The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Baseball
- Title:
- Associate Head Coach
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HARMON'S CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
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COACHING EXPERIENCE PLAYING EXPERIENCE |
Full name: Thomas Harold Harmon
Date of birth: December 16, 1948
Hometown: Fort Worth, Texas
High school: Eastern Hills
College: The University of Texas, 1975
Family: Wife: Debbie, son: Mark, and daughter: Sarah
Forever remembered as one of the premier catchers in Texas baseball history and regarded as one of the top recruiters in the country, Tommy Harmon embarks on his eighth season as associate head coach and 22nd year overall with The University of Texas baseball program in 2011.
Harmon, who was an assistant and first base coach under formerTexas head coach Cliff Gustafson from 1989-1996, was appointed as the team's recruiting coordinator and third base coach during the 1997 season. While adding on other administrative duties following his promotion to associate head coach, he will again hold those roles this year following tremendous success. After not only signing the No. 2 and No. 3 recruiting classes in the nation in 1997 and 1999, respectively, which formed the nucleus of the 2000 Longhorns squad that returned UT to the College World Series (CWS) for the first time since 1993, he inked each of the student-athletes that comprised the 2002 and 2005 clubs which earned Texas its fifth and sixth national titles. In fact, Harmon has now signed top five recruiting classes in eight of the past 12 seasons and top 15 classes in each of the last dozen years.
Additionally, Harmon, who has been instrumental in helping the Longhorns record eight 40-win seasons from 2002-10 and produce 60 professional players during that span, will also continue to assist with the Longhorns' hitters on a regular basis. Fourteen of the last 22 UT teams have batted over .300 and the 2010 squad set a school single-season team record for home runs (81). In his 21 seasons as a coach on the Forty Acres, Harmon has not only helped mold the careers of 29 All-Americans and 102 All-Conference performers, but has also aided the Longhorns in reaching the CWS nine times while capturing eight league titles and two National Championships.
The Fort Worth, Texas, native returned to his alma mater in 1989, and it is not hard to tell why Gustafson found what he was looking for in an assistant when he hired his former field general. Gustafson knew from the moment he named Harmon the Longhorns' starting catcher, during his inaugural season as a head coach in 1968, that this Eastern Hills High School graduate had a knack for winning. It was Harmon and his teammates that not only gave Gustafson his first of 22 Southwest Conference (SWC) championships in 1968, but also went on to capture two more titles over the following two seasons.
While a wealth of collegiate baseball experience is evident from his resume, Harmon's work in the professional ranks is quite extensive as well. Following the 1970 Texas season, when he was named to The Sporting News All-America team as a senior, Harmon was drafted by the Kansas City Royals as the second overall pick, behind Dave Kingman, in the secondary phase of the 1970 Major League Baseball Draft. He went on to an eight-year professional career, which included a five-year stint with the Royals' AA and AAA clubs and three seasons in the St. Louis Cardinals' organization.
Harmon would then begin his coaching career in 1978 as a player/coach for the Philadelphia Phillies' Class AAA team in Oklahoma City. It was there that he worked with a young talent from The University of Texas named Keith Moreland.
The role of manager suited Harmon quite well, as one year later he took over the reins of the Phillies' Bend, Ore., club in 1979 and guided them to a short-season Northwest Rookie League title. He then managed the Phillies' Class A Spartanburg, S.C., team from 1980-81, and was also the manager of the Hermosillo club in the Mexico Winter League during the 1981 and 1982 off-seasons. Over those two winters in Mexico, Harmon directed Hermosillo to a winter league title and a berth in the West Caribbean World Series.
From there, Harmon received letters from former Phillies manager and new Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green to report to Wrigley Field, where he became the youngest coach in the National League as the Cubs' bullpen coach in 1982.
Following the 1982 campaign, Harmon was named manager of the Cubs' AA team in Midland, Texas. He would finish out the 1983 season with the club before retiring from his professional baseball career to private business.
His retirement from baseball would prove brief though, as Harmon would return to his alma mater in 1989 and once again don the burnt orange and white, this time as an assistant coach.
Harmon received his bachelor's degree from Texas in 1975, and, for his accomplishments at UT and over his career, was inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in the fall of 1993.
He and his wife, Debbie, have two children; Mark and Sarah, who have both graduated from The University of Texas.
