Big Nikes To Fill

How would you like to succeed a man who coached 29 national champions, 355 men's All-America honorees and 116 women's All-Americans?

A man whose 4x400-meter relay teams have earned outdoor All-America status for 25 consecutive years and captured 14 NCAA titles in that span? A coach whose 2004 4x400-meter relay team set an NCAA indoor record with a 3:03.96 time and whose 1997 unit set a World Record at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships?

A man who was selected as USA Track & Field's 2004 Nike Coach of the Year, a two-time NCAA national indoor coach of the year, is a member of the Baylor Wall of Honor, the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame, the USA Track & Field Coaches Association Hall of Fame, the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and the Baylor Hall of Fame?

Now, those are some big Nikes to fill.

But if anyone can do it, it is Todd Harbour, BSE '81, who took over the head coaching duties of Baylor track and field from legendary track coach Clyde Hart during the summer. After all, Harbour holds the collegiate record for the mile - a record still intact after 24 years.

That race, which took place in 1981 in Oslo, Norway, when Harbour was fresh out of Baylor, secured him a lucrative contract with Nike. But fate can be fickle. When Harbour didn't make the U.S. track team in 1984, the contract with Nike ran out. By then, he and his wife had two small children, and he needed a job.

"I was born in Kansas City and came from a very strong Baptist heritage," he said. "There are a lot of missionaries in my family. So part of me thought I would go into a mission field."

But Harbour also grew up in a coaching family. The son of a football and track coach at Port Isabel, he was a two-year all-district selection both as a wide receiver and free safety in football, and he finished first in the state track meet both as a junior and senior in the Class 3A 800-meter run.

"I applied for some teaching jobs," he said. "I got a call from Riesel (a small town 20 miles from Waco) and was told I didn't have to coach, I could just teach, because I still wanted to train to try to make the team in 1988. So I got out there teaching, and they got me to coach in junior high and then a little bit in high school. The more I got into it, the less time I had to train. So by 1987, I had pretty much given up on the idea to come back."

In 1988, Harbour was named the head track coach and became involved with coaching football in 1990. He became the head football coach/athletic director in 1992.

"I was in that position for eight years. But I was in Riesel for 15 years total, and it was a great place. God had his plans and purpose for me to be there. It taught me a lot of things that will help me be successful here," he said.

One thing it taught him was how to get kids to win. Harbour's track teams at Riesel won district championships from 1987-1990 and 1993-1997, and regional championships in 1988, 1989 and 1994. He also coached eight individual state champions in track and field, and he coached the Riesel cross country teams to a regional championship and a state runner-up position. In six years as the coach of the school's football program, his teams compiled a record of 51-24-4 and advanced to the bi-district playoffs four times and the area playoffs once.

So it was no great surprise that Clyde Hart approached his former pupil about taking the job as Baylor's middle distance and cross country coach.

"I knew when I came back here six years ago that this (becoming head track coach) might be a possibility," Harbour said. "But I could go back to the junior high level and be happy. I could go back to Riesel and be happy. I like to remember what (evangelist) Billy Graham has said, that coaches have more opportunities to influence lives in a single year than most people do in a lifetime."

And now, Harbour will assume the mantle of head coach from Hart, who will continue as the director of track and field and will coach Baylor's 400-meter runners. This new Baylor coaching alignment will find Harbour concentrating on tutoring the 800- and 1,500-meter runners and the steeplechase while overseeing the entire program. But he doesn't plan to mess with success.

"When you have something that has worked so well, and I have watched how it has worked, I don't see that we need to make any drastic changes," he said. "We have found our niche and we can recruit the top quarter-milers in the nation or really the world because of what Coach Hart has done with the program."