The building process already has started.
Gary Harris was in Columbus on Thursday surveying the Heritage Academy softball field and taking a look at the program’s equipment.
In a little more than two months, Harris will take that field for the first time as the school’s new fast-pitch softball coach. The former fast-pitch softball and boys basketball coach at Presbyterian Christian in Hattiesburg brings more than 13 years experience as a coach to Heritage Academy.
“It’s a (Mississippi Association of Independent Schools Class) AAA school with a lot of good tradition in their athletic programs,” said Harris, 43, who was hiring was approved April 30 and completed a move to Columbus on Monday and Tuesday. “I went to Mississippi State, and this is an area I enjoy being in.”
Harris, who has a brother who lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and a sister who lives in Memphis, Tenn., comes to Heritage Academy after spending one year as girls basketball and track and field coach at Glenbrook School in Minden, La. His varsity and junior varsity girls track and field teams won their district championships.
At Heritage Academy, Harris will take over the boys basketball program for Yandell Harris, who left the school to become headmaster at Oak Hill Academy, and will take over the fast-pitch softball program for Bud Lowe.
In related news, Chris Ball, who worked as a baseball and basketball coach at Heritage Academy this past school year, also was named the school’s new girls basketball coach. He will remain as an assistant baseball coach to Bruce Branch.
“Coach Harris brings a tremendous amount of experience on both ends of the coaching spectrum,” Heritage Academy Athletic Director and football coach Barrett Donahoe said. “He has had a tremendous amount of success in softball and he always has been a disciplinarian. … He has done a very good job organizing his programs to maximize the kids’ abilities. I feel he will be a tremendous asset.”
Harris, who also coached girls basketball, softball, and track and field at Kirk Academy in Grenada, said he has known Donahoe for a long time and that relationship was a reason he wanted to come to North Mississippi. He said he grew up in the same hometown as Donahoe, they know each other very well, and he looks forward to helping move Heritage Academy in a new direction.
“(Donahoe) really sold me on Heritage Academy and the direction they’re moving in with a new administration,” Harris said. “It seemed like a good fit.”
Harris believes he will be a good fit and work well with Donahoe because they share a coaching philosophy that expects a lot from student-athletes.
“These kids want to be pushed, and these kids want to be challenged and get the most out of their abilities,” Harris said. “We’re going to love on them, but we’re going to push them hard and push that.”
Harris said his teaching position at Heritage Academy hasn’t been finalized. He said he is eager to help build two programs much like he did at Presbyterian Christian. In 2010, his fast-pitch softball team won the school’s first MAIS Class AAA state title in the sport. Six of his former players signed scholarships to play softball in college.
Harris hopes to build to that success at Heritage Academy. He knows the program won only two games last season and still will have a lot of young players. But he said his plan is to build brick by brick and to stress fundamentals. He said it will take time but that he is confident it can be done.
“I just want the kids to play hard and work hard and we’ll go from there,” said Harris, who will start workouts after Memorial Day to prepare for a July 27 opener. “I showed the girls (his state championship ring) and told them this may not be something we can accomplish next year, but that is our goal. Our goal is to practice, to compete, and to prepare like champions. If we do that we will be successful.”
Harris will take the same approach with boys basketball. He said that program already is established and should have plenty of experienced players back for the 2012-13 season. He doesn’t foresee any difficulties transitioning from coaching girls basketball.
“Coaching is coaching,” Harris said. “It is how you relate with them and motivate them that changes a little bit, but coaching is coaching. I think all kids want to be challenged and to know the bar is set high for them.”
Ball, who stepped in to help with coaching basketball this past season, will coach the varsity and junior high girls basketball teams. He will take over for Harris, who served in an interim capacity after coach Yolanda Harris resigned early in the 2011-12 season.
“Coach Ball has done a great job in all of his duties to date, and I feel very good about him taking over our girls basketball program,” Donahoe said. “I think he will provide structure and discipline and teach the girls life lessons on and off the basketball court.”
Ball, who is in his third season at the school, also said he doesn’t expect there to be a difference coaching boys and girls. He said his program will have a vision and a structure and that his players will work hard to accomplish their goals.
“They have to trust you and you have to explains what we’re trying to do and what the cost is to get there to achieve the goal,” Ball said. “Once they buy in to the plan you have set in front of them and the vision of how the program is going to be it is going to be easy to change everybody else.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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