(Edited Dec. 3 to include second state title)

Joe Barnes, who was an assistant coach on two state champion Pasadena City College men's basketball teams and was the head coach when Lakers great Michael Cooper attended PCC, died last night at the age of 79. Barnes served as a chemistry professor in Natural Sciences for 35 years before retiring in 2005.

A board member of PCC's Retiree Association, Barnes frequently attended PCC functions, including Lancers basketball games after his retirement. 

Barnes played California Community College basketball at Riverside City College under PCC Court of Champions legend and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Jerry Tarkanian, who later encouraged PCC to hire Barnes, a standout student-athlete from Detroit, Michigan, once Barnes finished his undergraduate and then master's degrees at Whittier College. Barnes served as an assistant on both Tarkanian's 1967 and Coach Dan Ayala's 1969 Lancers state champion teams, the latter the last state title in men's basketball by a PCC squad. In 1968, he assisted on Tarkanian's state finalist team during an amazing run by the Lancers program. Those squads featured such PCC Sports Hall of Famers as Lancers all-time leading scorer Sam Robinson and the Trapp brothers, John and George.

Barnes took over as PCC's head coach in 1971 and served eight seasons directing the program. He finished with a 134-99 career record (.575 win percentage) including a 26-7 season in 1977-1978. 

He is best known for being the community college head coach of Cooper, who attended PCC from 1974-1976. The PCC Hall of Famer and CCCAA State Hall of Fame Cooper became academically ineligible during his freshman season for the Lancers and Barnes wanted to impress upon him the value of going to class and gaining a college education.

"A lot of kids would have sulked after that and just quit," said Barnes in an interview years back with the PCC Courier. "but he came to every single game after that, sat on the bench and cheered. Not being able to play was a severe price to pay and he was very hurt by it, but I was very proud of the way he took it."

Under Barnes guidance, Cooper would come back as a sophomore and become an All-Metropolitan Conference scoring leader in 1975-1976 as he finished his Lancers playing days as the school's then #2 all-time leading scorer (now No. 7) with 1,070 points. Cooper earned a scholarship to the University of New Mexico before embarking on his career as a professional player and a part of five NBA World Championship teams with the Los Angeles Lakers.  

Current PCC men's basketball coach Michael Swanegan recently passed Barnes win mark to become No. 2 on the the college's all-time coaching wins list.