And for good reason.

Harper’s son, Colt, had stepped on a hornet while running around in the yard on their Mayville property, which meant dad would have to care for the 4-year-old until wife/mom, Lauren, got home.

“I told (assistant coach) Chris Payne if I’m not there at the start of the 7-on-7, go on defense first,” Harper said.

Payne did just the opposite, sending out quarterback Gerrit Hinsdale, wideout Cameron Barmore, all-purpose ace John Swabik and the rest of the talented Clymer/Sherman/Panama skill players instead.

Clymer/Sherman/Panama coach Ty Harper has guided the Wolfpack to 24 wins in their last 25 games and two New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class D championships. P-J file photo

At some point during this exercise, Harper arrived at the field just in time to watch Hinsdale uncork a perfect spiral to Barmore for a touchdown followed a short time later by a connection to Swabik for another score.

That was all Harper, who directed the Wolfpack to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class D championship in 2018, had to see.

“From the moment the season ended, the question I got most often was, ‘Can you do it again?'” Harper recalled earlier this week.

So as he sat in the bleachers on Jamestown’s southside and watched Hinsdale “play catch” with Barmore and Swabik, Harper had his answer.

“On that day,” Harper said, “I thought, ‘We can win another state championship.'”

It wasn’t easy by any means, but his prediction was prophetic. A little more than three months later, Clymer/Sherman/Panama hoisted its second state championship plaque toward the roof at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.

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From the time that Harper was 5 years old, he wanted to play football, so when his college career at St. John Fisher ended, the Fredonia native wanted to stay involved with the game he loved.

“I didn’t have anything else that was close to that in terms of what I was passionate about,” Harper said. ” … I wasn’t about to give that up. The only option I had at that point was to pursue a career where I could be a coach.”

So he earned his teaching certification, took a social studies job at Sherman Central School and coached one year with a merged Sherman/Clymer team. Beginning in 2015, Harper was named the head coach for the Wolfpack and five years later he has guided it to back-to-back state titles.

For those keeping track, the Wolfpack have won 24 of their last 25 games.

“I think the key (to the successful merged team) is pretty simple,” said Harper, The Post-Journal’s choice as Coach of the Year for the second straight season. “It boils down to unselfishness. Chris Payne (at Panama) and Dave Bodamer (at Clymer) deserve a ton of credit. I don’t know if they’re recognized enough for their efforts in their respective buildings. … They are completely dedicated to this program. If either of them at any point didn’t want to promote the program in their respective buildings, the wheels would have come off.”

Instead, they just kept turning and turning, even when Clymer/Sherman/Panama suffered a 24-8 Week 3 loss to Franklinville/Ellicottville.

“There were so many times we probably could have doubted ourselves, could have listened to people outside our locker room,” Harper said.

All the Wolfpack did, however, was finish the season on a nine-game winning streak, including playoff victories over Franklinville/Ellicottville (22-0), Batavia Notre Dame (47-14), Tioga (28-27) and Moriah (47-6). The rematch with the Titans in the Section VI championship game at New Era Field was particularly impressive.

“I don’t think many people gave us a chance in that game,” Harper said. “To lose in Week 3 and to answer at the stadium in that way (showed) our improvement on the part of the guys. I’m proud of that improvement, I’m proud of the coaching staff in how much they’ve bought into this program. It’s a neat thing. Hopefully we can keep it rolling moving forward.”

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Harper said he always looked up to his coaches while he was growing up in Fredonia, guys like Bob Ball for football, Dave Polechetti and John Bongiovanni for basketball and Vince Gullo for baseball.

“Just seeing guys that cared not only about the sport they were coaching, but also how passionate they were about kids and developing kids to be productive young men,” Harper continued. ” I thought that was an important piece, and I think that’s the most important thing. We try and get our kids to be successful people after they graduate. If we’re doing that, I think we’re doing our job.

“That to me has been more important than wins and losses.”

How Clymer/ShermanPanama fares moving forward will be interesting, since it might be moving up a classification for next season.

“To have new goals, challenges and obstacles, you’d say that’s the cost of winning, and that’s OK,” Harper said. “If the state decides we’re going to play in Class C, we won’t complain, we’ll work as hard as we can to be competitive again.”

With Harper at the helm — in combination with an outstanding staff of assistants — there’s little doubt about that.