Lynn Archibald

Lynn J. Archibald (September 27, 1944 – May 28, 1997) was an American college basketball coach. He served as head basketball coach at Idaho State University and the University of Utah.[1][2]

Born in Logan, Utah, Archibald moved to Oregon and California with his family and graduated from Torrance High School in Torrance, California. He played college basketball at Utah State in Logan as a freshman and at El Camino College as a sophomore; he completed his bachelor's degree at Fresno State.[3]

Archibald was an assistant coach under Jerry Tarkanian at Long Beach State and UNLV, and also had brief stints at Cal Poly–SLO and USC.[4] As a head coach, he was at Idaho State in Pocatello for five seasons (1977–1982),[5] and then was an assistant at Utah in Salt Lake City for a season. When Jerry Pimm departed for UC Santa Barbara,[4] Archibald was promoted and led the Utes for six years (1983–1989), with a 98–86 (.533) record.[6][7]

Succeeded by Rick Majerus at Utah, Archibald was an assistant at Arizona State University (1989–1994), then at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and later, the director of basketball operations.[8] After a long battle with prostate cancer, Archibald died at his Provo home at age 52 in 1997.[3]

While at Idaho State in 1979, Archibald mused that the peculiar King Spud Trophy for the intrastate series with Idaho should be awarded to the loser: "It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen. The only good thing that happened last week was losing it."[9]

His son Beau, who played college basketball at Washington State,[8] and later at Connecticut, is also a basketball coach.[10]