Harrington followed fast track with Falcons

June 28, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Harrington followed

fast track with Falcons

Before he became the “track mamba,” a record-setting, trivia-spewing, coach-charming, scholarship-earning assassin, Joe Harrington was just a 14-year-old freshman at Austintown Fitch High who had won the gene lottery, but couldn’t be bothered to cash in the ticket.

“We would have workouts in the evening and Joe wouldn’t want to come,” Fitch sprints coach Seth Steiner said. “His older brother [William] would push him to go and he’d say, ‘I’m already too fast.’ Those were Harrington quotes as a freshman.

“He was 14 years old and it’s hard to get a 14-year-old to see the big picture.”

Harrington had just moved to Austintown from Indianapolis — his mother got a job at GM — and, true to his roots, he first tried playing basketball at his new school. Once the basketball coaches saw him run, they told him, “You should go out for track.”

Harrington made it onto one of Fitch’s sprint relays as a freshman — no small feat considering the Falcons’ size (Division I) and sprint tradition — and, in his first indoor meet, “he burned up the track,” Steiner said. He eventually helped the Falcons earn All-Ohio honors in the 4x200-meter relay at the outdoor state meet, but it wasn’t until his sophomore year, when he ran a 21.63 in the 200-meter dash preliminaries of the Division I regional meet, that the light bulb started to flicker.

“He was a consistent sprinter and all of the sudden, he popped off a 21.6,” Steiner said. “That’s a pretty legitimate time. That’s when he realized how good he could be.”

Fitch’s football coaches realized it, too. After seeing the field in a couple varsity games as a sophomore — he had Division I speed on a Division VII frame — he emerged as a full-time starter at wide receiver his junior year, compiling 332 yards to go with 10 touchdowns (five rushing, five receiving) to help the Falcons (12-1) finish with their first undefeated regular season before falling in the third round of the playoffs.

An ankle injury limited him to just six games as a senior, but he still caught 23 passes for 268 yards and three TDs — drawing double coverage in most games — and adding 231 yards rushing on 23 carries. He finished with 110.8 all-purpose yards per game and earned second team all-district honors for the Falcons, who went 8-3 and lost in the second round of the playoffs.

While his 5-foot-11, 155-pound frame kept him from being a workhorse (at least at the Division I level), he was the perfect weapon for Fitch’s spread offense.

“We started breaking him in as a sophomore, knowing we could utilize him on jet sweeps and speed sweeps and he was our deep threat at receiver, too,” Falcons coach Phil Annarella said. “He kind of blossomed as a junior and he had a couple nagging injuries as a senior, but for the most part he gave us everything we needed on the football field, that’s for sure.”

Still, Annarella would rather talk about what Harrington gave him on the practice field, as well as in the locker room.

“Number one, forget about how fast he is — Joey is just a fabulous young man,” he said. “He comes from a wonderful family and I just love him to death. He’d do anything for you. He’s as coachable as they come. All the superlatives.

“He just has that great smile. I tease him, but I’d always tell him, ‘You know I love you.’ He’s just one of those kids you can’t help but fall in love with. The teachers felt the same way about him and so did the other coaches. His personality and his demeanor is just special.”

Harrington likes to keep things loose — “You can say I’m the funny guy,” he said, grinning — and he’s memorized a backlog of strange facts about killer animals, whether it’s the black mamba (the fastest, most venomous snake on earth and the one that inspired his nickname), the blue-ringed octopus (which can kill a human in 15 minutes) and the box jellyfish (the most venomous creature on earth, which can kill a human in two minutes).

“He definitely brings a lot of life to practices,” Steiner said. “And he never misses practice. He always does what you ask him to do and he works his butt off.”

On the track, Harrington is also a killer, compiling 10 school records, including Fitch’s outdoor 100-meter (10.74) and 200-meter (21.54) records and its indoor 60-meter (6.87) and 200-meter (21.84) marks.

“Looking at his stats and his accomplishments, he’s one of the greatest track athletes in Fitch history,” Steiner said. “The only thing he didn’t accomplish was an individual state title, but those aren’t easy to come by in Division I. He’s done pretty much everything else you can ask for.”

Harrington, The Vindicator’s Male Athlete of the Year, is an 11-time state qualifier for the indoor state meet, earning All-Ohio six times, including a pair of second-place finishes this March in the 60 and the 200. He’s also a 12-time outdoor state qualifier, finishing All-Ohio nine times while earning his first individual medal in June when he placed third in the 200. Harrington has also qualified for three indoor national meets and four outdoor national meets and is a three-time outdoor All-American, with all three coming in sprint relays last June.

“That was the highlight of my career,” he said. “We competed at outdoor nationals for three years and I finally became an All-American,” he said. “That was the ultimate goal.”

Harrington will continue his track career at the University of Akron, where he plans to major in criminology and become a U.S. Marshal, a decision partly inspired by watching the “Men in Black” movies.

“I want to arrest bad guys,” he said. “I want to chase them down.”

Five years ago, Harrington left behind his friends and family to start a new life in a city that (figuratively) revolves around football. Little did he know that he’d find his calling in a sport that literally revolves around it.

“I honestly didn’t know anything about Youngstown,” he said, “but [moving here] has been the best thing that’s happened so far.”