As the Plant City Raiders football program transitions into a new era of leadership, so too is Tyreke Harrison.
The junior defensive back, who was named one of the Raiders’ “Three to See” in the 2016 Plant City Times & Observer Football Guide, is being counted on by head coach James Booth to help the team’s younger players buy in to the program’s new expectations. Though he’s had to adjust to having a new coach every season, Harrison said he and his junior and senior teammates have the will to win for anybody in charge.
“The reality is, we still all got the same mindset of making it to the next level,” Harrison said. “In order to make it to the next level we’ve got to deal with another coach. We feel like us adapting to a new coach, it’s like we still have to be strong and move on in our career.”
The Raiders are preaching accountability and teamwork through every inch of the program and Harrison is doing his part to instill that into the team’s sophomores and freshmen. He does what he can to motivate the younger players to work hard — admitting that constantly hearing “Hustle, hustle!” from the coaches can get “kind of old” — but said he himself sometimes needs motivation from another source.
“Actually I’d like to say our teammate, D.J. (Gordon IV), he actually pushed me to do better,” Harrison said. “After hearing him push me, it actually made me want to motivate the guys, too, to elevate our team. There’s some days where we didn’t touch the weight room and he’d hit me up, ‘Hey, Juice, meet me at the weight room.’ Sometimes, I’m not even gonna lie, I want to say no … he’ll actually give you a speech if you say no that’ll open your eyes. ‘Man, you gotta tighten up. We gotta get on this level. We’re stressing 15 games this year.’”
Harrison’s not just trying to be a leader on the field. He’s also excelling in the classroom as a dual-enrollment student and said he recently got his GPA up to a 4.1.
Entering his junior season, it’s the first time Harrison has been counted on by his coaches to set an example for those below him. The junior also knows that, in addition to proving himself to his peers, he must also be able to pick himself up and work hard when things aren’t going his way. Harrison’s self-motivation technique is simple, but he said it’s effective.
“I just look at my number, 15,” he said. “I rub it on my chest and everything. I’m really trying to sell a lot of shirts this year. Basically, there’s a lot of females that are gonna be wearing my shirt this year, so I feel like I’ve got to actually make it stand out this year.”
The number 15, which Harrison was assigned when he first joined the Raiders two seasons ago, also represents a goal for him and the team. Fifteen games stand between Plant City and the FHSAA state championship trophy, from the start of the regular season through the end of the state Final Four rounds. Harrison and his teammates want nothing more than to prove 2016’s playoff miss was a fluke, not a standard. They know they’re not going to get there without work and, above all, holding each other to the highest possible standards.
That’s why he’s joining Gordon in the weight room when he could just say no.
“After we get our mindset on that 15 games,” Harrison said, “I feel like nobody can really stop us.”