Jim Harkema again led an EMU football team onto the field this fall at Rynearson Stadium. Only this time, it was at halftime and not kickoff.
Harkema and student-athletes from the 1987 California Bowl team – the last EMU football team to play in or win a bowl game – were honored at the Sept. 8 football game.

In 1987, the then-Hurons finished 10-2 (7-1 in Mid-American Conference play) but were 17-point underdogs when the team traveled to Fresno, Calif., to play San Jose State University Dec. 10. The EMU strategy was to slow the game with a running game and to use its bigger offensive line to its advantage. It worked, and EMU went on to win, 30-27.

The Hurons went 6-5 season in 1986, but talk of a championship was distant. What the team did have was a desire to put on the pads, so to speak. “The mindset is so important in anything you do,” Harkema said. “In my 28 years of coaching, all the good teams like to play.”

That determination showed after an October loss to Central Michigan University. “Our guys had just gotten beat, but even after the game, they were talking to the Central guys about sending them a postcard from the Cal Bowl,” he said. “That demonstrated the feeling the guys had.”

Today, Harkema, 65, keeps himself busy at two business pursuits: as senior regional vice-president at Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., and as a partner in the Genoa Woods Conference and Banquet Center in Brighton, Mich. In 1999, he was elected into the E-Club Hall of Fame. Under Harkema from 1986-89, the football team posted the best MAC record.

His advice for current coach Jeff Genyk: “They just need to get over the hump and build on it,” Harkema said.