THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290556
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OAKLAND LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Almost every day he goes to work, burdens hang over Jim Harrick's head.
Ten of them, actually.
At UCLA's Pauley Pavilion - where 10 national championship banners hang from the rafters - the reminders of past glory are fused with lofty expectations. For most of the coaches who have followed legendary coach John Wooden at Westwood, there might as well have been a hangman's noose strung up next to those banners.
Except for Harrick. He has eluded the executioner and lasted the longest of the six men who have worked in Wooden's long shadow.
For all his titles and insane amount of success with an .808 winning percentage at UCLA, Wooden was dubbed ``The Wizard of Westwood.''
Call Harrick ``The Survivor of Westwood.''
Harrick has taken the Bruins to seven consecutive NCAA tournaments - one of just six programs to play in the last seven tournaments - and never had a record worse than 22-11. He has posted the best initial seven seasons (166-55) of any coach in UCLA history.
Even better than Wooden's.
For this, he has been roasted to well done by crock pots who call talk radio shows and fill Los Angeles newspaper letters columns complaining Harrick is a mediocre coach and his teams flop in the tournament.
The critics are muted - for now. The Bruins are back in the Final Four for the first time since 1980, and only the third time since Wooden retired after winning his 10th championship in 1975. They play Oklahoma State in a national semifinal Saturday in Seattle.
``Maybe people will lighten up a little bit,'' UCLA All-American forward Ed O'Bannon said.
Maybe. More likely, if top-ranked UCLA doesn't win the national title, Southern Californians will skewer Harrick more. After all, UCLA has never failed to win a national title when it entered the Final Four as the top-ranked team.
If Harrick wins it, hey, he was ranked No. 1 and had the best record in Division I. He was supposed to win.
``He's following coach Wooden,'' said freshman Toby Bailey, a Los Angeles native. ``People in Westwood are never really going to be satisfied.''
Harrick seems satisfied with himself, and more self-assured than he was early in his tenure at UCLA when he was just trying to avoid that noose.
``I've been here seven years,'' he said last week at the West Regional in Oakland. ``You ask why you haven't been to the Final Four? I'll tell you why, because it's hard to go to the Final Four. There's a lot of things in your way, great clubs and great coaches.
``For me personally, certainly it's the pinnacle of everything you've ever worked for in your life. You'll never understand.''
Asked a couple days later if ``you'll never understand'' referred to the criticism he had endured, Harrick said it did not. Rather, he was reflecting on leaving his native West Virginia after graduating from University of Charleston and driving into Los Angeles in the early 1960s without knowing a soul.
``Spending four years as a junior high teacher,'' Harrick said. ``Spending five years as a JV coach. Teaching five classes of English. Being the JV basketball coach and JV baseball coach. And teaching driver's training on Tuesday and Thursday.
``Those are things I'm talking about. Working 19 years before you make $25,000. Taking a $12,000 cut in pay going from high school to (an assistant's job at) Utah State. Those are the kinds of things I'm talking about that make it very, very special.''
Harrick's team has not lost since Jan. 28. He was named the Naismith national Coach of the Year Sunday. UCLA has won 29 games for the first time since it went 30-0 in 1972-73.
All this by a guy who was UCLA's fourth or fifth choice to take the job in 1988. Five coaches in 13 years had come to UCLA and departed under the burden of those banners hanging overhead. The likes of Denny Crum, Larry Brown and Jim Valvano, among others, said no thanks before UCLA got around to hiring Harrick away from Pepperdine.
``I've seen him grow and mature,'' said Wooden, still a Pauley regular, earlier this month. ``He's improved as a coach, technique-wise, because he works hard and learns year after year.
``I think he's done a good job all along. He certainly has done an excellent job with this team the way he's brought a blend of youth and experience along.''
As much as the tide of tongue-lashings seems to have turned, Harrick said the criticism is only in ``remission.''
``There will always be a group of people who want you fired every year in L.A.,'' Harrick said.
Probably so, at least until Harrick can work underneath a couple of his own banners. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
[Color Photo]
Jim Harrick, right, has posted the best initial seven seasons
(166-55) of any basketball coach in UCLA history, even better than
John Wooden's first seven years.
by CNB