The IUPUI Athletics Department and Director of Athletics Dr. Roderick Perry have announced that Byron Rimm II has been named interim head men’s basketball coach, effective immediately. Rimm joined the IUPUI program last October as the Jaguars’ associate head coach and helped the program to a 16-win season and a postseason berth. The 16 wins were the program’s most since 2011.
Rimm has 10 years of Division I head coaching experience, having led the Prairie View A&M program from 2006-2016. The Panthers finished third in the Southwestern Athletic Conference in 2009 and he led PVAMU to consecutive SWAC Tournament Championship games in 2013 and 2014. Prior to that, PVAMU’s last championship game appearance came in 1998. His 2014-2015 squad had the program’s longest winning streak in more than 40 years.
He’s won nearly 200 games in his head coaching career, including 115 at the Division I level.
A native of Pensacola, Fla., Rimm played junior college ball at Ventura (Calif.) College and was team captain on the school’s 1995-96 state championship team. He wrapped up his playing career at California State University, Los Angeles. He began his ascension in the coaching ranks as an assistant coach at Pasadena City College (1997-99) and Chaffey Community College (1999-2000). He then moved to California State University, San Bernardino in 2000 and helped guide the team to a No. 3 ranking in NCAA Division II.
He spent only season at UCB before assuming the reigns as the head women’s basketball coach at Texas College in Tyler, Texas, piloting them to a 20-12 season in 2001-02. He then returned to the men’s side and accepted a position as head coach of Jarvis Christian College in nearby Hawkins, Texas.
While at Jarvis, he made an immediate impact in his first season and guided the Bulldogs to a second place finish in the Red River Athletic Conference and their first NAIA National Tournament appearance in more than three decades. He was selected as the conference co-coach of the year and had two players earn all-conference honors while earning votes in the NAIA national polls.
In three seasons at JCC, he led them to two appearances in the Red River Athletic Conference Tournament and recorded victories over two nationally ranked programs before moving on to Prairie View A&M as an assistant coach prior to the 2005-06 campaign.
A 1999 graduate of California State University, Los Angeles, Rimm received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies and also obtained a master’s degree in education from American InterContinental University in 2005. He also holds memberships in the National Association of Basketball Coaches and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Story Courtesy: Ed Holdaway (@EdHoldaway), IUPUI Sports Information
