McQuarn Accepts Arizona State Job as Assistant Coach

George McQuarn, who abruptly resigned as Cal State Fullerton’s basketball coach less than a month before last season began, has accepted a job as an assistant to Coach Bill Frieder at Arizona State, McQuarn said Monday.

McQuarn, who has worked in a contracting business the past six months, said in January that he did not miss coaching and did not plan to coach again. But he changed his mind during the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament, he said.

“I didn’t really miss basketball during the regular season,” McQuarn said. “Yet, I did miss it watching the tournament on TV. There must not have been a televised game I missed. The (NCAA tournament) was something I went to Fullerton to make happen, and for whatever reason it didn’t. I watched the kids play and said it was something I missed and decided I’m going to do it.”

The NCAA tournament McQuarn watched, of course, eventually was won by Michigan, the team Frieder coached during the regular season before taking the Arizona State job and being forbidden to coach in the tournament.

The addition of McQuarn gives Arizona State a staff that could have four members who were Division I head coaches at some time between the beginning of practices last Oct. 15 and the end of the season.

McQuarn resigned before the season, and Frieder’s other full-time assistant, Lynn Archibald, was coach at Utah before being fired after the season. Bob Schermerhorn, currently an administrative assistant or part-time coach at Arizona State, was the interim coach at Arizona State after Steve Patterson was fired during the season.

McQuarn resigned Nov. 3 after eight seasons at Fullerton, quitting the day after a coaches’ meeting with university President Jewel Plummer Cobb during which he was singled out on issues of fund raising and academics.

McQuarn said he had not pursued any head coaching jobs.

Arizona State will announce his appointment today, sources said.