Loyola Chooses Company Man

Charles Bradley, named basketball coach at Loyola Marymount on Friday, could only shake his head at the list of candidates who had not been offered the job.

Former UCLA coaches Jim Harrick and Larry Farmer, and former Laker coach Paul Westhead, himself a former Loyola coach, had all been considered. But there were no serious discussions with any of them, presumably because of the salary requirements they would have brought with them.

“That’s pretty good company,” said Bradley, who has been coach at Division II Metropolitan State in Denver the last three seasons. “I have a lot of respect for all of those guys. That’s an elite class.”

Instead, the Loyola program, in decline in recent years, will pin its hopes on a new face, relying on Bradley’s ability to bring it back to the status it once enjoyed under Westhead. He took the team to the Sweet 16 of the 1990 NCAA tournament before leaving to become head coach of the Denver Nuggets.

Bradley, 37, is not about to predict a quick return to those days.

“We are just trying to get the wheels in motion for the program,” he said. “We can’t look too far ahead.”

That’s certainly a realistic approach, considering that the Lions were 7-21 this past season, and 51-88 in John Olive’s five years as coach. Olive resigned earlier this month.

Metropolitan State was 37-43 under Bradley, going 6-21 in 1994-95, 18-9 in 1995-96, and 13-13 this season. Before that, Bradley was an assistant coach at Brigham Young, Wyoming and San Diego State.

Bradley was the second-leading scorer in Wyoming history and a first-round pick of the Boston Celtics in 1981. He also played for the Seattle SuperSonics in a pro career that lasted three seasons.