Veteran coach Tim ‘Ice' Harris seeking to turn Mater Academy into a champion

Miami Herald

7 days ago

When he retired from the Miami-Dade County Public School system last February, after turning in 35 years of hard work, it also appeared the long decorated coaching career of Tim 'Ice' Harris had also come to an end.
The previous season, Harris, as he had done in his two previous stints returning to be the head football coach at Miami Booker T. Washington, had returned the Tornadoes to glory again.
Back-to-back playoff berths in 2022 and 2023 set the table for Booker T. to put together a 7-2 regular season (against a very challenging schedule) in 2024 and then advance to the Class 2A state semifinals before a long trip north upstate to the panhandle resulted in a 47-27 loss to Havana Gadsden County.
But, as it turned out, Harris wasn't quite done roaming the sidelines.
Just weeks after he turned in his official retirement papers to the county, Mater Academy, a non-public charter school in Hialeah Gardens came calling.
Harris replaces Jase Stewart as head coach but Stewart, who played under Harris when Ice was an assistant coach at Miami High in the early 90s, will remain on as assistant head coach.
'Jase Stewart and I were at a Nike Coaching Clinic a couple of years ago and he talked to me back then about an opportunity to eventually come to Mater because he felt like we could grow it into something really special,' said Harris who was in attendance at Hard Rock Stadium with 10 of his new players during High School Media Day, put on by the Miami Dolphins. 'So when I retired from Dade County Public Schools, Jase called me and asked if I was still interested. I then met with the principal, administration, AD and him at the school one day and everything worked out. Like slipping a glove on to a hand.'
A Mater program that had enjoyed a nice four-year run of success from 2014-17 under Rocco Casullo (who had previously won two state titles at St. Thomas Aquinas) including back-to-back regional final appearances in 2015-16 had slipped back off the radar and was looking to get things started again.
They got it when Harris accepted the offer.
'They have the perfect vision, the same kind of vision we had at Booker T. for the student athletes,' said Harris who amassed a 169-30 record during his multiple tenures at BTW and led the Tornadoes to state titles in 2007, 2012 and 2013. 'You want to give them an opportunity to make sure they graduate and go to college and have a great time in high school preparing them for that. It's been great ever since I started, and this is an awesome opportunity.'
Harris took over his new gig in March and quickly started putting a roster together. As soon as the school year ended, a half dozen of his Tornado players transferred over to Mater. One of those players was cornerback/athlete Trezavant Boyd who immediately became part of a 7-on-7 team, one which knocked off defending 6A state champion West Boca Raton in a summer tournament at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
'It was both and easy and hard decision at the same time,' said Boyd, who despite only being a junior, already has multiple offers from schools including the University of Miami, Florida State, Syracuse, Illinois and Ole Miss. 'Tough because you have to say goodbye to some of your teammates who you've been pretty close with but easy because Coach Ice is a great coach. Ever since I came in as a freshman he's shown me the leadership and love every player wants to see in a head coach and it's that bond that I really value.'
Then there was the other side of the coin. Returning Mater Academy players who are hoping to benefit from Harris' coaching prowess and pipeline contact list to the colleges in hopes of maybe getting themselves placed at the next level.
'When I first heard his name, I knew all about what he had accomplished at Booker T. and was just really excited about him coming over and what he could do for our program,' said senior defensive end Carlos Botella who has been part of the Lions' program since his freshman year. 'You could tell with the rest of our players as well the excitement about him coming in here because we know we're going to be better. We're ready to go win a championship with him.'
Asked about the difference from past years with Harris now taking over the program, Botella didn't hesitate.
'He just brings a different mentality,' said Botella. 'We're a lot more competitive and things are much more intense. We work way harder, conditioning is really, really hard and that's exactly the way we want it to be. Hard work is what's going to pay off in the end.'
The players aren't the only ones excited about Harris' arrival.
Instead of playing an opponent for their annual spring game back in May, they held an intra-squad scrimmage. And it was hardly your average on-campus scrimmage.
Mater administrators rented out Milander Stadium on a weekday school morning and had nearly the entire student body attend, in essence, a de-facto 'Ice Harris Pep Rally.'
'It was like nothing I've ever seen for a spring scrimmage,' said longtime South Florida high school sports analyst Larry Blustein, who attended the event. 'You had virtually the entire school there along with the administrators and they even turned it into a pep rally to also honor the state champion baseball team. It's pretty obvious these folks are really excited to have this coach coming in. Expect Mater to get pretty good pretty quickly.'
Harris is trying not to get too caught up in all the high expectations but also can't help but sense the excitement around the school as well.
'Everybody appears to be excited about watching us,' Harris said. 'We've worked hard this summer and then we have a great coaching staff as well including Coach Stewart. We'll continue to try and take these kids to the next level, help develop them and give them a great high school experience where they can be prepared for college when the opportunity arrives. No matter what uniform you have on, it's all about developing kids. The job is still the job in terms of developing student athletes and that's what this staff is coming here to do.'