Objectives Met, Thran Resigns as Head Coach : Prep football: After 19 seasons, Harvard coach will step aside and exchange roles with assistant Bennett.

Gary Thran is done, his goals as a football coach accomplished.

So, after 19 years he is stepping down from his position as coach at Harvard-Westlake High to devote time to his other job, athletic director.

“I fulfilled most of my goals and (have) done about all I wanted to do,” Thran, 50, said. “I decided it was time to step back and let somebody else take a shot at it.”

Dave Bennett, an assistant to Thran at Harvard from 1979-82 then again the past two seasons, will take over as coach. Thran, who said he reached his decision midway through the season, will remain on the staff as an assistant.

“I still enjoy coaching,” he said. “Being the athletic director and a coach are both really tough jobs and I didn’t want to cheat either of those responsibilities.”

Neither Thran nor Bennett, the head coach for eight seasons at Minnechaug High in Wilbraham, Mass., after leaving Harvard, sees a problem with a former coach remaining as an assistant.

“When I step down, I step down,” Thran said. “(Bennett) has been a head coach and he knows the ropes. We have enough respect for each other for me to let him do the job.”

Thran and Bennett kept in touch while Bennett was in Massachusetts, and the understanding between them was that Bennett eventually would be Thran’s successor, they said. Bennett, 48, said the opportunity for him to return to Harvard arose in the summer of 1991, after he had been laid off at Minnechaug.

Bennett accepted a temporary job as an assistant at Division III Western New England College but spent only about six weeks in that capacity before Thran offered him a full-time position at Harvard.

Bennett assisted Thran with the Wolverine offense in 1991 and was defensive coordinator this season. In addition, Bennett is starting his second season as the girls’ basketball coach at Harvard.

“I think he’s going to be real good for the (football) program and I’m real excited,” Thran said.

Thran compiled a 105-90-1 record and won four league championships with the Wolverines. This season, Harvard’s first in the Mission League, the Wolverines were 4-6, 2-3 in the league. The Wolverines beat Bishop Montgomery, 31-21, in the regular-season finale, a performance Thran called his team’s best of the year.

“He went out a winner,” Bennett said. “That was important to him.”

Thran told his assistants after that game he would be handing the job over to Bennett, then told the team at its final meeting the following Monday.

“There’s so many good (memories),” Thran said. “The thing that I love about coaching is to see your--I call them my sons--come back year after year and shake your hand and give you a hug. That’s about the best feeling there is.”