Master’s Turns Athletics Reins Over to Harrison

Like many college coaches, Pat Harrison envisioned an eventual move from plotting strategy on the sidelines to calling the shots for an entire athletics department.

But Harrison, the baseball coach at The Master’s College, believed his career as an athletic director lay somewhere in the future.

At The Master’s, however, the future apparently is now. Again.

Harrison, 41, officially became the school’s athletic director Wednesday after serving in that capacity for the past two weeks in the wake of Geoff Zahn’s resignation for personal reasons.

“I certainly didn’t anticipate becoming an athletic director this soon,” said Harrison, who will continue to coach baseball. “It’s going to take some good, efficient planning to carry off both positions.”

No amount of planning could have prepared The Master’s for the loss of coaching personnel it has experienced in the past few weeks. The casualties include Becky White, the women’s volleyball and basketball coach who resigned last week, and John Zeller, an assistant baseball coach and sports information director who left to become the athletic director and head baseball coach at a high school in North Carolina.

“I think the whole thing is a shock to everybody concerned,” Harrison said. “I haven’t talked to Becky so I don’t know where she is. Geoff Zahn is a close friend. In fact, that’s the reason I came down here in the first place.”

Personnel shuffling in the athletics department at The Master’s is nothing new. In 1985, Zeller was hired as baseball coach and athletic director. In 1986, Zeller was replaced by Zahn as athletic director but retained his coaching position and assumed the responsibilities of the sports information director. Zeller, who led the Mustangs to a 25-20 record in 1987--the school’s first winning season since 1973--said he was “honored” to assume the role of assistant when Zahn hired Harrison last June.

Also in 1987, head basketball Coach Randy Stem was demoted to assistant when Zahn hired the more experienced Mel Hankinson, who Harrison said will now also assume responsibilities as associate athletic director.

“Geoff did a good job of getting us as far as he got us in a college that is small and growing,” Master’s President John MacArthur said. “I think we’re moving ahead. Pat has a lot of experience at the Division I level assisting ADs. Both he and Mel were really a good help to Geoff. From that standpoint we’re moving ahead.”

Harrison, an All-American infielder at USC who played in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and coached at USC, Oral Roberts and Washington State, said he immediately will begin looking for replacements for White and Zeller.

“We’re not planning any major changes,” Harrison said. “Right now we’re just trying to get the department back together. We don’t want to just maintain the program. We want to improve every year.”