Mandi Mooney
Reporter
The defensive coordinator of the Dallas Mavericks and 1959 Milligan alumnus Del Harris was on campus Thursday to participate in the chapel service and speak at a coaches' clinic in Wilson Auditorium at 4 p.m. Web Administrator and reporter Mandi Mooney conducted the following interview with Harris:
Q. How has being a Christian coach affected your life as well as your career?
A. Most generally in a very positive way. It is amazing to see how many fellow believers there are who are coaching when you are willing to speak out.
Q. You said that you came back to the basic Christian principles later in your life. How have you applied those principles to your coaching and has that been difficult?
A. What has been difficult is avoiding being too overt (with my Christianity). Regardless of our position in life, especially if it be that of perceived authority, we only sew the seed. We are not the gardener. God gives the growth. We must continue to plant.
Q. What was it like to switch from coaching in the NAIA to coaching a professional team?
A. My change was very gradual because I coached what amounted to professional ball in Puerto Rico the last seven summers while I was coaching at Earlham College (in Richland, Ind.). Then I coached in Spain one season before becoming an assistant in the ABA and then the NBA for 4 years.
Q. What is it like working with professional athletes?
A. Working with the players is not tremendously different, given the fact that everyone is different in the first place. Problems tend to stay the same on sports teams as far as the interpersonal dynamics of a team are concerned. In all, the relationships that the pro coach has with his constituencies is far different than that which the college coach has with corresponding relationships. That is the hardest adjustment for a college coach to make and one reason why no college coaches in the last 25 years have been able to go directly into the NBA and be successful unless they first served as an assistant.
Q. What advice do you have for any students who hope to become coaches?
A. Basically, what I have always said and that is that if there is another choice you are considering that has equal appeal, choose the other. Coaching is for those who are totally dedicated to the task. If one takes on the role, he must accept the responsibilities. Learn this early, before you begin and you will have no regrets in your choice of roles in life.