Former National Championship coach hosting basketball camp in Merced

Jim Harrick says he’s now entered the phase of his life where he’s in “give-back mode.”

The former UCLA men’s basketball coach spends some of his time giving speeches around the country. Harrick will be coming to Merced to host the Inaugural Merced Basketball Camp along with Golden Valley High coach Keith Hunter and Merced High’s Hector Nava.

The camp will be held at Golden Valley’s Cougar Arena June 5-7 for kids 7 through 17 years of age. High school graduates are not eligible for the camp.

“Basketball has been so good to me, I just want to give back,” Harrick said.

The camp, which is open to boys and girls, will be broken up into two sessions. Ages 7-11 will be on the court from 10 a.m.-noon all three days. Ages 12-17 will take the floor from 12:30 p.m.-2:30. The cost is $50. There are about 100 kids registered so far. There are 20 spots still available.

To register, go online to http://mercedbasketballcamp.weebly.com/registration.html.

“We’re trying to bring the community together,” Nava said. “We’ve got a great championship coach coming in to give guidance and to teach the simple things of basketball through his vision. There’s going to be a lot of great energy in the camp. We’ve got ourselves, our coaching staff, the GV staff and coach Harrick.”

Harrick won 470 games as college coach with stops at Pepperdine, UCLA, Rhode Island and Georgia. He led his teams to the NCAA Tournament 16 times and coached the Bruins to the national championship in 1995.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet and talk to someone like him,” Hunter said. “I’m a huge UCLA fan. I rooted for those teams. It’s going to be fun to hear any stories he tells and it’s going to be a chance to learn something.”

One of Harrick’s former players at UCLA was the greatest basketball player to come out of Merced in Gerald Madkins. The Merced High Hall of Famer played three years for Harrick.

“He was a fabulous athlete and a very, very good person,” Harrick said. “He was already (at UCLA) when I got the job. He was hit by a car while riding a moped. I ended up bringing him to our house. He stayed with us. We had an open room at the time. I didn’t know him very well but we became lifelong friends. To this day he’s one of my greatest friends.

“He’s one of the few players I ever coached who knew how to play basketball. Most guys don’t know how to play. He knows when to make the extra pass. He knows how to work inside out. He knows when to get the big guy involved.”

The focus of this camp will be fundamentals.

“I’ve run camps for 40 years and I really enjoy being around young kids,” Harrick said. “I love the camp setting. It’s relaxed. I like to see how hard the kids work. How hard do they play? We’re going to focus on the fundamentals: ball-handling, shooting, dribbling, passing and footwork. If they can learn these skills and incorporate them into their practice on their own they can become good ball players.

“What we’ll work on is not anything different than what I did with my kids at UCLA. We worked on fundamentals every single day.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2017 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Former National Championship coach hosting basketball camp in Merced."