Having fun sometimes gets lost in the daily marathon that is a high school football season.
But Tyler Anderson and the Heritage Academy football team found a way to have fun while they were going about their business of becoming Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class AAA, District 2 champions.
Heritage Academy first-year head coach Sean Harrison made sure of it.
“It was definitely the funnest football season I have had in a while,” Anderson said in November after he and teammate Logan Sneed were selected to play in the annual MAIS Senior All-Star game. “We had a good team around the seniors. It was a great year all around.”
Winning usually makes everything a little more fun. The Patriots had plenty of fun thanks to a 10-3 season that saw them advance to the semifinals of the Class AAA playoffs. Fifteen seniors led the way for a team that relied on chemistry and skill players like Anderson and junior running back Dontae Gray to overcome several injuries that could have derailed the team.
Instead, Harrison managed to find the right balance between having fun and keeping the Patriots in line. Anderson said the process started in the summer when Harrison set the tone and challenged the Patriots in one of their toughest offseasons in recent memory.
“I think everyone improved significantly from the years past,” Anderson said. “I think it started with the summer. Everyone was just working. We had never really bought in any other year like we did this year.”
For his accomplishments, Harrison is The Dispatch’s Small School Coach of the Year.
Harrison, who also serves as athletic director at Heritage Academy, took over for Barrett Donahoe and used the same offseason regimen he used at Wayne Academy and several of his other coaching stops. He said having a veteran team that knew when to have fun and when to go to work made the work he and the members of his coaching staff did even easier.
“The summer is what I have always done,” Harrison said. “I didn’t do anything different from what I did anywhere else. I think with this group I was harder on them probably than I have been but it was because in the spring I realized how talented they were and I wanted to make sure we didn’t take any risk of messing it up. I wanted to make sure we were in shape, we were strong because I knew they had a chance to be a really physical football team.”
Harrison admitted he probably did ride the players a little more in the summer, but it was a regular program teams he has coached at Washington School, Greenville High School, and Mississippi Delta Community College have done throughout the years. Even if he didn’t think it was different, he could tell it was a shock to the Patriots’ system.
“We got to about mid-June and we had a day out here on that football field that we had a real gut-check day,” Harrison said. “I wasn’t sure if they were buying in or if they were quittin’, but one of those two things was fixin’ to happen.”
Harrison said the players opted to buy in, which helped Heritage Academy come together and have a special season that ended with a 42-14 loss to eventual Class AAA State champion Indianola Academy. Along the way, the Patriots scored 486 points, which is believed to be a single-season school record.
Harrison said he and his coaches talked a lot about that pivotal day in June when the players had to decide which way the season was going to go. He said the commitment the players made that day set the team out on a path that enabled the Patriots to go from being a good team to a great team.
“I didn’t do anything special,” Harrison said. “I did what I have always done. They made the decision to buy into it.
“Days like that are the difference between a good and a great team. We didn’t reach our goal of getting a ring, but we came about as close as you could come to it, and this was a great team we had this year. Days like that were the difference.”
Harrison said he saw a change in the team’s approach after that day in June. He said the players realized they could survive the worst the coaches could throw at them and gained confidence in themselves. Harrison fostered that belief with an easy-going approach that required the players to live up to a standard and then held them to it.
“The message we tried to get across to them all year is that they were a great group and they didn’t have to do anything special,” Harrison said. “I told them every Thursday all I expect you to do is to play hard and a lot of times we were done at halftime. They did a good job of that. I don’t think I gave one rah-rah pep talk before a game. I didn’t have to. We would go in and go over our reminders and get out. This group wasn’t one you had to get pumped up for a game or hoped somebody played out of their minds.”
Harrison also wasn’t one to get too hyped up or too low after games. His even-keeled demeanor gave the players room to take responsibility for their team and to take ownership in it to make sure the Patriots realized their potential. He said none of the team’s success would have happened if the players didn’t buy in or if they adopted a lazy attitude.
When asked why the Patriots bought in, Harrison said experience had a lot to do with the players’ willingness to listen to him and his message. He said he didn’t think a younger team would have been able to follow through as well as the experienced group this season did.
“I am not serious all of the time. This group was fun. I had the most fun with this group because they knew when it was playtime and when it was work time,” Harrison said. “I always try to make it a point that I am not going to beat them into the ground. I am not going to call them names or holler at them all of the time. It is my job to instill a work ethic and some character, and I think we did that.
Harrison reinforced that point by being more vocal with his players Monday through Thursday and then maintaining a more composed demeanor on Friday nights because he feels the players play like their coach, so he didn’t want to lose his cool and have his players lose focus.
In a way, the Patriots were an ideal reflection of their coach because just as they were able to balance having fun and working hard, Harrison was able to be a demanding and an easy-going coach who found ways to get the most out of them.
“With coach Donahoe leaving, he had done a great job and molded them and gotten them ready, but a new voice is a good thing,” Harrison said. “The second half of the year I didn’t much yelling, hollering, or teaching because I let my assistant coaches do it because the players were tired or hearing my voice. I was just lucky to be the new voice. I inherited a really good group.
“I love my job. It is not a job. I love getting up every morning and coming to Heritage Academy, and I am not blowing smoke. I think they sense the excitement I had every day to be here and to be around them. I think it was a reflection, and that is not being arrogant or anything like that. We were very laid back this year as far as we are going to get our work done, but we are to have fun doing it. They did it, and, like I said, they had a lot of fun.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
