CHARLOTTE– Harding High School will rename its football field for former coach Dave Harris during a ceremony at a home game this season, according to a report in The Charlotte Observer.

        The formal request for the name change went to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education in February and has been approved. The ceremony is currently set for September 11.

        Harris, a charter member of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, died in 2010 at the age of 85 after a tremendous career as both a coach and athletic administrator.

        A graduate of Statesville High School and then of Wake Forest University in 1946, where he played in the first Gator Bowl, Harris is one of only three members of the NCHSAA Hall of Fame's charter class in 1987.

        An outstanding coach and athletic director, he coached at Thomasboro High School in Charlotte for one year after earning his masters' degree at Appalachian State, and then embarked on a highly successful 20-year career as head football coach and athletic director at Harding High.  Then from 1967 until 1990 he served as the athletic director for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, where he was considered one of the state's best athletic directors. The NCHSAA award for Athletic Director of the Year is named in his honor.

        Harris coached in the North Carolina Coaches' Association East-West all-star football game and also served as head coach of the North Carolina Shrine Bowl team in 1956. For many years he also served the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas as its athletic director.

        A past president of both the North Carolina Coaches Association and the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association, Harris was the NCADA Athletic Director of the Year in 1977. He was a member of the NCHSAA Board of Directors from 1977 to '81.

        Harris was selected as a member of the charter class of the North Carolina Athletic Directors Association Hall of Fame and is in the Wake Forest University Hall of Fame.