Marble Falls’ Harrington shares goals for middle school

Doc Harrington made it clear he wouldn’t unretire unless the right opportunity with the right people came along.

That happened three years ago when Brian Herman became the football at head coach at Marble Falls and hired Heath Hohmann and other coaches who where on Jerry Vance’s staff in Liberty Hill a decade earlier. Then when Harrington, who was asked to work at Marble Falls Middle School, outlined his vision to Dr. Chris Allen, Marble Falls Independent School District superintendent, and Jeff Gasaway, assistant superintendent, he discovered two individuals who had the same goals and objectives.

“I’ll do this only if I get to start a sports medicine program at the middle school,” he said. “(Kids) were quitting because no one was here to take care of them. We want to give them an opportunity to be successful no matter where they are. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve tried to add that to our programs.”

Harrington is the athletic coordinator for sports medicine and middle school athletics. He handles sports medicine for grades 6-8 and the sports administration for the seventh and eighth grades. That allows coaches to spend more time developing their athletes.

“I’m trying to put our coaches in the right spots and the right situations,” he said. “We have to set them up for success — that’s a very important aspect at the middle school. It’s more of my expertise to see sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders all day long.”

Before his arrival, middle school athletes who needed treatment had to go to the high school. More events happen on that campus, but Harrington noted competition is still fierce at the middle school.

“The middle school gets after each other in all sports,” he said.

A strength-and-conditioning program at the middle school is part of the training in addition to the basics and fundamentals of each sport as well as the head coach’s playbook.

“We want to ward off injuries,” Harrington said. “We want to introduce them to sports and being coachable. We want to have fun, we want them to get stronger and faster. The preparation part is learning. We try to get ahead of the curve and see things that need to get corrected now. We try to correct some of those things before they become a problem at the high school.”

Just as the high school dropped to Class 4A and will compete in a new district, so will the middle school. Harrington released the new district opponents, noting they reflect more of the same aspects found at Marble Falls ISD.

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