By DANIEL NOVINSON
DESK EDITOR
Often forgotten amid the passion of the players and fans eagerly awaiting this year’s Big Game is the tale of Stanford head coach Walt Harris. For the rookie Cardinal leader, the outcome of tomorrow’s tilt will add an important chapter to his reputation and richness to his personal tale. Not only do performances in rivalry games shape and define players and seasons, but coaches across the nation put their legacies on the line come the third week of November. One needs to look no further than the California/Stanford rivalry of the last three years for two poignant examples. Cal’s Jeff Tedford swept the series and was rewarded with a $10-million five-year contract extension this off-season. Meanwhile, former Cardinal coach Buddy Teevens departed the Farm just two days after last year’s 41-6 loss to Cal — Teveens’ third straight to the Bears. While results outside the Big Game largely dictated Tedford and Teevens’ respective fates, plenty of college football coaches across the nation are seemingly judged solely on rivalry games. Consider Texas’ Mack Brown, whose 0-5 mark against Oklahoma the last five years nearly got him fired, despite a 52-6 record against everyone else over the same span. Another coach punished for lack of success versus his rival is former Ohio State coach John Cooper, who averaged nine wins per season during his 13-year career in Columbus. Too few of those wins came against arch nemesis Michigan, however, and, following the 2000 season, Cooper was fired for his 2-10-1 mark against the Wolverines. As Ohio State’s quarterback coach in 1995 and 1996, Harris witnessed a bittersweet moment in Cooper’s tenure, as the Buckeyes posted a 21-2 regular-season record but both losses came to Michigan. At his next head coaching position in Pittsburgh, Harris closed strong against traditional rival West Virginia, winning three of his last five, including a 2004 victory that propelled the Panthers into the BCS. This year, at Stanford, Harris recognizes the added importance of the Cal rivalry and the additional focus it demands.
“This is such a big game from a coaching perspective that I wish we didn’t have to participate in all [these media appearances],” Harris said. “I know I was at an Ohio State/Michigan game and I don’t remember coach Cooper talking much about having to do a lot of these things. I’d rather focus on getting our team ready.” Indeed, Harris enters this year’s Big Game with familiarity. He was born and raised in the Bay Area, so his words on junior quarterback Trent Edwards’ desire to play in Saturday’s game can also be read as his own desire to coach in it. “I’m sure that being a Bay Area boy has something to do with adrenaline and wanting to play in this game,” Harris said. “Like a lot of coaches, I believe the mind is everything.” Many Cardinal fans would also be surprised to learn that one of Harris’ first coaching jobs came at Cal, where he led the linebacking corps from 1974 to 1977. Though he left Berkeley nearly 30 years ago, Harris still vividly recalls Stanford head coach Jack Christiansen being carried onto the field before the 1974 Big Game, as well as later contests with Stanford head coach Bill Walsh and running back Darren Nelson. “Unless you’re brain-dead it’s pretty hard not to pay attention to Big Game,” Harris said. “[This year,] the fact that it’s a Big Game at our place, in one of the last games ever in Stanford Stadium, is a tremendous honor for our players as well as our coaches.”
As Harris points out, this season’s contest brings added drama, as it is the last Big Game in the soon-to-be-remodeled stadium and a Cardinal bowl bid hangs in the balance. Stanford fans can only hope Harris and his team tune out the distractions by kickoff. The team’s work starts tomorrow if it wishes to restore the Big Game to its historically lofty perch. “What you [need] to have a rivalry is good football teams, and lately Cal has been the good football team, and Stanford has not been the good football team,” Harris said. “We have a job to do to make it a rivalry, and the way you do that is winning once in awhile. So far, it hasn’t been very good.”
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