James Richard Harrick (born July 25, 1938) is a former American
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
. He has been the head coach at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
University of Rhode Island
The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Island ...
and the
University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
Lebanese
Lebanese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Lebanese Republic
* Lebanese people
The Lebanese people ( ar, الشعب اللبناني / ALA-LC: ', ) are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may al ...
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 to 1969 and as head coach from 1970 to 1973. He was then hired as an assistant coach at
Utah State University
Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Uta ...
from 1974 to 1977. Harrick then spent two seasons as an assistant coach at UCLA from 1978 to 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
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
to assume head coaching duties after the firing of Walt Hazzard. During the recruiting period before his first season, he recruited Don MacLean, the most significant recruit to commit to Westwood in several years. McLean's arrival helped start a revival of the basketball program. By 1992, the Bruins were back in the Elite Eight, officially the first time they had advanced that far in 13 years. The 1979-80 team went all the way to the national championship game, but had that appearance vacated due to ineligible players. This was officially the second time they had advanced that far since John Wooden left the school.
During the 1994–1995 season, he led UCLA to a 31–2 record (a loss to California was subsequently forfeited to the Bruins) and the school's eleventh national championship, its first since the 1974–75 season. The 31 wins would stand as a school record until the 2005–06 season. A year later, Harrick's Bruins were upset in the first round by Princeton.
As it turned out, this would be the last game Harrick would coach in Westwood. Shortly before the start of the 1996–97 season, he was accused of falsifying receipts at a student-athlete recruiting dinner when two current players, Cameron Dollar and Charles O'Bannon, joined the table. Since Harrick paid for the entire meal, it amounted to an improper extra benefit for Dollar and O'Bannon. To cover up their presence, Harrick included the names of his wife and the wife of newly hired assistant Michael Holton on the expense report. When the school investigated, Harrick told Holton to tell athletic director Peter Dalis that Holton's wife was at the meal. However, a day later, Holton confessed that wasn't true. On November 6, 1996, Dalis and school chancellor Chuck Young gave Harrick an ultimatum: resign by the next morning or be fired. Harrick opted to take the firing. Although picking up the tab for Dollar and O'Bannon was a secondary violation at best, Young and Dalis felt Harrick's attempted cover-up was unforgivable. However, Harrick claims that the NCAA has cleared him of wrongdoing.
He left UCLA as the school's second-winningest coach, behind only Wooden. However, he is now third behind Wooden and Ben Howland.
Rhode Island
After a one-year hiatus, Harrick returned to coaching by accepting the head coach position at
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but i ...
. He coached the
Rams
In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)1998 tournament, the Rams upset
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
in the second round and reached the Midwest Regional finals but were defeated by
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
79–77. In his second season, he managed to recruit Lamar Odom and led the Rams to their first Atlantic 10 Conference tournament title.
Georgia
After the season, he left URI to become the head coach at the
University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
. He served there for four seasons (1999–00 through 2002–03), leading the
Bulldogs
The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose.Rashad Wright
Rashad Wright (born March 17, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. He graduated from the University of Georgia and was selected by the Indiana Pacers with the final pick of the 2004 NBA draft
The 2004 NBA draft was held ...
and Chris Daniels for a basketball strategy class even though they never attended it. 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 confirmed the violations, also finding that six players didn't pay for over $1,500 of long-distance telephone calls in December 2001. The telephone charges in question were due to hotel error and ultimately never charged to the program. Since they weren't valid charges, Georgia didn't self-report the violations until an internal investigation into the program in July 2003. In 2004 the NCAA placed Georgia on four years' probation for the violations. It also forced the Bulldogs to vacate half of their wins from 2001–02 and all their wins from 2002–03—30 games in all. Harrick, Jr. was given a seven-year show-cause penalty 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.
Later career
After Georgia, Harrick worked as a scout for the NBA's
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...
Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Ma ...
*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 (3–31 SEC) without vacated games.
Awards
*1995: National Coach of the Year (Naismith, NABC)
*1995: Pac-10 Coach of the Year
*1990: Morris Harvey College- University of Charleston Golden Eagle Sports Hall of Fame
*1982–1983, 1985–1986: West Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year (Pepperdine)