This past week, Newton County lost a titan in the coaching community when Steve Harber passed away after a year-long battle with cancer.
Harber amassed more than 1,000 wins over a 50-year career that included stops at Decatur, Union, Forest, Newton County, Lamar School and finally at Newton County Academy.
Harber finished his career at NCA where he took the girls team to the 2023 Class 3A finals.
“Coach Harber was a tremendous coach and a great asset to NCA during his time with us,” NCA headmaster Stevie Nelson said. “He loved being able to coach his granddaughters. He will be dearly missed. Not only was he a great coach he was a great family man and loved them dearly and he would always share stories that happened with one of them. It was pretty easy to have a story since he and Mrs. Pam have 17 grandchildren. NCA’s thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Pam and the daughters and the rest of the family.”
Tanner Smith, who is the boys coach at NCA, said having Harber on campus was an asset to him.
“I was excited when I heard they were hiring him because he had seen and done everything in basketball,” Smith said. “He was very willing to share, and I picked his brain a lot. He was a mentor to me on and off the court. We talked about personnel issues, how to talk to kids and deal with parents. One thing he always said was you have to be able to talk to everybody in a different way. He showed me the 1-3-1 trap and that’s what we are running today. I have learned to really like it that’s what we run and it’s Coach Harber’s version of it."
Current NCA girls coach Cory Cleveland had a long relationship with Harber. They coached together for more than a decade at Newton County and Cleveland was coming back to NCA to be his assistant this season.
“Any time you come across a coach who has been coaching as long as Coach Harber, you are going to learn some things, even if it’s about hoops or life in general,” Cleveland said. “As far as X’s and O’s, I learned a lot from him. But more than that, learning how to deal with kids on and off the court. And one thing I did learn was as much as he loved basketball, he loved his family more than that. He was always talking about the grand kids, the kids, Mrs. Pam and Mississippi State. We spent many nights talking about his kids and grandkids. We always joked about retiring and he wasn’t going to retire until he coached that last grad kid. Coaching those grandkids was special to him, almost as special as coaching his daughters.”
Beyond the court
While Harber was known for his defensive prowess as a coach, he was so much more than that.
Take Jeff and Brad Breland, who he coached at Union. Both went on to be successful high school coaches and remain the only brothers ever to be head coaches in the Mississippi-Alabama All-Star game.
Jeff, the oldest of the brothers, said Harber helped him through some hard times, coaching him in football, basketball and baseball.
“He was more like a father figure to me,” Jeff Breland said. “I was in the 10th grade when our father passed away of a heart attack. He was always a shoulder to lean on for advice. He coached us in everything and we were always with him, so he just took on that father role for us. And even after our playing day were over, I leaned on him a lot, asking him questions about this job or that job. My last few years at Newton County, I got to work with him there. He was just a genuine guy. He had a great rapport with us as students, and everybody loved him. He was a special human being.”
Jeff’s young brother Brad also echoed those sentiments.
“From the time I was in seventh grade, I was a manager on the basketball team while Jeff played,” Brad said. “I just kept on being the manager throughout high school. He always treated me like a son, and I treated him like a father. He was really special to Jeff and I and our family. He wore a lot of hats for our family. He was a mentor and became a good friend. We always had a really good relationship.”
