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Published Thursday, July 17, 2008 in Sports

New Heritage football coach familiar with challenges

By Chris Goltermann

The Times-Herald

Larry Harrison was ready to sit this one out, go back to his music and his two grandkids and just take a break from football. The Heritage School, however, may have needed him more. Like some coaches find out, the bug wasn't ready to go into hibernation just yet.

Harrison doesn't mince words regarding the state of Heritage football. Hired just after the July 4 holiday, the first-year Hawks head coach inherits just 13 players. So he can't exactly kid himself about what to expect when fall practice begins in less than three weeks.

"A football is kinda like a foreign object to them," said Harrison. "It's going to be a challenge. From what I've heard so far from talking to people at the school, it's just difficult to get them out for football."

But what former head coach Ron Beaucham did in courting his successor, one with experience in building a GISA winner out of a traditional doormat, is miles better than anything Brett Favre is doing right now for Aaron Rodgers' confidence taking over as starting quarterback with the Green Bay Packers.

"I think he'll be very nurturing," said Heritage assistant Murray Parks of Harrison. "We're still a real, real young football team."

Beaucham, who made a three-win improvement during last year's first varsity season, may not have found a better fit to continue what he began when he left Northgate. In 31 years of experience, both as an assistant and more recently as a head coach, a three-year stint at Nathaniel Greene Academy in the tiny town of Siloam located East on I-20 between Greensboro and Thomson, may give Harrison and Heritage the biggest boost of confidence of all.

In three years at NGA, the Patriots went from a team that had nine victories in a 33-game span, to a three-time GISA Class A state semifinalist and back-to-back state runner up. And an even bigger key to success than installing Harrison's trademark double-wing offense -- a hybrid of the more familiar wing-T -- was establishing both a work ethic and an attitude toward winning.

"First off I went to the (school) board and the things I talked about, they were 100-percent supportive," he said.

Harrison, who spent last year as offensive coordinator at his alma-mater, Columbia High in DeKalb, which won four of its last five games in Class AAA, three of which with point totals over 35 points, "didn't do anything out of the ordinary," at Nathanial Greene.

"The kids had been playing football, getting beat up year after year. Between the parents getting beat up when they played, and their kids getting beat up, I think they all were ready to see a change," said Harrison, who did not have a staff at NGA. "It was just me out there coaching a great group of kids. I still have those kids call me every once in a while."

It doesn't hurt to start with numbers, something that even at a student body of 120, Harrison made work at Nathaniel Greene with a lineup of 25. That player ratio of 1 to every 4.8 students will have to get better than the current 1 to 27.8 students now at Heritage.

Harrison will have one benefit over Beaucham this year, though. Heritage has moved its soccer program from a traditional fall schedule to spring, clearing one potential conflict of interest. Experience, however, will be a bit tougher hurdle to overcome.

"The most anyone has been playing it two years. That's as much as I've got," he said. "Coach Beaucham has done a heck of a job with them. So we won't be starting from scratch."

Still, Harrison is adamant that winning comes from more than bodies in helmets. This year's Hawks team will be in for some changes beyond the addition of the double-wing. They can expect more contact in practice, and with just three current subs, a whole lot of conditioning.

"I'm not a big weight-lifting kind of guy," he said. "The weight room certainly has its purpose. But there's more to football than just lifting. We're going to do a lot of conditioning. But I try to make it as fun as I can and not punishment."

Beaucham, who reluctantly stepped down at Heritage following its inaugural 2007 varsity season for an assistant coaching job at Lithia Springs High, sought out Harrison shortly after learning that he wasn't going to be able to land a full-time teaching job at Winston Dowdell Alternative School. The two had become colleagues both on the field -- where Nathaniel Greene defeated Heritage 48-0 in 2006 -- and off it while seeing one another at events at Georgia Tech or within the relm of the GISA.

"He asked if I would be interested. I hadn't expected to be coaching this year," said Harrison, who doesn't have a teaching degree, but can play a mean guitar (see for yourself on YouTube). "I've been looking to spend more time with my music and the grandkids, but when this came up, it seemed like a perfect situation. Coach just told me, 'You know what you're getting into, right?'"

Ready or not, in just over a month, Heritage football will be on the field for its 2008 season opener at home against Strong Rock. And Harrison plans to have the team ready.

"I think the kids are excited," he said. "The biggest thing is that we've got to get everyone excited about football. If some of them see it, maybe they'll want to come around."

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