sports
Battalion/Page 13
November 30, 1982
He’s still going strong
Huskies' Harshman a tireless head coach at age of 65
I
I by Frank L. Christlieb
Sports
^W^BANCHORAOK. Alaska —
^■arv Haisliman lias (oathcd
basketball games to
low there’s never time to dwell
i losses or to bask in the glory
victory.
Harshman, the 65-year-old
ain basketball man on the Uni-
rsity of Washington campus,
S tasted the bitter, the sweet
d the sour of college basket-
11 for 37 years. But through
[s years at Pacific Lutheran,
ashington State and Washing-
n, Harshman has enjoyed
ough baskets of success to
Ink second in number of vic-
Iries among college coaches.
Through 999 games, 582 vic-
iries and 417 defeats, the
endary Harshman doesn’t
any reason to take himself
tof the game just yet.
“1 haven’t set a time limit on
en I’m going to retire,” Har
man said in an interview dur-
the Great Alaska Shootout,
which his Huskies placed
rd after beating the Clemson
[gers Sunday in Anchorage,
iska. “My contract lasts
hough next season.
J“I had been thinking about
lying on until ’84, because the
CAA finals will be at Washing-
i that year. But now I've been
nking that I might want to
ylonger. My boss has told me
it Marv Harshman’s his man
$! he decides to quit, so I
ght just stay at Washington.
IThey can keep you or fire
iil he said, “but you can’t do
pthing about either one —
fy make the decision.”
In Wednesday’s contest
instthe Idaho Vandals, Har-
tan will coach game No.
P0 of his career. That’ll put
i in a five-man lineup that
(ludes Ray Meyer, No. 1 on
college basketball victory list,
bv Davidf! Ad (| lph Rupp, Phog Allen, Ed
■die and Henry “Hank” Iba.
Ilaude RiltfHarshman, who graduated
Shaffer aiP ,m Pacific Lutheran in 1942,
ed an 82'’B aniet ^ e fhU head basketball
.Mch in 1946 after a four-year
r C °l It in the Army. By compiling
Anchorajlf]_j2i record at the school,
■rshman began a career that
I seen him take his teams to
vt y form of post-season play,
’Hilluding the NAIA playoffs,
jldflAA playoffs and the Nation-
7 Hnvitation Tournament,
he Huskies, who finished
Ilia 19-10 record last season,
I to the Texas Aggies 69-65 in
second round of the 1982
r.
ince he’s been around the
jeof basketball longer than
average coach, Harshman
Shad more than enough time
staff photo by David Fisher
Washington head basketball coach Marv Harshman,
whose 582 victories rank second among active college
coaches, says he hopes to remain with the Huskies
for several more years. The 65-year-old Harshman has
been in college basketball for 38 years, including 11
seasons with the Huskies. His record is now 582-417.
lanet
{with 22l
mds,v||
oints. FresG
and soph"
added 101
to formulate some opinions ab
out the way it’s progressed.
“Each year is a dif ferent chal
lenge,” Harshman said. “You re
member so few of the highlights
and you really don’t have time to
sit down and think about the
great games or the poor ones.
“Some of your players may
start reminiscing ... but coaches
don’t have so much time to sit
and enjoy a victory or to be sad
in defeat. Coaching basketball
keeps you at a high for a longer
period of time, whereas the
magnification of a loss in foot
ball is much greater because
there’s a whole week to sit and
think about it.
“In basketball,” he said,
“there’s little time for prepara
tion, so you don’t have time to
pat a guy on the back or massage
his head about a loss.”
Harshman said many college
athletes are affected by their
own performances — especially
if they’re not up to par. In addi
tion, he said, players sometimes
have a misconception about
their roles.
“Most players think the coach
decides who plays, but literally,
players make the decision in
how they play during the week,”
Harshman said. “I try to point
out to my players that they de
cide their position on the team.”
Harshman, who has a 186-
115 record during his 12th year
at Washington, said 38 years in
the profession hasn’t doused his
love for the sport of basketball.
“I’m as enthused now as I was
38 years ago,” he said with a
smile. “In order to stay in
coaching, you have to make a lot
of adjustments.
“Nowadays, I think it’s a com
mon for players to question not
the ability of the coach, but the
coach’s ... restraints on his
players.” '
Harshman said one of his
main concerns in coaching is to
teach his players to fit together
as a unit.
“To try to program each guy
into your team philosophy and
to program him into his role in
that philosophy are the two most
important facets of the game,”
he said.
“There aren’t many plays
anymore, but there are patterns
that develop and two or three
options that are available to a
player in the team’s operation.
The players have to come up
with the right operation ... and
may have to be self-sacrificial
enough to give up options that
may be more appealing to them.
“Basketball is by far the best
player” game, because the play-
rs make the decision based on
vhat the coaches have taught
hem,” Harshman said. “The
oaches are out there ... not yell-
ng at the players to chastise
hem, but to help them make the
right choices.”
Harshman has found one
rule of thumb to be constant in
basketball.
“Offensively, basketball is
played under one rule — the de
fense dictates what you do,” he
said. “When (the defense) makes
a reaction, (the offense) should
key on the opportunity and take
advantage of it. It’s kind of like
the domino effect — with one
reaction by the defense, some
thing’s bound to happen.”
During Texas A&M’s 82-79
double overtime loss to Clemson
Friday night at the Shootout, the
Aggies were penalized for a
technical foul when they called
an extra timeout with 3 seconds
left. Harshman said the mistake,
which cost the Aggies a chance at
a game-winning shot, could
have been avoided.
“I was surprised, because ...
the officials usually tell each
bench how many timeouts they
have left,” Harshman said. “So I
think the administration of the
game wasn’t what it should have
been. The officials don’t have to
tell the benches that, but they do
in our league.”
Harshman, emphasizing the
importance of recruiting, said
many college coaches tend to
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practice “negative recruiting,”
which may include putting false
ideas into players’ heads about
their college or professional bas
ketball future.
“There’s a great deal of nega
tive recruiting,” Harshman said.
“It’s almost a “Madison Avenue”
type of thing where the older,
more established coaches cut
each other down and tell re
cruits things that aren’t true ab
out other schools.
“Someone plants a seed be
cause a player may have a pre
conceived idea about a certain
school. Negative recruiting has
become much more common in
the last 10 years. By innuendo,
coaches are always trying to raise
some question about competing
schools. And that really has no
place in college basketball.
“We’re all used car salesmen
in a sense,” he said, “but we have
to retain some sense of objectiv
ity. I always try to say (to a re
cruit), ‘I need you as a post or a
forward, but you may get an
opportunity to play at another
position.’ The player may say
‘But Coach Jones said I needed
to be a post to be able to play in
the pros.’
“It’sjust a gimmick. You real
ly shouldn’t try to con a player,
because you end up hurting
him.”
During his career, Harshman
said, there have been many good
and bad experiences. While he
was at Washington State, the
Cougars encountered some bad
luck when college basketball was
still under the NCAA rule that
allowed only conference cham
pions to partcipate in post
season play.
During each of the years Lew
Alcindor played at UCLA, the
Cougars finished second in the
league, but were unable to com
pete past the regular season.
One of those years, the USC
Trojans finished 27-2, losing
twice to the Bruins, but they
were kept out of post-season
play as well.
“Back then, it was ‘UCLA and
the Seven Dwarfs’ in the Pac-
10,” Harshman said. “In my first
year at Washington, we were 20-
6 and finished second in the Pac-
10, but we couldn’t compete in
the playoffs. I think we were
good enough to get to the Final
Four that year, but we couldn’t
get there because of that rule —
we couldn’t even go to the NIT.”
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