From Earlham to the NBA, Harris Is in Familiar Mode

Forgive Del Harris if he has heard this one before.

It was only seven years ago that Harris was coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, a team struggling around .500 a few weeks into the season. After a victory over the Lakers--who else?--Harris unexpectedly stepped aside.

“I’m not dying,” he told reporters. “I’m not dead.”

In fact, Harris would return to find himself in eerily similar circumstances this week. His surprise firing as Laker coach on Wednesday looked and sounded like deja vu all over again.

“There will be other doors that will open for me,” he said this time. “There always have been when other doors have closed.”

Business as usual in a career that has spanned four decades and included enough victories to rank Harris among the top 20 coaches in NBA history.

The first time people got an inkling that the man from Plainfield, Ind., could coach basketball was in the late 1960s when he strung together a few winning seasons at Earlham College.

Earlham is a small, private Quaker college in Richmond, Ind., a school not known for athletics.

“There aren’t a lot of highly talented Quaker players running around,” said Jerry Reynolds, player personnel director for the Sacramento Kings, who began his basketball career in Indiana. “You win at Earlham, you can win anywhere.”

Decades later, when Harris arrived in Los Angeles, detractors would brand him too predictable and defensive-minded. But friends point to those early days at Earlham as proof of Harris’ flexibility.

His 1967-68 team scored 101 points a game, sixth best in the NAIA. Six years later, Earlham had the NAIA’s sixth-best defense.

“Honestly, Del can coach any style,” Reynolds said. “You realized he was ahead of the common herd.”

But another aspect of his style never varied.

“He always gave the appearance of being calm and under control,” Reynolds said. “Over the years, I think that came through to his players.”

After nine seasons at Earlham, Harris took an assistant’s job with the Houston Rockets in 1976 and, four years later, was promoted to head coach. The Rockets made the playoffs three of the next four seasons.

“When he had Moses Malone, they had a power game,” said Bill Fitch, who coached Boston then. “The years they didn’t have a big man, Del found other ways to put points on the board.”

The coaches faced each other in the 1981 NBA finals, which the Celtics won in six games. Their names were linked again in 1983 when Fitch replaced Harris after the Rockets struggled through a 14-68 season.

“I have the satisfaction of knowing I did my job with dignity,” Harris said upon departing.

Milwaukee hired him as a scout and he worked his way up to head coach by the 1987-88 season. The Bucks made the playoffs the next four seasons before Harris resigned early in the 1991-92 season with the team’s record at 8-9. He said he was leaving coaching to concentrate on front-office duties.

But Harris left the team for good that spring and took some time off, keeping his hand in the game as a consultant to Reynolds at Sacramento. When the Lakers came calling in 1994, Reynolds was happy for his friend, if a little concerned.

“It’s the job every coach would love to have, the pinnacle,” Reynolds said. “But you know you are expected to win championships. That’s where the bar is placed.”

So it is that history repeats itself. A man with 556 career victories, a man who has taken NBA teams to the playoffs 11 times in 12 full seasons as a head coach, again finds himself jobless.

“There’s nothing wrong with Del’s credentials,” Fitch said. “He’s been a good man. He’s good to his friends and he doesn’t have many enemies.”

At Earlham, workers have removed a picture of Harris that hung prominently at the entrance to the athletic center. The picture will go back up as soon as renovations are completed.

“He’s pretty dear to us here,” school spokesman David Knight said. “We were sorry to hear about what happened.”