Saying he feels a "great sense of obligation" to continue the winning football tradition established by his predecessors, new Chargers head coach Ron Harris spent most of Tuesday morning trying to adjust to the faster pace of his new job.
"It's been pretty hectic," Harris said. "I've been running around a lot."
Churchill's defensive coordinator the past three seasons, Harris was promoted at Monday night's North East ISD board meeting.
Harris succeeds Glenn Hill, who resigned last month after coaching Churchill for six seasons. The Chargers went 34-32 and made the playoffs five times under Hill.
"There's no way to express in true words how excited I really am," Harris said. "This is an incredible opportunity and I'm humbled by it and I'm thankful for it. I'm excited to get to work."
Harris, who turns 57 on Thursday, is in his 34th year of coaching and has coached on the high school and college levels. He was an assistant coach at Alamo Heights for six seasons before going to Churchill in 2012, and has served stints as an assistant coach at the University of Houston (2003-05), Texas Tech (2000-02), and the U.S. Naval Academy (1992-94).
Harris also was head coach at Western New Mexico in 1995, and was an assistant coach at Glendale Community College (Ariz) for two seasons (1988-89).
The eighth head football coach in Churchill's 49-year history, Harris follows Ezra Corley (1966-68), Ray Rapp (1969-72), Martin Gustafson (1973-74), Jerry Comalander (1975-1987), Jerry Turnbow (1988-91), Irl Kincaid (1992-98), Carl Gustafson (1999-2008) and Hill (2009-2014).
Comalander guided the Chargers to the Class 4A state championship and a 15-0 season 1976, and was at the helm when they advanced to the state semifinals in 1978 and 1981.
"I feel a great sense of obligation to continue what Glenn has done for the last six years, plus live up to the legacies of Coach Comalander, Irl Kincaid, Carl Gustafson, and live up to the pride that's gone into building the Churchill tradition this many years."
Churchill went 8-3 last year and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Chargers' last long postseason run was in 1996, when they advanced to the state quarterfinals under Kincaid.
"We've got a lot of good high school athletes," Harris said. "If they choose to, we'll probably find a place for them to play in college, if they really want to play in college. We may have one or two recruitable guys each year, but we're not Steele or Brennan, or Brandeis, where you've got four or five on each side of the ball.
"But you're going to win with good high school players that are committed to your school and your team. We just want to make sure they have a great experience and they can be the best they can be."
Harris was a graduate assistant at Northern Arizona (1986-87) and Utah (1990-91). A 1980 graduate of California Lutheran, where he played center on the football team, Harris started his coaching career at Moorpark High School in Moorpark, Calif., in 1981.
He also was an assistant coach at Westlake High School in Westlake Village, Calif., in 1982 and 1983, Horizon (Ariz.) High School (1984), Paradise Valley (Ariz.) High School (1985, 1996-99).
Born in St. Louis, Harris graduated from Quartz Hill (Calif.) High School in 1976.
Given his extensive experience, how does Harris think coaching in college and high school differ?
"From a developmental standpoint, you have the potential to have a greater impact on building them and helping your players when they're in high school," Harris said. "By the time you get them when you're a college coach, they kind of are who they are. At the high school level, you can teach them life lessons on the playing field that they can carry with them after they're done with athletics."
