At first glance, the former NFL Quarterback Joey Harrington’s career doesn’t have many parallels with Wrexham or football, a sport he stopped playing around the age of 10.
But the third overall pick in the 2002 NFL draft insists the Welsh club’s rise matches his own. So much so that Harrington and his family regularly wake up at their home in Portland, Oregon, on the west coast, early on Saturdays to watch Phil Parkinson’s team play live 4,750 miles away .
“If you had told me 10 years ago that I would buy a subscription to something called the Vanarama National League,” he says of the competition, the fifth tier of the English football pyramid, that Wrexham won in 2022-2023, “I would have made fun of you.
“Now, however, I get up at 6.30am every Saturday to catch the 7am match (3pm UK time). I could never have imagined doing this just a few years ago. But, as a family, we are totally absorbed in the club and the journey they are taking.
Harrington’s athletic background comes with a pedigree. His father John played quarterback for the University of Oregon in the late 1960s and his grandfather Bernie did the same for the University of Portland, IN about 25 years earlier . Had he not served in World War II, Bernie would likely have played in the NFL after being heavily courted by several teams, including George Halas’ Chicago Bears.
Joey’s three years following in his father’s footsteps as Oregon’s quarterback proved transformational for the team, as they went from being an also-ran to being a No. 2 pick in the college game American. Harrington was the key man… and finalist for the Heisman Trophy in 2001 – before the Detroit Lions drafted him the following year. Only his compatriot David Carr (Houston Texans) and future Hall of Famer Julius Peppers (Carolina Panthers) left the board faster.
He spent four seasons in Detroit, then played with the Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints. An impressive record in all respects, but which shows no signs of retirement involving a small club playing a completely different sport on the other side of the Atlantic.
Enter the first series of Welcome To Wrexham, the documentary chronicling the takeover of the club by Hollywood celebrities Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and a subsequent family visit to North Wales.
“Our sons, Jack and Emmet, had reached the age where you want to start exposing them to international travel,” says Harrington. “To give them a perspective of the world and what’s out there.”
“We organized the trip by obtaining tickets from Nike (a major funder of the University of Oregon sports teams) to Manchester City against Liverpool. The boys, both goalkeepers, were delighted, because they were attracted to football, even though everyone thought my children would play American football.
“The plan was to spend some time in London, call at friends in Bristol and drive to Manchester. Jack, my eldest, then said: “Can we stop at Wrexham on the way?” We had all already watched the first series of the documentary and loved it.
Wrexham were locked in a two-way National League title tussle with Notts County at the time, but when the Harrington family visited the ground they received a warm welcome, including an impromptu tour of the pitch. Geraint Parry, club secretary and longest-serving member of staff at Wrexham.
“The first person we meet in the tunnel is (the then Wrexham goalkeeper and former England international) Ben Foster,” Harrington recalls. “He approaches the boys directly, and I’m not exaggerating here, he starts talking to them like they’re family, asking them all kinds of questions.
Harrington’s Sons with Ben Foster (Joey Harrington)
“When he found out their preferred position, he immediately said: ‘I’m a goalkeeper too, my name is Ben.’ You could see the spark in Jack’s eyes as he realized, “Oh my God, this is Ben Foster, the England goalkeeper.”
“Three more steps down the tunnel and (Wrexham manager) Phil Parkinson appears. He says “Hi” to the boys, then has a conversation with my wife, Emily, which she still talks about to this day. It’s probably a conversation he’s had thousands of times, and one he doesn’t even remember. But the fact that he took a few moments to talk to Emily about his family and boys meant a lot to me.
The Harringtons’ whirlwind tour also involved meeting club shop staff and grounds manager Paul Chaloner before calling in The Turf, the pub next to Wrexham’s house made famous by the documentary.
“Wayne (Jones, owner) has been great with the boys,” he adds. “They felt so welcome that Jack, who remembers he was 13 at the time, so it was his first time in a bar, said to me: ‘Dad, can we play pool?’ There are plenty of coins lined up on the table that we can use.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, that’s not how it works.’ But the guy who owned the money said, “Don’t worry, you can have my place.” At a time when the whole world was starting to gather in this small town in Wales, these guys treated my family like we were the first to visit them.
“I have seen professional sports at the highest levels, including a decade in the NFL. I saw what this world is like. So, as a dad, to see how everyone – literally to a person, from the club shop staff to the guy who runs the pub and the Premier League goalkeeper who stopped a PK (penalty) against Notts County a few weeks later – I have treated my children and my family, Wrexham could lose every game for eternity and I would still support this club.
Autzen Stadium; Eugene, Oregon. October 12, 2024.
Actress Kaitlin Olson is returning to her old college for the huge college football game between Oregon, ranked No. 3 in the nation, and second-ranked Ohio State. She is joined by her husband Rob in a record Oregon crowd of 60,129. Like Rob McElhenney, his co-star in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and co-owner of Wrexham.
2 years ago @Wrexham_AFC welcomed my family. On Saturday my OR&Wrexham worlds collided. ExDir @thehumphreyker works 26.2 for @WrexhamMiners. To help, I will match every $1 donated to his cause up to $2,620. The world is small and kindness comes full circle pic.twitter.com/1tYU2SpfFx
–Joey Harrington (@joey3harrington) October 19, 2024
Also in attendance is Harrington, where it all began for him as a college quarterback in the 1990s. They all chat over the course of the afternoon and later pose for a post-game celebratory photo that sees the trio perform the “O” hand sign that became synonymous with Harrington’s final game in Oregon before turning professional.
“That was the first time I met Rob and Kaitlin,” he says. “They were great, with no pretense about them. You would never know they were Hollywood stars. They were just part of the family and very welcoming to me and my friends.
“We discussed Wrexham and I showed them the photo of Ben Foster with the boys. How they both looked didn’t surprise me. This is exactly how we were treated at Wrexham, where the town, the team, the organization follow the lead of the leaders.
Harrington and his family are yet to travel to Wrexham for a match, although he hopes to remedy that next year. They attended the pre-season friendly against Manchester United in San Diego, California last year, where Paul Mullin suffered four broken ribs and a collapsed lungas well as the July match between the Wrexham women’s team and the Portland Thorns which attracted 10,379 spectators, a record for the Welsh club.
GO DEEPER
Wrexham still aiming for the Premier League – but how could they afford it?
The latter came shortly after Harrington was confirmed as an investor in National Women’s Soccer League club Thorns, alongside double Olympic decathlon Ashton Eaton and Olympic heptathlon bronze medalist Brianne Theisen-Eaton.
It’s quite a turnaround for someone who readily admits to being put off for years by what he saw as acting in men’s football.
“I saw the guys coming down the field and a stretcher was coming out to take him away,” says Harrington, 46, who pledged $2,620 to executive director Humphrey Ker’s fundraising attempts to the rescue of the Wrexham miners by running the Manchester Marathon next year.
“Then he would come to the sidelines, where the magic spray would come out and everything would be fine. I had no respect for that. So, even though I played until fourth grade, my experiences with football were not very positive.
We had to look at the Canadian Christine Sinclair, top international scorer of all time with 190 goals in 331 matchesplayed for the University of Portland in the early 2000s to start changing his mind.
“Christine was knocked down by the ball,” he remembers. “I’m like, ‘Oh great, here’s the theater.’ But no, she came right back and nudged the girl on her way back up. Not only did she instantly become my favorite player, but I was like, “I’m just going to watch women’s football.”
Harrington playing for the Miami Dolphins in 2006 (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Welcome To Wrexham helped change that stance, especially after he began to spot these parallels between his own career and the way the Welsh club’s fortunes were transforming under Reynolds and McElhenney.
“What really resonates are the similarities to what happened at Wrexham and my own time with the Oregon football program,” he says. “When I arrived in 1997, we were considered insignificant by others. We thought about it afterwards. So, a group of us sat down and decided to change things. We were going to win things, including a national championship.
“A lot of people made fun of us. But we held on and things started to change. OK, we didn’t win the national championship my senior year, we finished #2 in the country. But putting the program in a place where we remain part of the national conversation was incredibly special.
“Later, I got to the NFL and it was a case of, ‘What can you do for me?’ How am I going to get mine?’, stabbing people in the back to get an extra year (on your contract). Which I understand when you’re in a multi-billion dollar company.
“But what I mean is, I’ve personally experienced what can happen when you bring together a group of people who don’t just care about the goal – which goes from pointlessness to importance – but also from each other. I see the same thing in Wrexham.
“It’s not just about putting butts in seats, it’s not just about scraping and clawing your way to the top. What also matters is how you do it, who supports you and why you do it. Wrexham understands that.
GO DEEPER
Why do American athletes buy stakes in English football clubs?
(Top photo: The Harringtons during their visit to the racecourse/Joey Harrington)