Cougar Athletics
28 NAIA National Championships
93 GSAC Championships
...and counting

Long-time coach Dr. Jim Larson is in his third year on the Cougar basketball coaching staff.

Larson had an extensive background as a college coach, spending over 15 years on nearly every level of the game.

He has coached on the high school, junior college, AAU, NAIA, and NCAA Division II and I levels. Along the way, he has enjoyed success at every stop.

Larson’s head coaching career began at Fresno’s Edison High where in 3 seasons there he led the Tigers to 2 league titles and a CIF championship.

He moved to the college ranks and served one year as the head coach at Westmont, guiding the Warriors to a 17-8 record in 1971.

From there, Larson spent the next 4 years as the first head coach at Cal State Bakersfield where he was 66-39 and guided the Roadrunners to their first CCAA title and NCAA berth in just their second season.

He moved away from coaching to work on his doctorate degree in education, Larson became a professor at Pepperdine but 2 years later he returned to coaching as an assistant on Jim Harrick’s staff.

In 1980 he began a 4-year stint as the head coach at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., leading the Pirates to 3 Northwest Conference titles while fashioning a 66-42 record. While at Whitworth he coached Tommy Stewart, the father of current Cougar Darin Stewart.

Before stepping away from collegiate coaching in the mid 1980s for a career in finance, Larson was the head coach at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., where he coached for 3 seasons and going 47-37 in the process.

In his 12 seasons as a head coach on the collegiate level (both 4– and 2-year), Larson put together a 196-126 (.609) record.

For the past 17 years, Larson devoted his time to financial services, interspersing some AAU coaching in his free time. Last summer Larson conducted a series of coaching clinics for Athletes in Action in India. In addition, for the past 5 years he has been teaching at Azusa Pacific.

Larson played at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., from where he graduated in 1963. He earned a master’s of education from Fresno State University and has a doctorate in education from UCLA. He serves an associate professor in Azusa Pacific’s exercise and sport science department and teaches several undergraduate classes.

Jim and his wife Sylvia, who reside in Dove Canyon, Calif., have 7 children and 6 grandchildren.