Harasymiak Building Environment Through Staff

Joe Harasymiak's experience is unique for a young head coach & it's what he's relied on to build a staff and eventually a culture in Amherst.

For a young coach, Joe Harasymiak has an enormous amount of experience.

Not only does the 38-year-old have several years of experience as a coordinator at the Power-4 level, he has head coaching experience after being tabbed to be the head man at Maine in 2015 at just 29, making him the youngest Division-I head coach at the time.

While his experience running defenses at Minnesota and Rutgers helped him climb the ladder as one of the most promising young coaches out there, when it came to putting together a staff, it was that experience in Maine that gives him confidence.

Harasymiak’s first staff included former Minuteman quarterback Liam Coen, who was just named head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, current Miami defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman along with Browns assistant Nick Charlton and Jared Keyte, who Harasymiak brought with him from Rutgers to be defensive coordinator in Amherst.

“Listen, there were mistakes,” Harasymiak acknowledged. “I made mistakes as a 29-year-old being a head coach for the first time and you learn and you fix it. And that's why 2018 happened.”

In 2018, Harasymiak and the Black Bears went 10-4, winning the CAA and reaching the FCS Semifinals.

“We had a group of people that didn't care about what their job was,” Harasymiak said. “We sacrificed for each other. There was no job too small. We put everybody else first. That team just played harder than everybody. They were talented, they were talented kids, but we weren't going to back down to anybody.

“Putting together a staff, I think the most important thing is it's not always about the best coach. It's the best people that fit what you want to do. And that's why this process over the last month and a half has really been something that we've taken our time on.”

While he draws confidence from his early days as a head coach, he also takes experience from being a defensive coordinator at Minnesota and Rutgers.

“To take a step back and learn again as an assistant; how do you be the best assistant? You do whatever the head coach needs you to do,” he said. “You're aligned with the head coach and that's taught me even more.

“Then being able to help in the process of hiring defensive coaches at those two spots, whether it's as a co-coordinator or a coordinator at Rutgers, it goes a long way. I think you see good and bad and what doesn't work and what does work.”

Just as he does when evaluating players, Harasymiak prioritizes character with coaches.

“You should never be a better football coach than you are a person,” he said. “Great people is where it starts for me. Whether you're a player, whether you're a coach, something that's important for me, what type of man are you? Family man? Good husband? Good father? And if you don't have kids, what kind of person are you in that part of your life?

“So, that's where it starts for me. Usually, the first initial phone call or Zoom or whatever that is, that's really what I want to accomplish; just kind of see who you are.”

Harasymiak assumes “if you're coming across my desk at this level, you know X's and O's,” so his next step is to figure out how the coach teaches the game.

“That's what I went to school for is to be a teacher and that's what coaching is,” he said. “Understanding that players learn in different ways; visual, they've got to hear things, they've got to see things, they've got to write it. So all those things on how they teach is a big part.

“I think who you are and how you teach are the two most important things that we look for.”

With his own background on the defensive side of the ball, Harasymiak relied heavily on his personal connections.

Keyte was on that Maine staff and then reconnected with Harasymiak at Rutgers. Linebackers coach Garrett Gillick played for Harasymiak and Keyte at Maine before spending 11 years at New Hampshire. Defensive line coach Nyeem Wartman-White comes from Akron, but prior to that, he was on that same UNH staff with Gillick. Defensive line assistant/analyst Kayon Whitaker played at Maine and was in Piscataway with Harasymiak and Keyte.

“I think those connections that I have and those relationships have been why those guys are ending up here,” Harasymiak said.

With Harasymiak and Keyte’s shared background, expect an aggressive, blitz-happy 3-4 defense in Amherst.

“It's not going to be a secret probably about what we're going to do there,” Harasymiak said.

The connections also helped on the offensive side of the ball, but rather than leaning on a guy he worked with in the past to lead the unit, he landed on a guy he coached against in Mike Bajakian as offensive coordinator.

Bajakian has a wealth of experience in college and the NFL and also spent four years leading Northwestern’s offense while Harasymiak was leading Big Ten defenses from 2020-23.

“Mike's a Bergen County (N.J.) guy like I am,” Harasymiak said. “We grew up kind of in the same area and then obviously his relationship between me and him was just going against each other early to start.”

Offensive line coach Kurt Anderson coached under Bajakian at Northwestern after spending time at Arkansas and with the Buffalo Bills. Running backs coach Jeremy Larkin spent two seasons as a GA on that same Northwestern staff before heading to Notre Dame for a year as an analyst and spent the last two seasons coaching running backs at Youngstown State. Tight ends coach Matt Layman is the lone holdover as full-time assistant coach from the previous UMass staff.

Harasymiak acknowledged that as head coach, he’ll be a bit more removed from the X’s and O’s, so it’s no surprise he plans to let Bajakian have a great deal of autonomy to implement his system on offense.

“When you hire people, you hire them because you trust them,” he said. “It's going to be his show to run.

“Egos get in the way all the time; we all have them. It's about how do you just get rid of that and push forward as a team.”

The more you listen to Harasymiak, the more you realize his principles are deeply ingrained in his belief system. They overlap and are intertwined, proving they aren’t some hodgepodge of ideas he’s snatched from one book on coaching and another on leadership.

The things he prioritizes in coaches are the same things he prioritizes in players and they reflect what he strives for in the program.

And in less than two months, those things have already become obvious to those who have had a peek inside.

“The most feedback I'm getting from everybody that we visit in recruiting or have people here on campus, it's just the amount of compliments on the people,” Harasymiak said.

“We're going to be responsible for creating this environment. Everyone's a byproduct of their environment and everyone's a byproduct of what they believe in. So to a certain extent, the environment you create and what you tell them to believe in, that's your product.”

Harasymiak knows how to create that product and he knows how to sell it. But if the first couple months are any indication, the product will do a lot of the selling on its own.