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]

Lynn Archibald

Biographical details
Born	(1944-09-27)September 27, 1944 Logan, Utah, U.S.
Died	May 28, 1997(1997-05-28) (aged 52) Provo, Utah, U.S.
Alma mater	Fresno State, 1968
Playing career
(one year)	Utah State
(one year)	El Camino JC
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1970–1972	Long Beach State (assistant)
1972–1973	Cal Poly (assistant)
1974–1976	UNLV (assistant))
1976–1977	USC (assistant)
1977–1982	Idaho State
1982–1983	Utah (assistant)
1983–1989	Utah
1989–1994	Arizona State (assistant)
1994–1996	Brigham Young (assistant)
Head coaching record
Overall	163–152 (.517)

Early life

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]

Career

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 worked at Idaho State in Pocatello for five seasons (1977–1982),^[5][6][7] 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.^[8][9]

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.^[10] 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."^[11]

Personal life

His son Beau, who played college basketball at Washington State,^[10] and later, at Connecticut, is also a basketball coach.^[12] Another son, Damon, is currently an assistant at Green Bay.

Archibald's son-in-law is Mark Pope, who played collegiately at Washington and Kentucky and became head coach at Kentucky in 2024 after stops at Utah Valley and BYU; Archibald recruited Pope while an assistant at Arizona State.^[13]

Head coaching record

Statistics overview

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Idaho State Bengals (Big Sky Conference) (1977–1982)
1977–78	Idaho State	16–10	11–3	2nd
1978–79	Idaho State	14–13	8–6	T–2nd
1979–80	Idaho State	9–17	5–9	T–5th
1980–81	Idaho State	12–14	6–8	4th
1981–82	Idaho State	14–12	5–9	T–6th
Idaho State:		65–66 (.496)	35–35 (.500)
Utah Utes (Western Athletic Conference) (1983–1989)
1983–84	Utah	11–19	4–12	8th
1984–85	Utah	15–16	8–8	6th
1985–86	Utah	20–10	12–4	T–1st	NCAA 1st Round
1986–87	Utah	17–13	9–7	5th	NIT 1st Round
1987–88	Utah	19–11	11–5	2nd	NIT 1st Round
1988–89	Utah	16–17	6–10	6th
Utah:		98–66 (.598)	50–46 (.521)
Total:		163–152 (.517)
National champion         Postseason invitational champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference tournament champion