges. He's in his second season at Georgia, a struggling program in the rugged Southeastern Conference. The Bulldogs were 10-20 last season and are only marginally better now.

Jim Harrick isn't under a microscope at the University of Rhode Island. Instead, he's behind a huge plate-glass window, the interior of his modest office in plain view of anyone who climbs the stairs of the field house to watch the numerous pickup games in progress on the courts below. The scrutiny and pressure are on Steve Lavin now, and Harrick is comfortable in his exile, though the cords to UCLA--phone lines and DirecTV--still crackle with news.

Most college students dream of getting a final exam with questions such as: How many points is a three-pointer worth? That was among the questions on basic basketball knowledge on the final exam -- and only test -- in Georgia assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr.'s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball class in 2001.

Jim Brandenburg, who watched an already cracking San Diego State basketball program crumble this winter, was fired Tuesday as Aztec coach. Fred Miller, San Diego State athletic director, made the announcement late Tuesday afternoon at a crowded news conference in Peterson Gym before several players and members of the Aztec athletic department. Miller named Jim Harrick Jr., who had been a part-time assistant coach under Brandenburg, as the interim coach.

for four days. After that, Parks, one of the most sought-after recruits in the nation, made his way to Duke University, breaking the heart of Bruin Coach Jim Harrick, who desperately wanted the former Huntington Beach Marina High star to remain in Southern California. Instead, Harrick and Bruin fans will have to settle for watching Parks in the U.S. Olympic Festival, which is being played at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion.

As Jim Harrick is more than happy to tell anyone who asks--and even some who don't--everything is still mighty fine at the 'Dine. Never been better, in fact. Pepperdine's basketball coach won another West Coast Athletic Conference championship this season, the Waves' fifth in his seven seasons. He picked up a few more honors--WCAC coach of the year for the fourth time, District 15 coach of the year for the second time. His team won 20 games for the fourth time in five seasons.

Scouting was "fine," he says, semi-retirement "OK." But the only man other than John Wooden to coach UCLA to an NCAA basketball championship could not resist the lure of the locker room, the seduction of the sideline. Jim Harrick is coaching again. "It's like a drug," he says of his life's work. "For every guy that's ever done it, it's a drug. It gets in your system."

Former UCLA and Georgia basketball coach Jim Harrick says reports that he has been hired to coach the Vancouver expansion team in the American Basketball Assn. are premature. The hiring was announced Tuesday by the ABA. Contacted Wednesday, Harrick said "We have signed nothing, agreed on nothing." However, Harrick said he expected to continue negotiations next month. "We'll see how it goes, but it isn't finalized," Harrick said. "I don't know how that got out."

Jim Harrick, who was forced to resign last year at Georgia amid accusations of improper payments to players and academic fraud, was hired Tuesday as coach of the Vancouver expansion team in the American Basketball Assn. "This is a great opportunity for me," Harrick said in a statement. Harrick was fired from UCLA in 1996 -- a year after winning an NCAA championship -- for lying about an expense report.

Most college students dream of getting a final exam with questions such as: How many points is a three-pointer worth? That was among the questions on basic basketball knowledge on the final exam -- and only test -- in Georgia assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr.'s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball class in 2001.

Jim Harrick is back in basketball, hired Monday by the Denver Nuggets as a scout and coaching consultant. Harrick was forced to resign as Georgia's coach in March amid accusations of improper payments to players and academic fraud. That scandal, which led Georgia to pull out of postseason play, was the latest in a series that followed Harrick on nearly every step of his 23-year career as a college coach.

Former Georgia assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr. was solely responsible for the academic fraud that left two players ineligible, the school said in a letter to the NCAA. Starters Chris Daniels and Rashad Wright were declared academically ineligible in March after an investigation showed they were given preferential treatment in a class taught by Harrick.

Jim Harrick: the Larry Brown of the '90s. HALE ANTICO, Pasadena

They will remember Jim Harrick at the University of Georgia, just as surely as those at Rhode Island and UCLA will remember his basketball coaching tenures there. Harrick won a lot -- and left investigations in his wake.

The scandal is far from over for Georgia, but Jim Harrick ended his part in it Thursday by resigning as coach, saying afterward he will not return to the bench either in college or the NBA. "I decided it's time that I retired, and that's what I did," Harrick said. "I had that right, after 43 years in coaching. "No one made me. It was my decision alone. They had no violations on me. Even [Georgia Athletic Director Vince Dooley] said that in the press conference. I felt good about that."