‘They cannot keep us apart’: Tim ‘Ice’ Harris is back at Booker T. for his fourth stint
Tim “Ice” Harris Sr. stepped out of his car Wednesday outside Booker T. Washington Senior High School and walked through a crowd as he got ready to be introduced -- once again -- as the coach of Booker T. Washington.
“No matter how hard they try,” Harris told the alumni gathered in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, “they cannot keep us apart.
“We’re connected from the hip.”
After three eventful years as the coach at Miami Gardens’ Florida Memorial University in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, Harris is back at the school where he became a legend. The Tornadoes officially introduced Harris as their new coach Wednesday, bringing him back to Miami for his fourth stint as the coach at Booker T. Washington.
In his previous three stints, Harris helped lead the Tornadoes to their first three state championships in 2007, 2012 and 2013 and set the foundation for three more after he left, including back-to-back championships in 2014 and 2015 to complete a four-peat
Now he’ll try to get Booker T. Washington back to championship contention after two middling seasons, with early postseason exits and records hovering around .500.
“I was blessed that I was chosen to be able to come back and lead this program,” Harris said. “I’m excited for this community, which I grew up in. I grew up right across the street.”
Harris said he reached out to athletic director Lisa Starks last month when the job came open. He applied for the job through normal avenues, then stepped down at Florida Memorial last Wednesday to set the stage for his introduction this week.
He replaces former coach Gerald Cox, who took over at North Miami in January after going 8-10 in two seasons with the Tornadoes. Harris, who was tasked with restarting the Lions’ football program after nearly 60 years of dormancy, went 2-12 in two seasons at Florida Memorial. The Lions did not play in 2019 while Harris and Co. built up the foundation for the program.
He could only stay away from Booker T. Washington for so long, though. In 2007, he helped put the Tornadoes on the map by guiding them to their first state title. He then left to become the assistant to the head coach for Randy Shannon from 2008-2010 with the Miami Hurricanes before returning for his second stint at Booker T. Washington.
In 2011, he led the Tornadoes to their second championship game, where they lost to Jacksonville Bolles, but it was the start of one of the best runs in Florida history. Booker T. Washington won four straight state championships from 2012-2015, tying a Florida High School Athletic Association record for consecutive titles. Harris was the coach in 2012 and 2013, when the Tornadoes won a mythical national championship, and then he left for Miami again to become former coach Al Golden’s running backs coach.
After Harris left, Tim Harris Jr. guided Booker T. Washington to a third straight state championship in 2014 and Earl Tillman, who had been a Tornadoes assistant coach for more than a decade, led Booker T. Washington to its fourth in a row in 2015.
In 2016, Harris returned to the Tornadoes for a third time and built the foundation for another championship. Harris spent three more years at Booker T. Washington before he left to restart Florida Memorial’s long-dormant football program shortly before the start of the 2019 season. Tillman replaced Harris again, but Ben Hanks served as the interim coach while Tillman battled pancreatic cancer and the Tornadoes won their sixth state championship anyway.
Now Harris is back, gunning for No. 7, which would tie Booker T. Washington with Miami Central and Northwestern for the most in Miami-Dade County history.
“It’s just a community environment. If you was here today and seen the environment, and how excited the community was,” said Harris, “it was just something so special.”
