Nolan Harvath had already bet on himself – and won, no less – before getting a call in April 2024 that led him to an opportunity that he had never even dreamed of.
Harvath grew up in Fairmont loving sports and excelling in soccer. His playing career led him to the University of Southern Indiana where he was a two-time team captain and played in over 50 games during his career. The plan at USI was to pursue pre-med and eventually become a physician, but he was not in love with the idea of eight years of med school. However, he couldn’t resist his love of sports and performance. Further, while dealing with his own injuries and recovery, he got a deeper appreciation for coaching while on the sidelines and also found the process and training necessary to get back to action fascinating.
Upon graduation, Harvath returned to his home state and enrolled to get his master’s degree in coaching and performance education at WVU. With a dream and one year of eligibility left, he tried out to walk-on to the Mountaineer football team as a placekicker. He turned in a strong performance and it came down to him and another player, but ultimately with just one year left, the coaching staff opted for the player with more years of eligibility left.
While the dream to kick a winning field goal at Mountaineer Field ended, all was not lost. Harvath connected with Zach Boone, a fellow East Fairmont High alum, who was working as a graduate assistant strength and conditioning coach for Morgantown High School. Boone helped Harvath move into that spot the following year, which served to be a trial by fire for the fresh-faced master’s student.
“It was a great opportunity, but I probably wasn’t really prepared for it,” Harvath admits. “I was given every team to work with. Looking back in hindsight, though, it was the best thing for me because I got to learn how to write workouts, how to build relationships with players, and how to adjust to different coaches and styles.”
Harvath’s classroom experience helped him connect all of the dots to athlete development. He lauds the program’s holistic approach that helped him be flexible, versatile, and adaptable. This helped him build a foundation to not just work with athletes in different sports, but athletes at different levels as well.
“The curriculum is so well-rounded,” Harvath says. “That helped me understand all of the different things that go into long-term athlete development – technical, tactical, psychological, physical – and even some of the administrative things learned in sports law classes. My classes helped open my mind to how individualized and specialized things needed to be.”
In addition to class and working at Morgantown High, Harvath was also coaching high school soccer with his dad at his alma mater and doing private training at Pro Performance to add to the load. It was a grind that seemed unsustainable, so when an opportunity to sell pharmaceuticals came his way, Harvath decided to step away from the world of sports and enter the “real world.”
His hustle and competitive nature served Harvath well in pharmaceutical sales. He was named the company’s Rookie of the Year. He had a company car and was well compensated.
But, it just wasn’t right.
It was on a rainy day at a soccer field in Fairmont when Harvath told his dad he was going to quit his job and that he wanted to coach. His dad was incredulous as his son had already successfully launched himself into a career, but he also knew that he had what it took to be a coach. He got similar reactions as he told others, but they also knew that there was no stopping him.
Harvath made a big bet on himself.
Then, the search began. Email after emails to programs around the country asking to just be an intern. It goes to show how competitive the sport industry is when a person with a master’s degree is asking – pleading – to allow them an opportunity to work for next to nothing and still can’t many bites on the line. Eventually, he got a shot with Coastal Carolina’s baseball program and was a month away from reporting when an internship at WVU became available. Once again, Harvath gambled on himself again and declined the opportunity with Coastal Carolina so he could interview with WVU in hopes of landing an unpaid internship with the Mountaineers.
The gamble paid off.
Harvath’s earnings from his pharmaceuticals job finance his year-and-a-half internship with WVU.
When a potential full-time opportunity presented itself at Glenville State, he took another risk by volunteering to work there for free for three months. He woke up at 3:30 a.m. every day to make the drive from Morgantown to Glenville to be ready for sessions that started at 5:55 a.m. The job was finally posted and he went to his interview with a suit, tie, and plans of grandeur. The athletic director appreciated the gesture but essentially laughed at the notion that he’d have to do anything additional to get the job after he’d shown everyone in Glenville his knowledge and work ethic.
“The opportunity at Glenville State allowed me to refine my knowledge, build my philosophy and my training model as to how to best prepare athletes,” he says. “I also learned how to get better at communicating with a range of athletes and really build strong, genuine relationships.”
The experience at Glenville State was invaluable and led to another opportunity at WVU, this time working with the baseball and golf programs in a full-time capacity. Harvath got to work with and get an up-close look at programs that were still in their relatively formative years of an upward trajectory.
After two years with those programs, he got the call from Mike Joseph, title, to work with him and the Mountaineer football program.
The hometown kid had gambled on himself and it paid off. He would run out of the tunnel at Milan Puskar Stadium wearing the old gold and blue of his alma mater. He would sing the fight song in the locker room after wins. The grind continued for Harvath – it has to as you train and prepare athletes for competition. There is always another opponent or another competition.
But for Harvath, personally, he was quite content.
And then he got a call from Kim Caldwell. Caldwell (née Stephens) and Harvath worked together at Glenville State where the Pioneers were winning conference championships hand over fist and making runs in the NCAA Division II Basketball Tournament. Caldwell, after a historic run at Marshall, had just been named the head coach at the University of Tennessee, one of the most decorated programs in women’s basketball history.
There were moments in his life when Nolan Harvath felt as if he were playing poker and actively pushing his chips into the middle. He had played those hands perfectly. This time, though, he hadn’t even been looking for a poker game and Kim Caldwell offered him a hand with pocket aces.
“I had no idea why she called me – it was out of the blue,” he recalls. “But how many places can you go where there are eight national championship banners? Knowing the tradition, the demands and the expectations, and Coach Caldwell is trusting me to get the players ready. Of all the people on the planet, she chose me. How do you say no to that?”
He didn’t.
Harvath made the move to Knoxville with his wife, Jeri, and is set to embark on the challenge of a lifetime. He’s gone from the early days of overseeing 450 athletes to working with a roster of 15 at one of the most prestigious programs in the country. The smaller roster means he can pour himself into knowing each player well – both on and off the court. It’s the holistic approach he learned at WVU and has continued to cultivate at each of his stops.
“This isn’t just about blowing a whistle and putting a heavier weight on a bar, it’s about the players’ overall well-being and long-term development – all the things I learned in classes at WVU,” Harvath says. “I want to get to know them and talk to them about everything other than basketball – the basketball will come.
“We will be the hardest working team in the country. I will see to it because Coach Caldwell believes that I can help them be that and she took a gamble on me.”
After all this time and the results already on display, it’s hard to think that betting on Nolan Harvath is much of a gamble.