Marv Harshman
Basketball Coach

A 1935 Lake Stevens High School graduate, Marv Harshman was an outstanding high school athlete who continued his winning ways at Pacific Lutheran College.

Harshman won 13 letters in four different sports at PLC, and helped lead the school to 18 straight football wins from 1939-41. Incredibly, during the same academic year, he was also the conference Most Valuable Player during the 1940-41 basketball season. He briefly played professional basketball before joining the Navy in 1942.

After World War II, Harshman returned to Pacific Lutheran as a coach in basketball, football and track. He served as head basketball coach for 14 season, winning four NAIA District I titles while being named District Coach of the Year seven times. His 1957 team went 30-2 and finished third at the national tournament.

Marv then gained an outstanding reputation as the hoops coach at Washington State University for 13 years before taking over head basketball duties at the University of Washington in 1971. In 1975 Harshman coached the U.S. National Team to the gold medal in the Pan American Games. He dealt the late John Wooden his final defeat at UCLA and was named Seattle Sports Man of the Year. He coached at UW for 14 season, winning 251 games and retiring in 1985 with a 40 year total career record of 642-448.

Marv Harshman was Pac-8 Coach of the Year in 1976, and Pac-10 Coach of the Year in 1982. He was also awarded the Kodak Division I Coach of the Year in 1984. Marv is familiar with Hall of Fame status as he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, The Husky Hall of Fame in 1985 and the WSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986.