LINCOLN -- First-year Lincoln head football coach Don Harrison has demonstrated an ability to sell a football program to players and community fulfilling athletic director Deon Birkes' job description.
While the search was underway Birkes said the school was looking for a person not afraid of challenges and wanting to build a program to compete year in and year out with hard work and a positive attitude. Harrison's accomplishments as head coach at Newport in the 2013-2014 seasons and previously as offensive coordinator documented ability beyond drawing up a game plan and season records.
Harrison runs a spread offense and 4-2 defense, which limited 5A Nettleton to 143 yards total offense forcing 6 turnovers with an interception returned for a touchdown as Newport started nonconference play 3-0 in 2013. But what happened next during that season may have impressed Birkes even more. The Greyhounds rebounded from a week four, 42-0, home loss to Dollarway and Week five, 39-32, setback at Lonoke with the game decided in the final minute. Following the 0-2 start in conference play, Harrison called a team meeting and the players responded with a decisive, 41-21, Homecoming win over defending state champion Stuttgart, then went on to win their final four league games plus a 30-20 first-round home playoff victory over Pottsville before being upended, 28-12, at Arkadelphia. In a run-first offense Newport achieved balance with the starting quarterback passing for 2,205 yards and 19 touchdowns and a combination receiver/runningback gaining over 1,900 yards with Harrison calling the plays.
Last year, Harrison's team again faced an early season crisis losing, 48-9, to Slyvan Hills and 40-20 in their conference opener against West Helena Central. Again, Harrison called a team meeting to address the situation.
"We got our kids together. I told them we need to go on a winning streak," Harrison said. "We actually won the rest of our games and won a conference championship. The No. 1 thing is to get the kids to buy in. We talked about attitude and effort. I don't care what the score is we keep playing, you never know what will happen."
Two weeks later Harrison's team faced another gut check. After beating Lonoke, 34-12, the Greyhounds were in danger of suffering a second conference loss trailing, 21-0, at halftime against Stuttgart in the Ricebirds' Homecoming. He spoke at halftime and his players responded.
"That is my favorite game. It was their Homecoming. We went to Stuttgart and we were down 21-0 at the half. We came back and beat them, outscoring them 22-0 in the second half," Harrison said.
After scoring their third touchdown to pull within 21-20 with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, Harrison called a 2-point conversion which was successfully executed to put Newport in front, 22-21, but they had to handle Stuttgart's offense one more time.
"We stopped them on defense and got the ball back. Then we ran out the clock," Harrison said. "Again, it's all about attitude and effort."
Another thing that made Harrison an attractive candidate was a demonstration of his capacity to organize personnel and create depth on a 2014 roster that graduated 8 starters in the second smallest populated school [Newport] among the 4A-3. This was accomplished by evaluating underclassmen and juniors, who hadn't seen a lot of playing time and cross-training individuals to where they could play multiple positions. The end result spoke volumes to Lincoln with Newport going 8-3 and earning the school's 28th consecutive state playoff berth in 2014.
Four days into the job at Lincoln, Harrison was ordering more helmets and jerseys with the numbers of kids participating in Lincoln football more than doubling.
"My goal is to have a football program, which in my opinion is not just a team that makes the playoffs every year, it's a team that makes the playoffs and wins [playoff] games every year. That's what we're striving for here," Harrison said, emphasizing he is endeavoring to condition players into a mindset where they do everything with a sense of urgency. With football numbers increasing at Lincoln, excitement is rising and Wolves' fans can hardly wait for football season to start.
Sports on 06/24/2015