Jim began his coaching career in 1964 at Morningside HS in Inglewood and was the head coach there from 1970-73 for CIF dominating teams. He then went into college coaching where he was for almost 50 years. He was a UCLA assistant coach from 1977-79 before becoming the head coach at Pepperdine for the next 10 years. He then returned as the UCLA head coach in 1988 and went to the NCAA Tournament every year. He is best remembered for being head coach for the 1995 Bruin NCAA title team, the only UCLA championship outside of the John Wooden era.

He continued head coaching at Rhode Island and Georgia through 2003. After coaching professional basketball, Harrick came back to college game as a Cal State Northridge assistant in 2018. He was responsible for 10 conference titles, 5 league coach of the year honors and was the national coach of the year in 1995 during the Bruin title run. He had a 470-235 college career coaching record and has produced numerous All-Americans and over 40 professional players. He was inducted into the Pepperdine Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.