No identity crisis for Dinos coach, son of CFL great
‘The fact that I care for the players really motivated me to move in that direction’
The surroundings might give a lesser man an inferiority complex. Think about it. He works all day in an office that was for nine years filled — nearly literally — by Blake Nill, recordbreakingly successful coach of the Calgary Dinos.
Nighttime means practices on the familiar turf, where, for a dozen years, his father steamrolled balltoting interlopers in ferocious fashion.
But Wayne Harris Jr. is not disturbed. McMahon Stadium is home. Not haunted. Long shadows cast, he was never going to be the player his dad had been — he knew that. And he is not going to be the same coach as Nill. That doesn’t interest him. He’s his own man. Which suits him fine. “You’ve got to be true to who you are,” says Harris, taking a mid-afternoon break from preparations for Saturday’s Mitchell Bowl, featuring his Dinos and the visiting St. Francis Xavier X-Men.
“If you try to mimic what somebody else does, you’re not going to be very successful. You’ve got to be true to your character.
“I don’t worry about it. We try to be who we are. I can’t control what others think. And if I can’t control it, I can’t dwell on it — or you go crazy.”
The day the defensive co-ordinator became head coach — Feb. 12, 2015 — he offered an unassuming reaction. No chest-pounding. No playbook-shredding. No alpha-dog grandstanding. Rather, given Nill’s abrupt defection, Harris wanted to provide — drum roll — “stability.” Not exactly out-of-the-gate sexy. But players, on hand for the news conference, stood and applauded.
“One trait to define him? I’d say he’s a man of integrity,” says linebacker Micah Teitz.
“He always does what he says. He never wavers.”
Since then, there’s been no evidence to the contrary. Just a steady hand on the tiller. But don’t dare confuse mildmannered with pushover. That, Harris ain’t. “His competitiveness? Over the top — it burns inside of him,” says Marcello Rapini, in charge of defensive backs. “He’s got a perfect demeanour for a football coach. He’s not a yeller and a screamer, he’s more even-keel, but his intensity is at a very high level.
“He didn’t change. He didn’t do anything to make sure everyone knew he was the head coach — he just is the head coach.”
Barely 100 days after accepting the job, Harris’s father died.
Tributes poured in for one of the CFL’s finest players, perhaps the best Calgary Stampeder of all time.
His name is on team’s wall of fame. His number is retired. His image appeared on a postage stamp.
“Dad was a pretty humble person,” says Harris. “He didn’t like the limelight.”
Fame, however, had been impossible to avoid.
Domination on the field — “It’s all you ever heard on the P.A.: ‘Tackle by Wayne Harris. Tackle by Wayne Harris’ ” — led to prominence in public, like it or not.
“You could not go anywhere in the city where Dad was not recognized.”
There was little surprise when Thumper’s boy signed up for football. Bantam, high school, university, CFL. He played linebacker, often wearing No. 55, but he wasn’t his old man.
“I only had one coach in my whole career who ever brought up my father, and that was at the pro level. I had no respect for the guy,” says Harris.
“I knew what I represented. I was aware of my father’s name and I wasn’t going to do anything to embarrass that or drag that down.”
Playing days over, he embraced teaching and coaching, first blowing the whistle as Sir Winston Churchill High School’s defensive co-ordinator in 1983.
For more than 30 years, he pitched in with local programs — including Colts and Dinos — before
If you try to mimic what somebody else does, you’re not going to be very successful. You’ve got to be true to your character.
landing the top job on campus.
And, no, he hadn’t been just waiting for his turn at the helm.
“The timing was just right,” says Harris, 57. “The fact that I care for the players really motivated me to move in that direction.”
Promptly, he marshalled the Dinos to an undefeated regularseason — a spree undone by Nill’s UBC gang in the Canada West final — en route to collecting 2015 CIS top-coach honours. Vindication? He waves away the word. “My father taught me humility — that’s a big part of who I am,” says Harris, who oversees 19 coaches, 95 players, at Dinos headquarters.
“Some people need that stroke all the time. I don’t feel I need that stroke because I do have that inner confidence that my dad had.”
To illustrate, he tells a story about his father, nickname already in place, arriving in Calgary from Arkansas in 1961.
Thumper was a middle linebacker — at 185 pounds.
“They looked at him and went, ‘Who’s the defensive back? He’s not going to last,’ ” says Harris, smiling.
“Then first practice, first pit drill, one (veteran) turned to the other and went, ‘Well, we’ll be keeping him for a while.’ That’s the confidence factor. It’s not about ego or trying to show somebody up.”