Thursday, November 7, 1996
BASKETBALL:
Team is optimistic despite loss of head coach HarrickBy Hye Kwon
and Mark J. Dittmer
Daily Bruin Staff
A huge explosion rocked the UCLA basketball program yesterday in
the form of head coach Jim Harrick’s termination. With two weeks
left before the season begins, the team and its new coach are left
with little time to adjust.
Just-named interim head coach Steve Lavin will try to get the
Bruins in gear for a smooth transition out of the Harrick era, a
period which lasted eight seasons and saw the Bruins win three
Pacific 10 titles and an NCAA Championship.
"It has to be a big distraction," Washington State head coach
Kevin Eastman said. "You just hope as a coach anyway that it won’t
be a distraction enough to have a season go sour."
Lavin finds himself thrust into a coveted position, but not in
the way he had hoped for, nor with the preparation time he would
have expected. The season starts on Nov. 20 with the preseason NIT
tournament; the fall signing period for recruiting begins Nov. 13,
and the Bruins will play their first intrasquad scrimmage Thursday
night.
"I’ve been training the last eight years as an assistant at
Purdue and at UCLA for an opportunity like this, but you never
expect it to come in these circumstances," Lavin said.
This is Lavin’s sixth season in the UCLA program, but it’s only
his second as a full-time coach.
Lavin ascended to his position as the second-in-charge when
former Bruin assistants Mark Gottfried and Lorenzo Romar took the
head coaching jobs at Murray State and Pepperdine,
respectively.
Many speculated that either Gottfried or Romar would eventually
be the successor to Harrick, but until recently, Lavin’s name was
rarely mentioned as a possible candidate.
Lavin’s relative lack of experience is further compounded by the
fact that his two assistant coaches are new additions to the
program. Michael Holton and Jim Saia were hired just last summer to
replace departed coaches Romar and Greg White.
On the other hand, Lavin’s track record as an assistant bodes
well for his chances of succeeding as UCLA’s head coach.
Prior to assuming the role as a defensive coach under Harrick,
Lavin was an integral member of the Purdue coaching staff from 1988
to 1990. Gene Keady, the Boilermakers head coach who has had a
profound influence on Lavin, believes that he will do just
fine.
"He is like a son to me," Keady said. "He is a first-class man
and he will do well as long as he does what I’ve taught him."
Given the team’s success over the last eight years, Lavin
believes that major changes are unwarranted for the Bruins.
"We won three out of the last five Pac-10 championships and two
years ago we won the national championship," Lavin said. "This ship
is pretty steady right now.
"We’re a mature team with great, great leadership," Lavin said.
"You cannot have better leaders than (Charles) O’Bannon, (Cameron)
Dollar and (Bob) Meyers. They’re very similar to leadership we had
two years ago with Tyus Edney, George Zidek and Ed O’Bannon."
O’Bannon, who is a Player of the Year Award candidate, has
confidence in Lavin’s ability to lead the Bruins to another
successful season.
"He’s going to do the best job he can and that’s all you can
ask," O’Bannon said. "We believe he can do it."
The confidence that O’Bannon has in Lavin, however, does not
take away from the fact that he and his teammates must cope with
the loss of Harrick. No matter what their feelings are for Lavin,
Harrick was the coach that recruited them from high school and
taught them the system in which to develop their basketball
skills.
"It’s very disappointing because it’s like your leader being
taken away," O’Bannon said. "But we know we’ve got to move on."
They’d better move fast.
SUSIE MING HWA CHU/Daily Bruin
Charles O’Bannon is mobbed by the media after UCLA’s press
conference announcing the end of Jim Harrick’s UCLA coaching
career.