By definition, Del Harris isn’t a journeyman.
 
While his career has spanned more than 50 years in multiple countries, leagues and roles, he’s not your run-of-the-mill, experienced basketball coach. Well traveled, he is; ordinary, he is not.
 
At 74 years old, Harris has seen it all and done it all, racking up more than 550 NBA victories, hundreds of international wins and countless more “Ws” as an assistant coach in stops across the globe.
 
Then it should have struck no one by surprise when John Calipari chose Harris as one of his assistants for his journey with the Dominican Republic National Team. Together, Calipari, Harris and the Dominican Republic will begin play in the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship on Aug. 30 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, with hopes of qualifying for the country’s first Olympics.
 
Without Harris in the fold, chances are Calipari would have never taken the ambitious job in the first place.
 
“I only did this because he said he’d do it with me,” Calipari said by phone Saturday in Brazil, where his team is preparing for the FIBA tournaments. “He was one of the major factors in me agreeing to do it. The experience of having him coach me, along with the team, has been unbelievable. We are being mentored by one of the best in the business.”
 
And when Calipari says “one of the best in the business,” he means Hall of Fame worthy.
 
“My question is why isn’t Del being mentioned for the Hall of Fame? Why isn’t his name up there?” Calipari said. “It should be. It should be either as a head coach or, at the very least, as a contributor to the game.”
 
Coach Cal may have a point. In fact, he has a pretty good one.
 
For a person to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, he or she must have made “significant contributions to the game of basketball.” Calipari says Harris’ résumé is significantly overwhelming.
 
“He’s won at every stop and he’s helped develop numerous coaches as well,” Calipari said. “He deserves to be in there.”
 
Of the 83 coaches in the Hall of Fame, Harris’ list of accomplishments compare pretty favorably.
 
He put together 556 wins with three different teams (Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers), led 11 different squads to the NBA Playoffs and guided the Houston Rockets to the 1981 NBA Finals in just his second season as a head coach.

Del Harris, who is serving as one of John Calipari's assistants on the Dominican Republic National Team, was the 1994-95 NBA Coach of the Year.

Harris is one of just three coaches in Los Angeles Lakers franchise history to register three consecutive 50-plus win seasons (future Hall of Famers Phil Jackson and Pat Riley are the others), but his most notable achievement came during the 1994-95 season when he earned NBA Coach of the Year honors for leading an underwhelming Lakers team – one that was in the NBA lottery as Harris took over – to a 48-34 record and an appearance in the Western Conference semifinals.
 
And that was just in his years as a head coach in the NBA.
 
Prior to the NBA, Harris spent seven seasons in Puerto Rico (1969-75) in the National Superior League, posting a 176-61 record while winning three national championships (1973-75), coaching largely against ABA/NBA or Division I coaches. He guided Puerto Rico to a gold medal – the country’s first – at the 1974 CentroBasket Games in El Salvador, his club team to a bronze medal at the 1973 World Club Championships and a gold medal at the 1974 World Club Championships.
 
Collegiately, Harris had the reins at Earlham College (Indiana) for nine years, where he led the team to a school-record 176 victories and the school’s first three conference championships in school history, en route to being named a national finalist for Coach of the Year. Earlham has enjoyed just four winning seasons since he departed in the mid 1970s.
 
Harris’ career in the NBA extends well beyond his role as head coach. He’s served as an assistant with the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks and New Jersey Nets, sitting on the bench for more than 200 playoff games.
 
Even so, some of Harris’ prouder moments came in international play. He assisted Coach Ken Shields with the Canadian National Team in the 1994 World Championships for a fifth-place finish and was chosen by his former player and assistant Rudy Tomjanovich to assist with the U.S. National Team in the 1998 FIBA World Championship, where the Americans captured the bronze medal. In 2004, as the first-ever foreign head coach of the China National Team, he guided the Chinese to the medal round with a victory over defending world champion Serbia, widely regarded as the most significant win in Chinese national history.
 
Since that Olympics run, Harris has made frequent revisits to China and has turned into a popular icon in a growing basketball country. He’s also been inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
“Not only has he been a coach in the game, even more he’s been a contributor to the game,” Calipari said. “He’s written well-regarded books, coached in different countries and now he’s doing this job with the Dominican Republic. He’s preparing other young head coaches aside from what he did as a coach.”
 
Specifically, 10 of Harris’ former assistants went on to become head coaches or general managers in the NBA and 21 of his former players have gone on to become head or assistant coaches in the NBA, NBA developmental league or college.

In addition to the four books and numerous magazine articles he’s written about the game, he’s lectured on basketball around the world in Asia, Africa, South and Central America, Europe, and of course, the United States. Harris was recently awarded the Jerry Colangelo Award for character and contributions to basketball on and off the court at the NBA All-Star Game in 2011.
 
Now, Harris is serving as an assistant on the Dominican Republic team, the fifth country he’s represented in international play. On paper, Harris’ duties are to help coach the Dominicans, but Calipari is also using Harris’ experience to benefit his personal coaching techniques for his full-time role at Kentucky. Harris has become just as much as a coach for Calipari, Orlando Antigua and Rod Strickland as he is a coach for the Dominicans.
 
“One of my first things to him was, ‘Hey, I want you to coach this team, but I want you to coach me and Rod and Orlando and make us better so that when we go back Kentucky, we’re better prepared for these young people,’ ” Calipari said. “I want him to totally dissect the dribble-drive and make it even better. I want him to give me some ideas and different ways to get into things we’re doing a little better.”
 
With Harris by his side nearly 24/7 over the last few weeks, even a Final Four coach like Calipari has picked up a wealth of tips.
 
“It’s not just the team benefitting,” Calipari said. “Me personally, being selfish, it’s been an unbelievable experience.”
 
When Calipari called Harris for the job, Harris didn’t waver at the opportunity to get out of his brief retirement as a coach and return to the game. Harris said he wasn’t looking for something to do at the time, noting his three part-time jobs as general manager of the Mavericks’ developmental league team, his gig as a commentator with Fox’s Spanish network and his role as a teacher at Dallas Christian College, but Harris couldn’t turn down the chance to contribute even more to the game of basketball.
 
“He said it’s an opportunity for us to hang out and do basketball, and that’s good, but the main thing is that he wanted to give back to society and the Dominican Republic,” Harris said of Calipari’s offer.
 
If the Dominican Republic makes the Olympics or continues play into next year, Harris plans to remain by Calipari’s side. If it doesn’t, Harris’ next journey is unknown.
 
Perhaps it’s a one-way ticket to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., as a coach or as a contributor. His mileage of accomplishments seems to indicate he deserves the nomination.
 
“Who out there can say they’ve contributed more to coaches and the game than Del Harris?” Calipari said. “There’s not many of them out there.”