Memorial Gift and Service Information<\/h5>\n
Memorial gifts may be made in Web Harrison’s memory to Friends of Bates College Athletics<\/a>, Office of College Advancement, Bates College, 2 Andrews Road, Lewiston ME 04240. A memorial service will be held<\/a> at the Gomes Chapel at a later date.<\/p>\n \n<\/section>\n A longtime associate professor of physical education, Harrison also served as head coach of women\u2019s track and field for two years, 1977\u201378 and 1978\u201379.<\/p>\n After coaching, Web joined the Office of College Advancement, where he established the Bates Parents & Family Association and gave programmatic focus to the emerging culture of parent philanthropy. He retired in 1999.<\/p>\n For his players, Harrison provided a way to live life with value and purpose. \u201cHe had uncompromising integrity,\u201d said Peter Wyman \u201986, who played football for Harrison and is now senior vice president for cooperative development at Ocean Spray Cranberries. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor many of us, his example has been a beacon and guidepost all our adult lives. He transcended the role of coach. He challenged us to make the right and best decision, to do it right the first time, and to develop standards and values and hold tight to them, especially in difficult times.\u201d<\/p>\n Web Harrison ’63 talks with one of his Bates football players on Garcelon Field, circa 1982. (Courtesy Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library0<\/p><\/div>\n Harrison was a native of Torrington, Conn., whose maternal grandfather, William E. Webster, was mayor of Lewiston in the early 1900s. A biology major at Bates, he was a four-year member of the football team, a sportswriter for The Bates Student<\/em>, and part of the Mirror<\/em> business staff.<\/p>\n As a Bates Student<\/em> sportswriter noted, Harrison was “small for a fullback \u2014 5-10, 170 pounds \u2014 but a vicious blocker.\u201d<\/p>\n He decided to join the Marine Corps during his junior year and completed the required Platoon Leaders Class the summer before senior year. His Bates roommate Thom Freeman \u201963 recalls the shock of returning to their dorm that fall. \u201cOur room was never the same. The doorknob was Brasso\u2019d and shoes had to be spit-shined.\u201d<\/p>\n “Most everything he did revealed his deep love of Bates.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harrison lived Bates and Marine Corps ideals and values, said one former player, Steve Brackett \u201985.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had an innate sense of responsibility for the people around him. And he was exacting. When you crossed that line onto the field, your socks were pulled up and your helmet strapped because if you\u2019re going to do something, you do it right.”<\/p>\n Brackett, now partner and head of strategic partnerships and business development for Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk in Boston, says that Harrison “also had tremendous respect for the history and egalitarian legacy of Bates. He knew more about Bates than anyone I knew. He lived Bates. He embodied it.\u201d<\/p>\n “We all knew he was a Marine and had served in Vietnam, but it was also always clear that he was a Bobcat,” recalls David Hild ’84,\u00a0who played lacrosse and football for Harrison for eight sports seasons and is now a dean at Kingswood Oxford School in West Hartford, Conn.\u00a0 “And most everything he did revealed his deep love of Bates.”<\/p>\n “He loved competition and loved to win, but not at any cost \u2014 a great lesson that he passed along to his players to keep us grounded in our own careers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Above all, he “was always concerned that his players represent Bates. He wasn’t interested in just ‘football’ or ‘lacrosse’ guys. They had to be more than that in the Bates community.”<\/p>\n “He loved competition and loved to win, but not at any cost. He had his core values that kept him grounded \u2014 a great lesson that he passed along to his players to keep us grounded in our own careers,” said Andy McGillicudd ’85, a football and lacrosse player who is now CEO of Endocellutions.<\/p>\n Web Harrison ’63 (second from left) prepares to tee off with lifelong friends, from left, Chick Leahey ’52, Howard Vandersea ’63, and Bob Flynn at a Reunion golf outing in 2005. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n The character of Harrison\u2019s players was the focus of a 1982 profile by a Maine Sunday Telegram<\/em> columnist. Harrison produces \u201cgentlemen-athletes,” wrote Hank Burns. That might sound corny, he told readers, until you hear from Roger Park, then the college\u2019s athletic trainer.<\/p>\n Harrison \u201calways was able to cut through the crap to say, \u2018Here\u2019s why you should appreciate someone.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWeb attracts good citizens,\u201d Park said. \u201cI\u2019ll be honest. When I first came here, before Web, the kids we had on the team treated me as some sort of machine designed just to service their needs. The kids we get now…are genuinely interested in me as a person and in the work I do.\u201d<\/p>\n Steve Brackett explains how Harrison taught his players to appreciate the humanity of the people around them. One fall day, Harrison called Brackett and two football teammates, Rico Corsetti ’85, and Rich Sterling \u201985, over to his office. \u201cHe said, \u2018Roger just got a couple cords of wood delivered. Could you help him stack the wood? You\u2019ll get a spaghetti dinner from his wife.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Thus began a four-year tradition. \u201cAfter the first year, we asked if we could stack it again for him. That\u2019s how we got to know Roger and his wife.\u201d<\/p>\n Harrison \u201calways was able to cut through the crap to say, \u2018Here\u2019s why you should appreciate someone,\u2019\u201d said Bracket. \u201cHe would always say, ‘Help other people up the ladder.’\u201d<\/p>\n “Web would always say, ‘Help other people up the ladder,'” said Steve Brackett ’85.<\/p><\/div>\n When people talk about Web, phrases like \u201cit\u2019s a clich\u00e9 but…\u201d come up a lot. Clich\u00e9s exist because they\u2019re true. \u201cWeb created a family among his players,\u201d Brackett says. \u201cIt\u2019s a clich\u00e9, it\u2019s overused, but we felt that way. Every day I get to look at a photo in my home of my wedding, and there\u2019s Web, beaming with a cigar and a drink, surrounded by his players.\u201d<\/p>\n Brackett recalls having film sessions with a 16mm projector in Web\u2019s family room. In those sessions, Harrison\u2019s focus was never on mistakes but on making decisions. \u201cHe allowed you to make mistakes. He didn\u2019t hammer you.\u201d<\/p>\n Brackett recalls Harrison pressing the clicker to make the film go backward and forward. \u201cBack and forth, back and forth, always with one question, \u2018What could you have done differently?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Those sessions helped Brackett think like a leader.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time you were a senior, Web wasn\u2019t yelling instructions from the sideline. He expected you to adapt, or call an audible and make it work. He allowed you to make your own game plan. That\u2019s what life is about: figuring out how to look at something three ways rather than one, to find options, to bring people into the success.\u201d<\/p>\n Other times, cliches can obscure finer details. Harrison was a Marine, but “he could laugh at himself,” recalls Hild. “He famously joked about his lack of lacrosse knowledge prior to being named head coach. But like everything he did, he put his heart and soul into it and became a fine and respected leader of that program.”<\/p>\n “He wanted you to come off the field physically spent but full of pride.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He could be introspective, too. With the football team struggling to a 1-6-1 record in 1983, “Web was candid, openly assessing and asking for input about how he might improve himself. He was an honest and friendly man.”<\/p>\n With Harrison, Brackett continues, \u201cyou didn\u2019t always have to succeed. He never faulted you for losing. But he would fault you for not giving 100 percent because you were not doing yourself any favors.<\/p>\n “You just had to look in his eyes when you came off the field to know if you weren\u2019t giving it all. He wanted you to come off the field physically spent but full of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n Fatherless from a young age, Brackett always saw Harrison as a father figure; he was a rock that he and other former players could lean on. \u201cAny time I called Web, just to check in, he would always respond, \u201cStevie, how can I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n As a player, “there was a clear line between us and him as a coach,” said Bracket. “But it was always about respect first. When we graduated, he continued to take a great interest in our lives and pride in our successes,” said Brackett.<\/p>\n “Web would get a gleam in his eye when he was talking about one of his guys doing something that made him proud,” recalls Hild. “And ultimately, most of us truly cared about making him proud.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/06\/320-HarrisonW-0001-1.jpg\")
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