Veteran Crossland coach steps down

Principal Charles Thomas said he has been interviewing applicants for the job and that he would like to find someone "as soon as possible," with the start of the school year fewer than two weeks away. Crossland hired a new athletic director earlier this summer — former Potomac AD Eric Knight, who also will coach the Cavaliers' football team — and Harris said the transition period was the right time to leave.

"It was really the fact I'd spent a long time in Prince George's County and I wanted to spend more time with my family and son," Harris said. "I thought it would be the perfect time for me to go."

Previously this summer he said he was taking a much-needed break from coaching this offseason. The Cavaliers didn't field a summer league team, as they usually have done. Harris instead said he wanted to spend more time with his son, Magic, an eighth-grader at St. Philip The Apostle in Camp Springs, as he played around the country in AAU tournaments.

Harris hadn't been known as one to back down from coaching, even during the most difficult period of his life when he was shot in a robbery in early November 2006.

He was at a Camp Springs automatic teller machine on his way home from a preseason practice when two men approached him demanding money. Harris gave them his wallet, but he was wrestled to the ground and shot in the chest, the bullet going through his back and missing his spine by just centimeters.

The coach spent nearly a month in the hospital and underwent three surgeries to repair his small intestine and bladder. He had to learn to walk and breathe again, Harris said at the time. By mid-December, he made it back to his coaching post. But coaching had become more difficult since the incident, and he considered leaving after that season.

"It took a lot out of me, what I went through," he said.

Crossland reached the state tournament once during Harris' tenure. The 2005 squad won the Class 3A East Region title, but fell to eventual champion Randallstown in the semifinals. The Cavaliers also boasted two Gazette-Star All-County First-Team selections under Harris' leadership in Steve Harley, now a senior at the University of Nebraska, and Donnell Reaves, who led the 2005 team.

Harris unexpectedly fell into the top job after starting at Crossland as an assistant. Just two weeks into the 2001-02 season, administrators fired head coach Derrick Dunlap after his controversial dismissal of four players and put Harris in his place. Before joining the Cavaliers, he also coached at Riverdale Baptist and H.D. Woodson in the District. He said he would like to return to coaching someday, preferably at a private school.

"I'm just going to take some time off and enjoy my family," Harris said. "I'm not going to count out coaching again, but I just want to give it a break."

E-mail Kevin Hilgers at khilgers@gazette.net.