When he was a teenager, his father became too ill to work and left his wife and son and moved in with his own mother in Arlington.
On the first day of practice at TCU, Harrell – a high school quarterback – watched Sammy Baugh work out, and immediately chose to compete for the halfback position instead.
He was tougher than Bear Bryant.Just after graduation, Harrell began his coaching career at the Central Texas town of DeLeon.
Serving in the rank of a sergeant, Harrell was stationed on Camp Wolters near Mineral Wells, Texas, where he was in charge of sixty men.
[1] After the war, Harrell restarted his coaching career, with stops at Odessa, Denison, Greenville, Lamesa, and Corpus Christi Miller.