University of Calgary Athletics

For more than 40 years, Wayne Harris has been involved with the Dinos as a player, alumnus, assistant coach, and most recently defensive coordinator – and he was named the sixth head coach in Dinos Football history on February 12, 2015.

In his first season with the Dinos, Harris captured CIS coach-of-the-year honours after leading the program to an undefeated season and the No. 1 national ranking for eight consecutive weeks.

The son of Calgary Stampeders legend Wayne Harris, Sr., Harris starred as a two-sport athlete for the Dinos from 1977-81 in both football and wrestling. He was a three-time Canada West all-star at linebacker and added a conference wrestling title in 1980. He spent four seasons in the Canadian Football League with the Stampeders, B.C. Lions, and Toronto Argonauts before retiring in 1984, when he joined the Calgary Board of Education.

Over the course of his coaching career with the Dinos, Harris has been part of 10 Hardy Cup championship teams and participated in six Vanier Cups (1995, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019), including the 1995 championship season under former head coach Peter Connellan. In 2006, Harris received the Gino Fracas Award recognizing the top volunteer coach in CIS football, and in 2014 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Dinos Fifth Quarter Association in recognition of nearly four decades of involvement with the program.

He was involved as an assistant coach with the Dinos in three separate stints between 1989 and 2014 and was defensive coordinator from 2011-14. Harris was head coach of the Calgary Colts from 1991-93, and he also spent 25 years as a coach in Calgary high school football at Sir Winston Churchill, Henry Wise Wood, and William Aberhart. His son, James, played as a linebacker for the Dinos in the mid-2000s.

Harris' teams sustained just five losses in 40 conference games in his first five seasons at the helm of the program, winning Hardy Cup championships in 2016, 2017, and 2019. The program made a Vanier Cup appearance in 2016, and Harris led the Dinos to their fifth national championship in 2019 with a 27-13 win over Montreal in Quebec City - joining Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductee Peter Connellan as the only Dinos coaches to lead the program to Vanier Cup titles.

SEASONS AS HEAD COACH: 9th (2023-24)
CANADA WEST CHAMPIONSHIPS: 3 (2016, 2017, 2019)
VANIER CUP APPEARANCES: 2 (2016, 2019)
VANIER CUP CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1 (2019)