Q & A with Lancaster Catholic’s Bruce Harbach

Written by: David Mika on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011. Follow David Mika on Twitter.

This is the sixth installment in our series of coaches’ interviews. Today we sat down with head coach Bruce Harbach of Lancaster Catholic and asked him some questions about himself and his career coaching football.

Q. Why did you decide to coach High School Football?

A. Growing up I had some great coaches in high school. John Gorski was my high school coach at Wilson. My junior high school coaches influenced me to become a physical education teacher, strength conditioning coach and a football coach.

Q. How many years have you coached at your school?

A. I was an assistant coach for 25 years and this will be my 10^th year coaching here.

Q. Do you have any interest in coaching at a higher level?

A. I have been offered jobs over the past years at the college level. I did coach at West Chester as a grad assistant and Albright College. I know what it is like to coach at the college level.

Q. Growing up was there an athlete or coach you particularly admired and patterned yourself after?

A. I’m a big Green Bay Packer fan. Growing up I admired Vince Lombardi and I read all his books. I tried to pattern my self and the way we coach and our philosophy after Vince Lombardi.

Growing up as a youngster I admired Bear Bryant at Alabama. He was one of my idols. I admired the way he structured his practices and read books about him also.

Those two are probably what I pattern my coaching philosophy after.

Q. What do you feel is the most important thing or things that you can teach your athletes?

A. There are a bunch of things you can teach your athletes. Just the opportunity to work with them and see them develop as young men in a course of a season or career is fulfilling.

We try and teach our kids dedication and commitment to a purpose. That’s what we try and teach are kids at Catholic.

Q. How important is strength training and nutrition in your program?

A. Absolutely critical in what we do with our program. Right now there are too many fast food chains out there and our kids need to have a fit nutrition program, which we give them. Right now football is 24/7 365 and if you don’t do it and be committed someone is going to move ahead of you. That’s why we train year in and year out.

Q. What kind of offense and defense do you like to run?

A. The last 10 years we have been a spread offense. But we do have multiple “I” formations. So we consider ourselves a multiple “I” spread offense. We have tremendous skill kids here and we have some great lineman coming up. We can run the ball too and control the clock if we have to. But if you look at our stats the last few years, we have been a 50/50 passing and running team. But it depends on the personnel we have each year. Some years we pass more and some we run more. That’s what is so great about our staff, we always adapt to our personnel.

On the defense side of the ball we run a 3-5. We started with a 4-4 and went to the 3-5-3 because of the skill kids we have and the way our linebackers can run. That is a key to our defense.

Q. Who is the best team you ever coached against?

A. The 2008 West Catholic team was unbelievable with the speed they had. That is probably one of the better teams we faced in a while. When I was coaching at Wilson the Cumberland Valley teams were outstanding. The Central Dauphin teams were good at that time too.

Q. Do you want your athletes to play other sports?

A. Yes, a lot of the kids play one, two or three sports and we encourage that. Over half the kids on our team play other sports.

Q. Do you think 16 games is too much for high school teams?

A. Yes, I think the season needs to be cut shorter. A week before Christmas we played the state championship game. That’s a long season and when you add two scrimmages that’s 18 weeks and that’s a NFL season.

Q. What type of a game schedule would you most like to see?

A. This year is our last year in AA. We are going to move up to AAA next year and move to the section one in the Lancaster/Lebanon League. So we will be playing a AAAA schedule next year.

Q. What are your goals/challenges for the 2011 season and what do you have coming back as a team?

A. Our goal is to stay healthy. This year fortunately we have more depth than usual especially on the offense and defensive lines. Our goal is to win the sectional, win districts and go onto the playoffs and win states. We focus on one game at a time. We have 16 starters returning from last season.

Q. Do you have a pre-game ritual?

A. We have a pre-game mass right after school each game at 3:00. Then the kids come over and sometimes the parents bring food for the kids. We go on the field at 5:15 and the kids can play some music before the game.

Q. Final Question. How do you define a successful season?

A. Some people want to say win and loss records. I think if you can get young kids in your program and get them playing time and develop them through out the season I think you become successful. But to see a kid mature and have fun at what they do I think that is a mark of a successful season.

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