George Terzian, the winningest men's basketball coach in Pasadena City College history, has died at the age of 83 after a determined battle with cancer. Terzian passed away on Sunday at his home in Altadena.
PCC has lost two former men's basketball head coaches in a span of a few weeks following the death of Joe Barnes (1971-1979) earlier this month. Dan Ayala (1968-1971) also passed away in September of last year.
Terzian is a Pasadena legend as he had long coaching careers first for Pasadena High School and then a 20-year run at PCC before retiring in 2004. He amassed a Lancers record of 332-284, including a streak of seven consecutive appearances in the state playoffs from 1987 through 1994.
His finest team was the 1982-83 squad, a unit that went 28-8 and lost in triple overtime in the state championship game against Cerritos College. In 2003-2004, Terzian went out with a successful 22-9 season, reaching the second round of the SoCal Regionals. More than 50 percent of PCC's All-Time Scoring List were players coached by Terzian.
The long-time hoops coach directed PHS to two CIF Southern Section titles and a 383-110 prep record in 17 seasons there before taking over at PCC in the 1979-1980 season. At PHS, he coached PCC great Michael Cooper, and at PCC one of his players was current Lancers women's head basketball coach Joe Peron, a member of the '82-83 finalist team and the women's all-time coaching wins leader at PCC (coached the first women's state title of any kind in 2008-2009).
Tim Tucker played for Terzian at PHS, then was briefly an assistant coach for him at PCC before himself becoming a highly successful prep coach at PHS (two CIF titles) and Maranatha HS.
Terzian's link to PCC goes as far back as 1954-55 when he was a 2-sport star in basketball and tennis. He went on to be Westmont College's third all-time leading scorer in basketball as well as Westmont's No. 1 singles tennis player for three years. In 2018, Terzian was inducted into the PCC Sports Hall of Fame, capping an impressive number of halls that he was honored to enter. He was inducted into the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association HOF in 1987, the Westmont College HOF in 1995, the California Community College Men's Basketball Coaches Association HOF in 2006, and the Pasadena Sports HOF in 2017.