Hosea Harris looking to build a program and not simply a quick fix for Rockford Auburn football

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO/WQRF) — Auburn High School has its third head football coach in five years. Hosea Harris now is the guy in charge. It’s his first head coaching job at the varsity level, but he knows every nut and bolt of Auburn athletics and District 205 athletics.

“I’m super excited for the opportunity and I can’t wait to get started,” said Harris Wednesday about getting the head coaching job.

Harris has been working and coaching at Auburn High School for 17 years, and he has been working in the Rockford Public School District for 25 years coaching football, basketball and baseball at all levels starting at Eisenhower Middle School where he coached current NFL player Vederian Lowe, and then at Kennedy Middle School.

At Auburn, he was an assistant football coach under Dan Appino when the Knights were winning NIC-10 championships and making deep playoff runs in 2015 and 2016. He learned a lot from working with Appino.

“Some of the things I learned from Dan was creating basic standards, sticking to them. Starting from the ground foundation and building up from there, because if you don’t have a solid foundation, it’s not going to work.”

Harris has also learned from one of the winningest basketball coaches in NIC-10 history Bryan Ott as one of Ott’s assistant coaches.

“Coach Ott here, this was not a successful program. He stuck with it. He built and made what it is today.”

The last two seasons, Auburn won a total of one football game. Harris says there aren’t any quick fixes.

“I’m not in a rush. I can’t be in a rush because that’s when you fumble. I want to take my time and build it from the ground up with weight training, framework and skill work.

He’s not looking for a one-hit wonder here. He wants to build a sustainable program.

One big thing Harris believes he has going for him is he is a Rockford guy. He grew up here. He was part of the final graduating class at West High School in 1989.

Another thing Harris has going for him is he is also the Student Mentor at Auburn helping students find their career paths. Many students have come to trust him through that relationship.

“One connection I have with a lot of these students is I’ve been there and seen it all myself too, and so it’s easier for me to relate to them and some of them see that. I’ve got a lot of kids that knock on my office door. They want to come in and talk about things that’s going on at home, so I think I have that rapport with the students already.”