Along with John Herman, Jim was the most successful local high school coach the club ever hired.  He coached for 28 years at Torrey Pines High School in both girl's and boy's volleyball in addition to football and track and field.  He also had a short three-year stint coaching track and field and girl’s varsity volleyball at Medford High School in Oregon.

     Both of Jim’s sons- James and Robbie- played for Seaside and Jim spent many years coaching both of them simultaneously, on different teams, while with Seaside.  Jim’s success at Torrey Pines with the girl’s varsity program is unprecedented where he won nine CIF titles, four SoCal Regional Titles, and over 20 League Titles.       In addition, Jim led Torrey to four State Runnerup finishes.  For his merits, Jim was inducted into the San Diego High School Coaching Legends in the class of 2011.

     During Jim’s career at Seaside, he coached or assisted other coaches at virtually every level.  He was particularly good at the 14 level where both his teams finished 5th at the Nationals in 2004 and 2005.  In 2006, he assisted Mat Osburn with the 16-1 team and again with Mat in ’07 with the 17’s that finished 9th at the JO’s.

While Jim was busy coaching at Seaside, he was also coaching club girls at both Coast VBC and Encinitas Wave VBC.  His Coast 18-1 team in 2000 won the National Championship.  He also coached two other girl’s teams to Bronze finishes, and garnered a 5th place with the 12-1 team (Encinitas Wave) in 2004.

Notable players that Jim coached in Seaside were Jeff Withey (Now in the NBA); Evan Barry (Stanford and Pro Volleyball – Europe); Beau Vandeweghe (Pepperdine); Ian Hendries (Penn State); and Tyler Heap (current starting setter at BYU).  Jim’s sons were two years apart, so often he would either coach, or assist, with the teams his sons were playing on.  

     Coach Featherstone on Jim Harrah :  “In spite of the fact that Jim had most of his success at the high school level coaching girls, his maturity in dealing with kids of all ages and both sexes was apparent from the get-go. . . Actually, I assumed for years that Jim was just too busy to coach with our club, but, when he contacted us about putting both his sons into Seaside, I immediately asked him if he would like to coach the young players and he was excited to do that since his boys were both coming to Seaside as 14 year olds. . .It’s hard to coach your own kids without being partial, but Jim did a great job handling all that and the controversy that comes with it. . .At Torrey Pines High School, as a  coach, you are really under the “microscope” with the parents, and I knew Jim’s even-tempered demeanor would be a real asset to our club. . .Plus, Jim had spent many years preparing top athletes to compete against the best so he was a great asset to me and assisting the other coaches in scouting our competition, while, at the same time, coaching his own team. . .Used to hard work, Jim would take on as much as I wanted him to and was always very professional at every task. . .Finally, as hard-wired as I am as a coach and administrator, Jim was great at defusing potential problems and I looked to him a lot for support and more objectivity during stressful times.”