When Abilene Christian hosts West Texas A&M in the second round of the Division II Football Championship tomorrow at 1 p.m. Eastern, two players will bask in the glow of the spotlight usually reserved for their Heisman-hopeful brothers.
Abilene Christian backup quarterback Clark Harrell and backup wide receiver Chance McCoy are siblings to Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell and Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, respectively.
The lineage goes like this:
• Clark Harrell transferred to Abilene Christian from the University of Tulsa in August. The Harrell brothers’ parents are both Abilene Christian graduates, though their father, Sam, did not play football.
• The McCoy brothers’ father, Brad, did play football at Abilene Christian and graduated from the institution, as did Brad’s wife and mother of the boys. The grandfather of both Colt and Chance, Burl McCoy, was a standout athlete at Abilene Christian in the 1950s and also was the school’s longtime women’s basketball coach.
• There’s another University of Texas connection at Abilene Christian, too. Bob Shipley, the father of Jordan Shipley – the leading receiver at Texas – played football and later coached at Abilene Christian. He and Brad McCoy were teammates at ACU in the early 1980s.
• All three fathers – Bob Shipley, Sam Harrell and Brad McCoy – are successful head football coaches in Texas. Bob is the head coach at Coppell High School, Sam is the head coach at Ennis High School and Brad is the head coach at Graham High School.
