Savor Your ‘Two Plays’: Mike Harner, ’82
Written by Doug Goodnough
This article is part four of four in The Leadership Game series, published in the spring 2024 edition of Arete.
His varsity football career at Hillsdale College was a total of two plays.
And although he went on to carve out a career as a college golfer, and eventually a 20-year stint as a helicopter pilot commander in the U.S. Navy, Mike Harner, ’82, said those two plays still shape his thinking as a senior leader at Hillsdale College.
As an undersized 17-year-old freshman, Harner enrolled at Hillsdale intent on honing his punting and placekicking skills for the upcoming intramural football season. However, one of the RAs saw Harner booming punts and kicks in the back field of Simpson Residence Hall, and called the football coach.
“The coach reached out to me and I went to practice,” said Harner, who kicked barefoot, which was a trend at the time. “At the end of practice, they walked me out and kicked some field goals and I hit some punts.”
The coaches liked what they saw, and Harner spent his first year kicking on the freshman and JV teams. To start his sophomore year, Harner won the starting placekicking job. During the opener, he performed one kickoff, and toward the end of a very close game, he executed an onside kick, which sailed through his teammate’s hands, ending a chance at a Chargers victory.
After that game, he lost a kicking competition to a teammate and never saw the field again. A lingering offseason leg injury convinced Harner it was time to move on to other things. He was a member of The Collegian staff, competed on the quiz bowl team, and helped establish the Sigma Chi fraternity on campus.
After earning a degree in English literature, Harner entered the Navy and had a distinguished career before retiring in 2002. During his military service, he stayed involved with Hillsdale, helping with admissions on the West Coast and becoming a member of the Alumni Board.
“Everything important came from being here,” said Harner, who met his eventual wife, Carin (Lama), ’82, at Hillsdale. They have three grown sons.
Post-Navy, he took what he thought was his “dream job” of managing a country club, but decided something was missing.
“In the end, the mission to provide comfort and entertainment to those who can afford that type of comfort wasn’t important,” Harner said.
What was important to Harner was the mission of Hillsdale College. One of his former football coaches, John Cervini, who was now the leader of Hillsdale College’s Institutional Advancement Office, called him and asked if he wanted to return to the College. Harner was hired as Hillsdale’s alumni director in 2004. In 2006, he accepted the position of chief staff officer and assistant to President Dr. Larry Arnn. He’s been in that role ever since.
And just what is his role at Hillsdale?
“To the extent that I’m able to do my job, it’s to try to make sure that everybody’s talking and working together,” Harner said. “My wife asked me what I do. And I tell her, ‘You know, I help coordinate things and make sure we’re singing from the same sheet of music.’ And I work for a good man [Dr. Arnn] who expects us to do well. So trying to make sure that everybody understands what the expectations are.”
He said he leans on his athletic experience often in helping to lead the College.
“A lot of people here care deeply about the College, right?” he said. “Just like when you’re on a team, you care about your teammates. You care about the game. You care about the result. If you don’t care about it, you go do something else. Having that attitude and working with a bunch of people every day who have that attitude—that’s awesome.”
Harner said athletics plays a vital role at the College. In fact, he still helps coach the men’s golf team, and believes golf ties into Hillsdale’s belief in self-governance.
“I think there’s no better game for the development and demonstration of character,” he said. “Golf is not particularly tolerating of cheaters, and the way it enforces that is that you enforce it on yourself.”
Harner said the Hillsdale College community has a great sense of what “team” is all about.
“They all have a sense of the mission of the school,” Harner said of the faculty, staff, and administration. “That they’re doing something that’s good. That they’re playing for the right team. And the team’s trying to win something important.”
And those two plays?
“I tell everyone to savor their ‘two plays,’” Harner said. “You only get so many opportunities.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.