When Deion Sanders reached out to Gary "Flea" Harrell before embarking on his first head coaching job at Jackson State, it was initially for advice and perspective.

Harrell had served two head coaching stints (2011-12, 2014-16) at his alma mater Howard University — an HBCU located in Washington D.C. His resume is also full of assistant coaching work at HBCUs such as Alabama State University, Texas Southern, Bowie State, Florida A&M and Morgan State.

Sanders wanted to pick Harrell’s brain on the organizational facets of coaching at an HBCU. Multiple phone calls later exchanging knowledge and experience, it led to Harrell joining Sanders at JSU in November of 2020 and they haven’t separated since.

In September, Harrell was chosen to lead the team there while Sanders was hospitalized for 23 days undergoing several surgeries to remove life-threatening blood clots that developed in his leg. Now, he's Colorado's assistant head coach/running backs coach.

“I’ve been in coaching for about 22 years, and in this business, you need someone that can take you places that you probably can’t get to on your own,” Harrell said. “I know I had a special guy when I met Coach Prime. I knew he was going places based on some of the things that we implemented within a short span of time at Jackson State.”