CLARKSBURG Someone at Liberty should thank whoever made A.J. Harmans schedule his senior year.

It was in a role as a teachers assistant in a physical education class that Harman first learned he had a knack for teaching youth. Couple that with a dream to be the head football coach at Liberty that he said began when he took his pads off for the last time, and you have the formula that produced Libertys current head football coach.

After graduating high school, he spent time volunteering at Liberty as an assistant, and then worked at both RCB (under coaches Bryan Fisher and Bruce Carey) and Liberty (under coach Robert Shields). He also credited the impact of some of his own high school coaches, including Randy Gorby, Phil Cunningham and Tom Hilton. The biggest influence for Harman, though, was his father.

Growing up, my dad was a coach, too, he said. I learned so much from him about tough love and high expectations, and little things like how much confidence can mean in an athlete. He was very good at correcting my mistakes, but also at patting me on the back at the end of the day.

With the knowledge of a plethora of coaches and the influence of his father, then, Harman was ready when he heard of the opening at Liberty while coaching under Carey at RCB.

But it wouldnt be easy.

When I got the job, Harman said, this was a program that hadnt had a lot of success recently.

Though the Mountaineers were a playoff team in 2010, they fell quickly. In 2014, Harman inherited a squad that had gone 0-9-1 the year before and was outscored by an average of 25.5 points per game.

And yet somehow, he turned them into a 5-5 team in one year.

I had some kids that maybe werent the most talented, but they were so hungry to win, he said. They made it easy to have a culture of unselfishness, team play and family.

Harman also cited the importance of the weight room, something his assistant coach and Liberty boys basketball coach Ryan Lantz said was instrumental in the turnaround.

One of coach Harmans strengths, maybe his biggest strength, is as a weight and conditioning coach, he said. When you get a group of boys that wants to sacrifice and work in the weight room, that always carries over to the field. Thats been a big strength for him in getting the program moved in the right direction.

And the community and the group of kids were hungry for it. They wanted to succeed, and they were looking for someone to lead them in that way.

The Mountaineers have entered a new phase in their rebuild, making the playoffs last season for the first time since 2010. Now, Harman said complacency is the biggest obstacle he and his team will face.

In my fourth year now, this senior class has never had a losing record, he said. So the challenge is getting them to be as hungry as they were that first year.

Perhaps the answer to that puzzle comes from another of Harmans strengths.

The kids know and appreciate how much he cares about them and the program, Lantz said. He really creates a family atmosphere that the kids want to be a part of. He gives all of his coaches the opportunity and everything they need to succeed.

That lines up well with why Harman loves football so much in the first place.

I always loved the physicality of the game, Harman said. But I also loved the brotherhood and family style. This is a game that requires 11 moving parts to be working together at the same time, and if one of those parts breaks down, the whole machine does.

To have a coach that understands that and loves his alma mater as much as Harman does is special, indeed, in Lantzs opinion.

Coach Harman just loves the program, loves the community, he said, and there isnt a more perfect coach for a community than coach Harman with Liberty.

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Harman happy to be living his dream at Liberty - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)