Role of a Lifetime: Larry Farmer and the UCLA Bruins

Larry Farmer served as the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1981 to 1984, Weber State University from 1985 to 1988, and Loyola University Chicago from 1998 to 2004. He played college basketball at UCLA, where he was a member of three national championship-winning teams for the UCLA Bruins under Head Coach John Wooden in the early 1970s. In 2018, Farmer was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame. Tracy Dodds was the beat reporter covering UCLA basketball for the Los Angeles Times during Larry Farmer’s tenure as UCLA’s basketball coach. Tracy was a pioneer among women in sports journalism during a 30-year career that began days after she graduated from Indiana University’s School of Journalism in December of 1973. Tracy has covered both college and professional basketball, college football, the NHL, Olympic swimming and diving, boxing, and auto racing. She is the only woman in the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. Bill Walton was NCAA player of the year at UCLA from 1972 to 1974, when UCLA set an NCAA record 88 consecutive-game winning streak. A former NBA champion and MVP, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and selected as one of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players ever. He has also had a successful award-winning broadcasting career with ABC, ESPN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Turner, and Fox, among others. He currently resides in his hometown of San Diego with his family. Visit him at BillWalton.com. Jamaal Wilkes was a two-time consensus first-team All-American at UCLA, where he won two NCAA championships under Coach John Wooden. After being drafted by the Golden State Warriors, Wilkes won Rookie of the Year and his first NBA championship. He would go on to win three more NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, and have his number retired by both UCLA and the Lakers. He is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.