BOULDER — One of Bill Harris’ unofficial duties as the Colorado Alumni C-Club director is to give current Buffs a warning: Soak up every moment of being a student-athlete. This experience will be over before you know it.
“I always say to them, ‘I’ll see you in four years. Enjoy it because these are the fastest four years of your life,’ ” Harris said during a recent interview inside his office, which is decorated with photographs autographed by some of his favorite CU athletes. “Just last year, George Hypolite said to me, ‘Oh my God, I’m a C-Club man.’ ”
Harris, who recently turned 67, will retire from CU this week. Since accepting the position in May 2001, the C-Club’s active membership — the number of former Buffs paying their dues — has increased from about 450 to more than 1,000.
During Harris’ tenure, he has helped put together six CU Hall of Fame ceremonies, opened the C-Club suite at Folsom Field and expanded the popular Living Legends program.
“Bill has an unequivocal passion and affection for the entire institution,” athletic director Mike Bohn said. “There’s no question we’ll miss Bill’s even-keeled demeanor, professionalism, work ethic and his great love for CU.”
After a distinguished 25-year career as a health care executive in his native New Jersey, Harris moved back to Boulder eight years ago with his wife, Susan, when their kids — son Trevor and daughter Lisa — were students at CU.
When Blake Anderson left his post as the C-Club director to go into private business, Harris was an obvious choice to fill the vacancy.
“I thought Bill would be the perfect fit for a variety of reasons,” said John Meadows, an assistant athletic director at the time and a former teammate of Harris’ in the early 1960s. “He was a guy who was retired with lots of energy and who gets along with everybody. And he was an older guy who wasn’t looking to move on to something else.”
Harris plans to stay in Boulder, where he will spend time in the garden, fishing and playing with his grandchildren.
Communicating with pioneers and legends such as Claude Walton, CU’s first African-American letter-winner and the school’s first All-American (1936), has been a thrill for Harris. Walton, a track star at CU in the 1930s, was inducted into the university’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2008 at the age of 94.
“Claude would call me and he would always pay his dues. He was an active supporting member of the C-Club. When we would talk, he would never say, ‘I did this or I accomplished this.’ He would just ask how CU was doing and say that he loved that place,” Harris said.
Harris said the return of NBA star Chauncey Billups to his native Denver has been an exciting development at the end of his tenure. Billups played at CU from 1995-97, and the Nuggets guard is a card-carrying member of the C-Club.
Harris, who played football at CU from 1960-63, said his favorite project was getting a chance to track down and reunite with his teammates. The list of greats from that era includes Joe Romig, Gale Weidner, Ted Woods, Charlie McBride and Jerry Hillebrand.
“That’s one of the real joys of working and doing this job for nine years. My teammates were just unbelievable, and since I’ve been on this job I’ve found every one of my teammates,” Harris said. “We talk so much about what went on in those days and how we all bonded and stuck together. And that’s how we are today.”
Meadows still remembers the Buffs’ first team meeting in 1960 as if it happened yesterday.
“When I first met Bill was when the coaches had everyone stand up and they introduced us and said our position and where we were from,” Meadows said. “I’ll never forget this, they introduced him — ‘Bill Harris, running back from Hackensack, New Jersey.’
“I came out of Michigan and was sitting with Orlando Jones and Larry Douglas, two running backs from Michigan, and when Bill stood up they both looked at me and go, ‘Look at the size of that dude.’ ”
The 6-foot-2 Harris led the team in rushing as a junior with 582 yards in 1962.
“Buffalo Bill” is 27th on CU’s all-time rushing list with 1,486 yards and 26th all-time in all- purpose yards (2,411).
“I never would have thought that I would return to CU, especially to be a part of the athletic department and the university,” Harris said. “It was just something that was a dream, and it has just been great.”
Now Harris gets to slow down after enjoying the fastest years of his life all over again.
