Jim Rosborough

Following college, Rosborough completed a year of law school before beginning his career as a teacher at the Daniel J. Corkery School on Chicago's west side. In 1970, he volunteered to organize and coach the eighth grade basketball team and across four seasons, would lead the team to 127 wins and 22 losses.[12][13] Recounting those days coaching and teaching in Chicago in a 2019 interview, Rosborough said, “I loved that. I taught classes during the day. We had a really good team. I’m thinking in four years there we won a hundred-some games traveling all over the Chicago area.” [14] It was during this time that Rosborough became familiar with the Chicago basketball high school scene which would lead to his first collegiate coaching position at Iowa.[13]

In the spring on 1974, Iowa hired Lute Olson as head coach. Soon after the hire, Rosborough, a former Iowa Hawkeye but still a teacher and eighth grade coach in Chicago at the time, called Olson to tell him about a prospect. A few weeks later, Olson hired Rosborough to be Iowa's graduate assistant coach. As Olson explained in his 2006 book, "What Jim lacked in experience, which was everything, he made up in personality. His willingness to work, his passion for the game, and his knowledge of the Chicago area made him a good fit at Iowa."[15]

Recruiting was one of Rosborough's initial responsibilities, as he explained in a 2019 interview, “One of the good things we did at Iowa was to start an Advanced Invitational Camp. I’d comb through the newspapers and see this kid from a high school who’d done well, send him an invite to come to the camp, and we ended up – in the second year we did this – with 28 kids who went to Division I schools."[14] Rosborough would rise to become Olson's top assistant and Iowa's chief recruiter in Chicago, landing key recruits Kenny Arnold and Ronnie Lester who would take Iowa to five straight NCAA tournaments and the Final Four in 1980.[16][11][12]

Rosborough and Olson coached together for nine seasons, from 1974 to 1983, with an overall record of 167–91, before Olson left Iowa to accept the head coaching position at the University of Arizona.[17] On Olson's departure, Rosborough was hired as an assistant to athletic director Bump Elliott and stayed at Iowa for two additional years.[14]

For the 1985–86 season, Rosborough was hired as an assistant coach at Tulsa by head coach J. D. Barnett.[16] The team would have a successful season going 23-9, and winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship over Bradley. Barnett would go on to praise Rosborough's strategy in the victory saying, "We used different defenses. We put in a match-up Jim Rosborough used at Iowa. He put it in and it worked. We were able to take away their great athletic ability with our defense."[18] The team would go on to play in the 1986 NCAA tournament and lose to Navy in the first round.

Rosborough coaching at NIU, 1988

Following the success in Tulsa, Rosborough was hired as the head men's basketball coach at Northern Illinois University in April 1986, with a stated goal to build a team that could make the NCAA tournament.[16][19] In his three seasons as head coach at NIU, he answered to three different Athletic Directors, an instability that led to Rosborough being fired from the program in 1989.[20] Rosborough said in a 2019 interview, “I knew right away when they hired the third AD that it wasn’t a good fit, so that was kind of a struggle year. To be honest with you, when I was let go, I didn’t mind it. I mean I minded it, but I didn’t mind it at all.”[14]

Rosborough's freshman recruiting class at NIU would go on reach the NCAA tournament in the 1990-1991 season and win 25 games, the most in school history, solidifying the rebuilding of the program that Rosborough had started.[14]

Following his departure from NIU, Lute Olson hired Rosborough as an assistant coach at Arizona in April 1989, saying, “The thing with Roz is that he is a premier sideline assistant, as good as any in the business.”[13] The Rosborough and Olson led Arizona Wildcats were a dominant and consistent collegiate basketball team through the 90's and 00's, reaching 18 consecutive NCAA tournaments, eight Pac-10 championships, three NCAA Final Fours, and the 1997 NCAA Championship. Following the 1997 National Championship, Olson promoted Rosborough to Associate Head Coach, the position he would retain until leaving the team in 2007. Rosborough assumed the role of head coach briefly in 2001 following the death of Olson's wife, Bobbi Olson. Rosborough led the team to a 3-1 record in conference play.[14]

The Arizona Wildcats were an unlikely 1997 National Champion. They entered the 1997 NCAA Tournament with a 19-9 record after finishing in fifth place in the Pac-10. The team did not finish the regular season strongly and went 4-4 in their last eight games. In the first game of the NCAA Tournament, Arizona was in danger of getting upset by South Alabama, who was leading by two points at the half. The Wildcats relied on a perimeter strategy from guards Miles Simon, Mike Bibby, Michael Dickerson, and Jason Terry to carry the team. One of the team's unique accomplishments in their improbable run to the 1997 championship was that they were the only team in NCAA Tournament history to beat three No.1 seeds: Hall of Fame coach Roy Williams' nearly undefeated Kansas Jayhawks in the Sweet Sixteen, Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith's North Carolina Tar Heels in the Final Four, and Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino's Kentucky Wildcats in the National Championship.[3] The day after the victory in Indianapolis, the team was given a parade through the streets of Tucson.[21]

Rosborough and Olson in 2005

When Lute Olson was hired at Iowa in the spring of 1974, Jim Rosborough phoned and told him about a Chicago prospect. A few weeks later, Olson hired Rosborough to be Iowa’s graduate assistant coach. Olson would recount the hire in his 2006 book; "What Jim lacked in experience, which was everything, he made up in personality. His willingness to work, his passion for the game, and his knowledge of the Chicago area made him a good fit at Iowa." This was the start of a successful coaching relationship and friendship across the next 33 years. Rosborough served under Olson for nine seasons at Iowa, and for 18 seasons at Arizona as an assistant coach, and following the 1997 national championship, as associate head coach.[15]

As Arizona's associate head coach, Rosborough's expertise within the Olson basketball system was a driving force that allowed the Arizona program to remain at the highest levels in the country, both on and off the court. The 2006-2007 season would be the final full season at Arizona for both Rosborough and Olson. Following the season, Rosborough rejected an offer to move to a non-coaching position within the athletic department, ending the long partnership with Olson. Due to health concerns, Olson did not coach the following season, and retired in 2008.[22]

For the 2009-2010 basketball season, Rosborough was hired as the associate head coach of the Pima College men's basketball team.[4] The team would go on to have their best season in school history at the time, finishing 7th in the NJCAA tournament.[6]

Rosborough worked as an assistant coach for the Arizona Wildcats women's tennis team for four seasons with head coach Vicky Maes. Across four seasons, the team qualified for the NCAA tournament three times, and in 2014, had an undefeated 14-0 home record.[6] As Maes explained in a 2011 interview, "We were having breakfast one day and the idea (of him coaching) just kind of came about. When Ros joined the staff, the team may have wondered ‘what's a basketball guy going to do for us?' He has really kind of had to earn their trust." Rosborough explained his early interest in tennis in the same 2011 interview, saying, "We had a guy in our neighborhood back in Moline who was probably the best tennis player in Moline, and he was in the neighborhood so my parents knew him. When I was 10, I got some lessons from him." [23] Rosborough's background in tennis and unlikely friendship with Jeb Schoonover is detailed in a 2004 Tucson Weekly magazine story called "The Odder Couple."[24]

Rosborough returned to Pima in 2015 as an assistant to Todd Holthaus on the women's team, where he currently coaches. The team has had over 20 wins each season, and qualified for NJCAA tournament twice, finishing 3rd in 2016, and 5th in 2019.[14] In 2015, Rosborough was also hired as an NBA Scout for the Atlanta Hawks.[25]