‘He always had something up his sleeve.’ Eagle High coach steps down after 34 years

When Liz Ritter needed a pep talk before a race, Eagle coach Greg Harm always knew exactly what to say.

“It was kind of his intuition. He just knew what I needed,” said Ritter, whose maiden name was Brandon and who won Idaho Gatorade athlete of the year honors in cross country and track during the 2008-09 school year.

“And it’s different for every kid, and he knew that for everybody else, too.”

After 34 years, Harm quietly retired from his coaching and teaching duties at Eagle High School last month. The longtime cross country and track coach said it was not an easy decision to make.

“Time’s a pretty precious commodity, and I’ve set my whole life up around it,” Harm said. “It’s kind of good to reinvent yourself a little bit when you have a chance to do it.”

During his time at Eagle, which began with the 1999-2000 school year, Harm won a combined nine team titles as a head coach between track and cross country. His girls and boys track teams swept the state championships in 2010.

Harm, 57, broke through for his first team title in 2008 with his boys track team and most recently finished atop the podium in 2019 with girls track.

His five other team titles came in girls track (2009, 2013), boys cross country (2010) and girls cross country (2015, 2017).

“I was always nervous when I went up against Eagle,” Rocky Mountain track coach Brad Abbott said. “Whether it be early season or late season, I was always worried, up late, thinking, ‘OK, what is Greg gonna do? Where is he gonna run that guy or that gal?’ I was always planning for that guy. He always had something up his sleeve, and that was always tough.”

Harm begin his coaching career in the spring of 1990 at Borah High as a student teacher. He then coached football and track for 10 years, starting in the fall of 1990, at Meridian High.

Coaching became a family endeavor when Harm took over the Eagle cross country team in 1999. His wife, Carmen, joined him as an assistant. The two had twin boys — Gabe and Dylan — who attended Eagle. Gabe was on the Mustangs’ state-winning cross country and track teams in 2010, and he then was an assistant coach under his dad when the Mustangs won the state title in girls cross country in 2017.

“Beyond just the track perspective, they were a really positive influence on a lot of people who came through the program,” said James Heckendorn, a two-time state champion in the 400 meters who went on to compete for Harvard.

“We did state breakfast banquets, we did all sorts of extracurriculars from track and field that really, at least from my perspective, added to the environment of the team. They did so much to create that culture of family and friends that it wasn’t just track and field.”

As a testament to his impact, some of Harm’s former athletes have come back to coach with him, and many more have kept in touch years after their competitive days were through.

“It was this really cool culture of success in the actual athletic endeavor, but then a lot of people would come and give back to the program,” Heckendorn said. “Because it meant so much to them when they were there at the time.”