On The Wings of Greatness

The Farmington Hills Harrison football team is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this fall and the Hawks are doing it in style, out of the gate to a perfect 7-0 start. Head coach John Herrington, a true legend of the state's coaching fraternity, built the Hawks from the ground up, taking the team from its first season in 1970 and leading them into the new millennium as one of Midwest America's genuine prep "glamour" programs. In a truly amazing accomplishment, Herrington's 12 state championships are the most by one coach in state history. He won five straight state crowns between 1997 and 2002 and a whopping 81 percent of the games he has coached in the 40 years he has been on the sidelines in Green and Yellow.

On Saturday at halftime of Harrison's highly-anticipated OAA crossover clash with Lake Orion, the Hawks will cap their 40 year anniversary by having a commemorative ceremony and retiring only the fourth jersey number in school history – Ricky Bryant's No. 1 jersey.  Bryant was a member of two state championship squads playing under Herrington before going onto a college career at Ohio State and Hofstra and a pro career with the New England Patriots, where a won a Super Bowl ring. The other three Hawks gridiron greats to have the honor bestowed upon them have been Mill "The Thrill" Coleman (Michigan State/Chicago Bears), John Miller (starting safety on the '87 Rose Bowl champ MSU Spartans) and Drew Stanton (Michigan State/Detroit Lions).

Since we are on the subject of Harrison football phenoms, here is the a list of some of my personal all-time favorite gridiron gods spawning from the fantastic Herrington coaching tree:

Mill "The Thrill" Coleman

Drew Stanton

John Miller

Bryan Wauldron

Agim Shabaj

Ricky Bryant

Kevin Bryant

Nick Williams

The Granger Bros – Roy and Ray

The Woods Bros – Kevin and Marcus

Chris Roberson

Winston Coffee

Terrill Mayberry

Norman Shuford

Bruce Horner

Mark Dell

The Bambenek Bros – Charlie and Kevin

Jared Hopkins

Craig Sacha

The Pesci Bros – Dave and Joe

Charles Stewart

David Blackmer