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'EXPERIENCED, SUCCESSFUL':
Harris.
Gonzalesphoto.com |
by day he’ll be developing
game plans, Walt Harris told Bay Area reporters when
he was named head football coach on December 13. And
by night, he said, he’ll be devising staffing
plans.
“I have a great teacher [in former coach Bill
Walsh], and I’m going to pick his brain as much
as I can to help me understand the short passing game
that everyone calls the West Coast offense,” Harris
said. But the former quarterbacks coach for the New
York Jets didn’t promise to rely on it. “The
offense will be based on the kinds of players we have,
and I can’t say we’re going to throw or
run the ball,” he said. “I do see a lot
of linemen, and no seniors, which makes it very exciting.”
Harris comes to the Farm after eight years as head coach
at the University of Pittsburgh, where he led a turnaround
that resulted in five consecutive bowl appearances,
including a January Fiesta Bowl berth. Last season,
the Sporting News ranked the Pittsburgh coaching
staff third nationally, and Harris was named Big East
Conference Coach of the Year for the second time.
Stanford signed Harris to a five-year contract. By the
end of January, he had selected nine of 10 assistants,
including Cardinal veterans Nathaniel Hackett, Wayne
Moses (who spent the 2004 season at Pittsburgh), Tom
Quinn and Dave Tipton, ’71. Harris will serve
as quarterbacks coach.
“What set Coach Harris aside was a combination
of factors,” athletics director Ted Leland said
in announcing the new Bradford M. Freeman Director of
Football Head Coach. “First, there’s his
experience. I think we could argue, with the exception
of Bill Walsh coming back the second time, [Harris]
is the most experienced and successful football coach
Stanford has hired in seven or eight decades.”
Leland, PhD ’83, also cited Harris’s reputation
as a creative offensive coach and his “sense of
intensity.” Lastly, said Leland, “Walt brings
a sense of honesty, a sense of fairness, a sense of
what’s right and wrong, and a sense of the right
way to do things.”
Walsh, who coached the Cardinal from 1977 to 1978 and
1992 to 1994 and now serves as a special assistant to
Leland, added that Harris has “one of the biggest
minds in football.”
The 58-year-old Harris is a native of South San Francisco
who has a 63-67 overall record in 11 seasons as a collegiate
head coach. He has served as an assistant coach at Cal,
Air Force, Michigan State, Illinois, Tennessee and Ohio
State, and has mentored the likes of Boomer Esiason,
Rickey Dudley, Eddie George and Terry Glenn. Leland
gave him his first head-coaching opportunity in 1989
at University of the Pacific, Harris’s alma mater. |
