Harrick Travels Coast to Coast

In an attention-getting move by a publicity-seeking school, Rhode Island signed former UCLA coach Jim Harrick to a three-year contract Monday, ending Harrick’s six-month stint in purgatory after he was fired by UCLA for ethical transgressions.

Harrick, who was not interviewed for recent openings at other schools despite having led the Bruins to the 1995 national title, said he wanted to move beyond his bitter termination at UCLA by lifting the Rams to prominence.

“Rhode Island has all the pieces in place to be consistently successful on the national level,” Harrick said at a news conference in Kingston, R.I. The Rams won 20 games under Al Skinner, who took the Boston College job two weeks ago, in each of the last two seasons.

“The record of the last two years proves that the talent is here,” he said.

The Rams have four starters returning from last season’s NCAA tournament team, and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference with such television-friendly schools as Massachusetts, Temple and George Washington.

Last Nov. 6, two weeks before the 1996-97 regular season began, Harrick was fired by UCLA after an eight-year tenure for turning in a false expense report and lying about it to school officials.

Calling Harrick “a man of character, of conviction, of faith and resiliency,” Rhode Island President Robert Carothers said he had investigated Harrick’s background himself before offering him the position.

Harrick was the only candidate Rhode Island interviewed, and was paraded around town last Tuesday as if he already had been anointed. But his hiring was thrown into limbo late last week when the school received a barrage of faxes and phone calls from people complaining that Harrick was not ethically qualified.

Harrick, 58, will earn up to $250,000 a season, according to Associated Press. That would be the richest contract ever given to an employee of the state. Harrick was earning $440,000 a season at UCLA--with four years remaining on the package--before he was fired, and received a $140,000 settlement.

Carothers, who has demonstrated an ability to attract positive publicity, conceded that having such an established basketball coach could enliven the school’s atmosphere.

“I think just as UMass and UConn have demonstrated what a quality program can do to help them bring people to the campus, increase participation in the community, provide some resources they need, that may be the case for URI too,” Carothers said.

In a statement, UCLA Coach Steve Lavin, who succeeded Harrick after serving on his staff for five years and currently has an icy relationship with his predecessor, said he was “happy [that Harrick] has another opportunity to do what he does best--coach college basketball.”

UCLA Athletic Director Peter T. Dalis, the man who fired Harrick, was not available for comment Monday.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is the end to the UCLA situation,” said Harrick’s attorney, Robert Tanenbaum, who has accused unspecified UCLA officials of trying to torpedo Harrick’s attempts at getting another job.

“To take it in the most healthy vein: Don’t look back. Focus on what he did at UCLA. He endowed a scholarship for the athletic department, took the team to the national championship, now it’s the end of a chapter.

“There’s no feelings right now about UCLA, period. That’s not even on the radar screen.”

At the news conference, Harrick once again admitted he made a mistake when he lied about his expense report for a recruiting dinner, but said he was prepared to move forward with his life.

“Get to know me,” Harrick answered when asked about his ethical qualifications.

“I know that he’s resilient, but he had been down,” said Pepperdine Coach Lorenzo Romar, a four-year assistant under Harrick at UCLA. “It had been tough for him. He was just blindsided by the situation--he didn’t have time to prepare.

“And when you’re out of coaching, I guess there’s that fear that, ‘Maybe I won’t ever get back in. Golly, I didn’t know Princeton [a first-round loss in the 1996 NCAA tournament] might be my last game.’ I know it was hard on him.

“I’ll tell you this, Rhode Island got a steal. I don’t know what their roster is. But I know that everywhere he’s been, he’s been a winner. And I mean a big winner. So I’m sure that will continue to carry on at Rhode Island. It didn’t take him long at Pepperdine, didn’t take him long at UCLA. So, it won’t take him long at Rhode Island.”

As schools such as Rutgers, Brigham Young and Louisiana State chose not to even interview Harrick for their recent openings, Romar said he feared the circumstances surrounding Harrick’s ouster would scare everybody away.

“I know if Jim Harrick would’ve just said last year, ‘Oh, I’m going to step down at UCLA and look to go somewhere else,’ they would’ve been knocking his door down,” Romar said. “But as a result of what transpired last year, people for whatever reason didn’t want to deal with him. And that was tough. Because I know what kind of coach he is.”

Though concern has been raised in the Rhode Island area that Harrick could use the job as a temporary stopover until a bigger job comes along, Tanenbaum said Harrick wasn’t about to move with his wife all the way across the country just for a quick fix.

“Sally and Jim pick up stakes and strike out in a new adventure, which is exciting,” Tanenbaum said. “Jim Harrick is not the kind of person who will abuse a situation in any respect.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Comparing The Numbers

Seasons in Division I as coach, program

HARRICK: 17

RHODE ISLAND: 91

*

NCAA Tournament berths

HARRICK: 12

RHODE ISLAND: 6

*

Overall winning percentage

HARRICK: .691

RHODE ISLAND: .588

*

NCAA titles

HARRICK: 1

RHODE ISLAND: 0