Harrick Quits To Avoid Being Fired Press Conference Expected This Morning; Assistant Lavin To Be Named Ucla’s Interim Coach

This morning, three weeks before the scheduled start of his ninth season at UCLA and 17 months after winning a national title, Jim Harrick’s Bruins career will come to a controversial and dramatic close.

According to a source, Harrick was called in to meet with UCLA administrators after practice Tuesday, was told there was a problem with an expense report, and he had a choice of either resigning or being fired.

Harrick, 58, whose Bruins teams made the NCAA tournament and won 20 or more games in each of his eight seasons, chose to resign, the source said, and it will be announced this morning.

Assistant coach Steve Lavin will take over the team for the rest of the season, according to another source.

“I understand there’s a press conference at UCLA at 10 a.m.,” said Harrick’s wife, Sally Harrick, late Tuesday night.

When asked if her husband would be leaving the program this morning, Sally Harrick said: “I don’t have any idea, talk to him.”

Jim Harrick was unavailable because he was in a meeting, Sally Harrick said.

By 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, the UCLA players, who are scheduled to meet with Harrick and Lavin early today, already had heard the news.

“It floored me when Toby told me tonight,” said John Bailey, father of starting guard Toby Bailey. “It’s really a shock. I feel bad for him, because he’s a good man.”

John Bailey said he hadn’t heard the exact reason for Harrick’s dismissal.

Neither Lavin nor Athletic Director Peter T. Dalis could be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Sports information director Marc Dellins said he could not “confirm or deny” that Harrick would step down today.

The timing is particularly wounding to a UCLA program that had been focusing on this upcoming signing period - starting Nov. 13 - to restock a roster that could be left thin starting next season if underclassmen Jelani McCoy, Bailey and J.R. Henderson leave school early.

Rumors of the UCLA administration’s growing dissatisfaction with Harrick had been growing since last month, when the Los Angeles Times reported that a car owned by Harrick had been sold to the sister of top recruit Baron Davis.

Though the Pacific-10 Conference cleared Harrick and the program of any wrongdoing, UCLA officials were known to have been upset that Harrick did not alert them to the potential NCAA violation once he heard that his son Glenn had sold the car to Lisa Hodoh.

One source said Dalis had considered suspending Harrick for the opening game of this season - Nov. 20, at Pauley Pavilion, against Tulsa.