Jim Rosborough
Longtime Arizona associate head men's basketball coach Jim Rosborough has returned to campus as a volunteer assistant coach for the women's tennis team. He will aid the UA staff with all facets of the tennis program, including team building, leadership roles, and proper focus.
Rosborough has displayed a team-first mentality throughout his 41 seasons of coaching and athletic administration. That career includes 32 years of NCAA Division I experience -- 31 in basketball and one in tennis.
Rosborough last coached on the Wildcat sidelines in 2006-07. He then served two seasons as a special assistant to the UA director of athletics (2007-09), focusing primarily on alumni relations within the men's basketball program, and also servied one season (2009-10) as the associate head men's basketball coach at Pima Community College.
His list of accomplishments is impressive: 24 NCAA Tournament appearances (Iowa, 5; Tulsa, 1; Arizona, 18), helping Pima C.C. to a seventh-place finish at the NJCAA national tournament (best in school history), coaching nearly 60 NBA draftees and, of course, the 1997 NCAA championship. He has been in the unique position of finishing first, second, third and fourth at the NCAA Final Four. Simply put, Rosborough's teams routinely compete for championships.
One needs to look no further than his performance during Olson's leave of absence in the middle of the 2000-01 season to realize just how crucial Rosborough is to Wildcat basketball. Despite high emotions on and off the court, he led the team to a 3-1 Pac 10 record in Olson's absence, including a road sweep of the Washington schools that many surrounding the team considered the turning point of the season as the Cats eventually finished as the NCAA runner-up. His knowledge of the system and leadership presence allowed the team to continue with as little interruption as possible.
Rosborough has long been a fan of tennis and has played the sport for 50 years. His friendship with Coach Maes dates back to her time as un undergraduate. In fact, Maes and Rosborough once teamed up to play, and decisively win, an exhibition match against Miles Simon and another UA women's tennis team member.
A 1962 graduate of Moline (Ill.) High School where he was an all state forward, Rosborough was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on April 27, 2002, to honor his outstanding prep playing career. In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Trustees at Epworth Heights in Ludington, Mich., his summer vacation home.
He received his bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1966 from Iowa and earned his teaching certificate from Loyola (Ill.) in 1970.
He and his wife, Kim, have two grown sons, Greg (27), a former UA basketball video manager, and Jon (26). Rosborough, a crafty veteran of the Tucson tennis circuit, was born on Dec. 2, 1944, in Davenport, Iowa. He and Kim were married in Iowa City, Iowa.
