Even as an Assistant Coach, Harrick Put Foot in Mouth

Why is Jim Harrick so adamant about not wanting to be voted No. 1?

Maybe because the last time UCLA climbed to the top of the polls this late in the season was not a pleasant experience.

During the week of Feb. 19, 1979, the Bruins, led by David Greenwood, Kiki Vandeweghe and Brad Holland, were voted No. 1 with a 20-3 record. Gary Cunningham was in his last season as coach, and Harrick was one of his assistants.

In its next game, UCLA traveled to Seattle to play struggling Washington. As Harrick recalls, in a friendly conversation on the day of the game with a Husky assistant, Harrick told him there was no way Washington could win because its guards were too slow for Holland and Roy Hamilton.

“So the game starts and, lo and behold, who gets his first start of his Husky career but Lorenzo Romar,” Harrick said. “Hey, I made his career.”

Romar, a quick guard who is now an assistant on Harrick’s staff, remembered the situation a bit differently.

It wasn’t his first start, but, in his junior year, he had been pulled in and out of the lineup and hadn’t started in a while before the UCLA game. Romar scored 10 points in Washington’s 69-68 buzzer-beating victory.

“For me, being from L.A., I would have given my left arm to go to UCLA,” Romar said. “But they never wrote me a letter. So I never thought I could even compete with guys on UCLA, forget about beating them.

“The fact that they were No. 1 made it all the sweeter.”

UCLA won the Pacific 10 Conference title that season and beat Pepperdine and San Francisco in the NCAA tournament before losing to DePaul and freshman Mark Aguirre. The next season, with new coach Larry Brown, UCLA made it to the tournament’s final game, losing to Louisville.