Steve Harrick

One of WVU's truly outstanding coaches, Steve Harrick put WVU baseball and wrestling on the map during his 44-year career.

A graduate of WVU in 1924, Harrick went on to play professional football with Steubenville and professional baseball with Wheeling and Fairmont in the Middle Atlantic League. While playing professional athletics, Harrick also served as an instructor and wrestling coach at WVU until 1932.

After a brief stint at Point Pleasant High School in 1932-33, he then moved to West Virginia Tech for the next 14 years to head all of Tech's athletic programs.

Harrick returned to West Virginia in 1947 to assume the duties of associate professor in the School of Physical Education and head coach of baseball and wrestling.

During 29 years of coaching wrestling, Harrick compiled a record of 155-99-4 for a winning percentage of .608. His wrestling teams won five Southern Conference wrestling titles and a total of 42 wrestlers won individual conference championships.

As impressive as his wrestling mark was, he had an even better mark as WVU's baseball coach. Guiding the Mountaineers for 20 seasons, Harrick posted a 334-160-1 mark at WVU for a winning percentage of .678. Six Mountaineer teams won Southern Conference titles and seven earned NCAA district playoff berths.

Only posting two losing seasons during his entire career as a Mountaineer coach, Harrick's 1963 team posted a 30-3 mark, the first 30-win season in school history.

Eighteen of his former players were selected by professional organizations to play baseball, including major leaguer Paul Popovich, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Harrick also tutored WVU's first and only baseball All-America selection in Bill Marovic. The outfielder batted .404 and led the Mountaineers in eight offensive categories to win the award from the Baseball Coaches Association.

No stranger to awards, Harrick was inducted into the Association of College Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1975. Making the occasion more memorable was the fact that long-time friend Art Rooney inducted Harrick into the Hall of Fame, just days before Pittsburgh defeated the Dallas Cowboys to win the Super Bowl title.

Harrick, who is also a member of the West Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, was a native of Fordham, Pa. Harrick died December 7, 1988.