Prior to coaching, Harrelson had been the starting quarterback at Stanford University.
[1] The main resource for this article, the 1901 yearbook Artemesia, gives very little information regarding his brief tenure at the helm of the Sagebrushers (later Wolf Pack).
The following is an excerpt from "The Development of Athletics in the University" from that issue: In 1897, the football team was reorganized and coached by Harrelson of Stanford.
A game with the Berkeley second eleven resulted in another defeat (the team having gone 0–2 the prior year [the first of the team's existence] under Frank Taylor), but the score was much smaller than before.
This biographical article relating to a college football coach first appointed in the 1890s is a stub.