Aztecs’ Interim Coach Ignored Father’s Advice

UCLA basketball Coach Jim Harrick discouraged the second of his three sons from going into coaching.

“Most definitely,” Harrick said. “I worked 19 years before I made $25,000. And I thought he had so much on the ball and so much talent in other areas that he could go out in L.A. and make a lot of money. And he could right now be making a lot of money in the business world.”

But Jim Harrick Jr., 27, ignored his father’s advice.

He was named interim coach at San Diego State on Tuesday, replacing his former boss, Jim Brandenburg, who was fired after a 14-game losing streak.

After only 1 1/2 seasons as an assistant to Brandenburg, is Harrick ready to be a head coach?

“It’s a hard question to answer,” said the elder Harrick, who was the junior varsity coach at Inglewood Morningside High School at 27. “Some guys are at that age and some guys aren’t. I think he’ll do an adequate job for five weeks.”

Harrick said his son’s greatest asset is his enthusiasm.

“He’s positive and he’s up,” Harrick said. “He’s excited about life and the game and kids and people. He’ll do OK.”

Harrick said his son was encouraged to pursue a coaching career by one of his father’s assistants, Mark Gottfried, a close friend.

“He kept telling him he ought to coach and then he finally said, ‘I’m not going to listen to my dad anymore, I’m going to coach,’ ” Harrick said. “He went out and got a job (at San Diego State) and did a nice job for them, I guess.”

Harrick’s son, who worked at a talent agency for two years after graduating from Pepperdine, phoned his father Monday night to break the news.

“I think it’s bizarre,” Harrick said of the situation. “I have great empathy for Jim Brandenburg, who is a dear friend.”

But he told his son to make the most of the opportunity.

“If the university feels that he’s the guy that they would choose to finish the season, then that’s a nice little bit of respect from them toward him,” Harrick said. “Hopefully, the kids can have some fun before the season’s over.

“I think somewhere along the line you’d anticipate that all of them would be gone, which probably will happen eventually, but he’ll be a better person for having gone through this experience.”