Harris ready to bring football lessons to life of service (2024)

ASHLAND- In no other sport, will you find the sense of community and brotherhood that you build in football. Over the last four years, that is exactly what Ashland-Greenwood alumni Ben Harris found when he was on the gridiron.

When looking at post high school plans, Harris wanted to be a part of something where he could make similar connections while pushing himself, which led him to join the United States Marine Corps.

“At Ashland, we talk about community a lot,” Harris said. “We are probably one of the most close-knit football teams in C-1 and even all of Nebraska. I think that is something I wanted to look for coming out of high school.

“In the Marines, you know everybody, and you are going through stuff all the time. It’s another little community and that is something I was impressed by. When you’re in the service you are going through crap together, and that’s what we did at Ashland-Greenwood.”

Like most kids, Harris started his high school career as a small freshman who didn’t see a whole lot of playing time. With the help of his coaches, he molded himself into an All-State caliber offensive lineman as a junior and senior and even played in the prestigious Shrine Bowl earlier this month with teammate Drake Zimmerman.

He gives a lot of credit to his success on the football field to his head coach, Ryan Thompson. Thompson’s lessons not only made Harris a better football player but has prepared him to be a responsible man in the real world.

“Thompson is one in a billion coaches,” Harris said. “He likes winning, but he is more focused on improving young freshmen and turning them into grown men. We always talked about improving ourselves in the classroom and improving ourselves on the field. He taught us that to find fun, we don’t have to be dumb; we find it in each other. Thompson makes every practice worth it.”

While looking ahead to basic training, Harris believes one of the skills he learned from football that will help him the most is mental fortitude. As a member of the A-G Football Team, everyone was expected to know their positions and the plays in the playbook.

Though it was difficult at times, he and his teammates worked hard to master the plays come Friday Night. The payoff was great for Harris and the rest of the 2024 seniors who won four straight district titles and were in the semifinals of the Class C-1 Football Playoffs this past year.

“At Ashland, our physical conditioning was relatively light,” Harris said. “It’s less physical conditioning and more mental conditioning. We practiced a lot of plays, and we perfected them. That was something you just had to push through. Going into basic in a couple of months, I think it’s less about the physical things, because I am in relatively good shape and more about the mental side. I owe a lot to the Ashland-Greenwood Football Team for mental toughness.”

With his time in the Marines drawing near, Harris knows there are going to be trials and tribulations at some point, that is just part of being in the military. What he also knows, is that he has what it takes to get through whatever comes his way, because he is from the great town of Ashland.

He has seen other kids in the community embark on the same journey he is just beginning and knows that he can be just as successful as they are at serving the nation.

“You know it takes a special person to be a Marine,” Harris said. “I think a lot of Ashland guys have that. You look at Kyle Sheldon and Ian Mayer who are just a few of those guys who went in the Marine Corps, and they did great. Those guys might not know it, but they are mentors to me, because they did the impossible and joined the few and proud.”

After a busy week partaking in the Shrine Bowl in Kearney, Harris came back to Ashland and took his PiCat Exam for the Marines. This week he completed MIPS and believes he will be leaving for basic training in late August or early September.