|
Where Are They Now? Wade Harman
Wayne High School: 1982
September 23, 2009
It was a pure love of football that got Wayne High School graduate Wade Harman into the ranks of NFL coaching, and a former coach who guided him along his way.
“When I got done playing I knew I wanted to stay around the game, I wasn’t able to give it up yet,” Harman said. “And coach [Chuck] Shelton gave me an opportunity to be a grad assistant and I could stay around the game and get some more education, and see if I’d like it. Once I started, I loved it and knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Harman was a four-sport athlete in the early-80’s at Wayne, participating in football, basketball, track and baseball. It was linebacker he enjoyed and excelled at most though. And he was good enough at it to be awarded a scholarship to play an hour-and-a-half north at Drake University.
After Harman’s junior season at Drake, a season in which he was an Honorable Mention All-American, Drake dropped its scholarship program, meaning Harman had decision to make.
“I had the option to stay after my junior year and Drake would have honored my scholarship until I was done with school,” Harman said. “But I wanted to play, and our head coach Chuck Shelton was moving on to Utah State, so I went with him for my last year of ball in 1986.”
It was in Logan, Utah where Harman began to create the nice life as he knows it today.
Within six years of living in the Beehive State, Harman had played division-one football, received a master’s degree in health, physical education and recreation, became a graduate assistant and eventually a full-time assistant and he met his wife and was married for good measure.
After being a graduate assistant for two years at Utah State, Coach Shelton thought he did a fine enough job to put him on his fulltime staff. That was quite the accomplishment for Harman, considering he had no prior coaching experience.
Although Hartman was a defensive specialist on the field, Shelton wisely placed him on the other side of the ball to coach, where he’s been ever since.
“Coach explained to me that I already knew what defense was and that I’d keep myself marketable and employed if I was able to learn both sides of the ball.”
Coach Shelton was absolutely right. Harman left with his Shelton, his self-proclaimed mentor, in 1991 and headed to Stockton, CA to coach at Pacific. He continued to coach on the offensive side of the ball; he was with receivers for one year and running backs for three.
After four years in California, Harman broke his ties from Shelton, probably because it was Shelton’s last year of coaching, and he landed back in Iowa, at Morningside College in Sioux City. He spent one year there as the offensive coordinator before his big break in coaching arrived.
Former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick was the Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator from 1992-1998. Well it turns out Billick was also the offensive coordinator at Utah State when Harman was a graduate assistant. Billick remembered Harman and in 1997 asked him to move to the Twin Cities to be his offensive assistant in, which is a professional version of a graduate assistant, Harman gladly accepted.
“I did some film breakdown and I did some computer playbook work. I assisted with the offensive line and I had to do some things for pro personnel and input data for them. It was fun; I did a lot of different things. It was a great experience,” Harman said.
In 1999, Billick got the head coaching job with the Baltimore Ravens and Harman followed. He’s been tight ends coach there for the past 11 years, where he’s coached legends Shannon Sharpe and Ben Coates and currently has one of the leagues best, Todd Heap.
During the 2000 season, Harman was fortunate enough to be apart of one of the greatest spectacles in sports, the Super Bowl. His Ravens won Super Bowl 35 by the score of 34-7, and Harman has a big ol’ ring to prove it.
“Sometimes when we have family in town who haven’t seen it I’ll bring the ring out and wear it, Harman said. “Sometimes I’ll wear it during the big football functions and other times I’ll wear it just to remind myself of what a great time that was and to motivate myself to do it again.”
TJ Rushing, High School Playbook
Related Content
|
