Inside The Huskies

Romar's Not Ready to Retire, Hired as Assistant By WCC Rival

The former UW head coach was out of work for two weeks.

Dan Raley

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He's moved 24 miles south down the Los Angeles freeway system to a neighboring West Coast Conference school and likely taken a considerable pay cut, but Lorenzo Romar is still doing what motivates him — coaching basketball.

On Tuesday, Loyola Marymount hired Romar as an assistant coach for Stan Johnson's staff with this opportunity coming just 15 days after the former was fired as the head coach at Pepperdine in Malibu.

This marks the second time Romar, 65, the former long-time University of Washington head coach and one-time Husky point guard, has rebounded from a head-coaching dismissal by taking an assistant's job at a rival school. 

In 2017, after the UW let him go following a 15-season run, Romar went to work for Sean Miller and Arizona as an assistant for a year.

What's clear is Romar simply is not ready to retire while coming off a 13-20 season at Pepperdine and Johnson-led Loyola Marymount, which split a pair of games against his team, could use some added coaching expertise following a 12-19 campaign.

In 27 seasons as a head coach, Romar has compiled a 467-397 coaching record, which includes 298-195 during his 2003-17 stay with the Huskies in what often was a golden era that featured Brandon Roy, Nate Robinson and Isaiah Thomas in his lineups.

Romar has been a head coach twice at Pepperdine, leaving voluntarily the first time, with his two tours sandwiched around stints at Saint Louis and the UW. He was a three-time Pac-10 or Pac-12 Coach of the Year for the Huskies.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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