If you’ve ever searched for a high school football schedule in Indiana, you’ve probably landed on JohnHarrell.net. If you’re a coach tracking rankings, a parent hunting for game times, or a player checking their school’s record, you know the site. But you might not know the man behind it, or why his work matters more than most people realise.
John Harrell indiana football is the most famous guy you’ve never heard of in the world of high school football and basketball in Indiana. He gathers and publishes schedules, posts weekly results, and compiles sports stats not just for one team or conference, but for every team in the state. That’s not hyperbole. That’s his actual job, and he’s been doing it with almost no fanfare for decades.
Who Is John Harrell?
Harrell is a longtime sportswriter and editor, most notably with the Bloomington Herald Times since 1970, and worked previously with newspapers in Huntington and Fort Wayne. He’s not some algorithm or anonymous tech startup. He’s an actual journalist who spent his career understanding sports the way they deserve to be understood: through careful, meticulous data collection.
Harrell began keeping stats after obtaining his first computer in 1984. At that time, most of Indiana’s high school sports information was scattered across local newspapers, press releases, and word of mouth. There was no centralised source. No single place where you could find out how every team in the state was performing.
In 1980, Jeff Sagarin, a computer guru developing algorithms to rank college football and basketball teams, spoke in Bloomington, and legendary Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel, a friend and mentor of Harrell, suggested they do the same with high school sports in Indiana. That seed became the foundation for what Harrell would eventually build online.
JohnHarrell.net: How It Started
For two decades, Harrell collected data without a place to share it beyond the newspapers he worked for. That changed in 2000.
When it came to the internet, Harrell said, “I’m kind of cheap and if the internet would’ve cost anything then I probably wouldn’t have done it.” Thanks to the free internet, johnharrell.net was born.
It sounds almost humble, doesn’t it? A man chose to launch a website because the internet happened to be free that year. The site was slow to gather followers at first, but once a link to his site was posted by the Indiana High School Athletic Association website, Harrell’s page took off.
From that point forward, JohnHarrell.net became the standard resource for Indiana high school football and basketball information. Not because he marketed it aggressively. Not because he charged money or had venture funding. Simply because nobody else was doing it as thoroughly or as accurately.
What Does John Harrell Actually Track?
The scope of what Harrell maintains is staggering when you stop to think about it. His wife Martha and their four adult children know that Harrell will mostly disappear to the basement office in their Bloomington home to input 1,700 football and 10,000 basketball scores each year.
That’s not a sideline hobby. That’s a full-time operation, year after year, with no breaks. For basketball alone, he’s managing scores from boys’ and girls’ programmes across all of Indiana’s 92 counties. For football, he’s doing the same thing during the fall season. Every schedule update, every score posted, every ranking recalculated.
His diligence in keeping the site current is legendary. Since going live, Harrell has not missed a day of updating schedules, results, standings and more. He maintains he’ll keep doing it “until he drops.”
Why Indiana Football Coaches and Fans Depend on Him
Ask any serious Indiana high school football coach or player, and they’ll tell you: JohnHarrell.net is the source of truth. Why? Because Harrell doesn’t guess, estimate, or take shortcuts.
He created and launched JohnHarrell.net in 2000, devoted to Indiana high school football and basketball, revolutionizing the way players, coaches, fans and administrators track results, records, rankings, schedules and postponements.
The word “revolutionizing” might sound strong, but it fits. Before Harrell’s site, if you wanted to know how your team compared to another school three hours away, you’d need to call around, hunt through old newspapers, or make educated guesses. Now you can pull it up instantly. You can see historical records, track trends, and understand the actual quality of wins and losses in a way that’s fair and data-driven.
Statistics are the lifeblood of sports. Coaches, players, sportswriters and fans alike depend on numbers to tell the stories of athletes and teams. Harrell understood that better than anyone, and he built a system that gives those numbers to everyone who needs them.
John Harrell’s Honors and Recognition
Given how essential his work is to Indiana sports, you might think Harrell would be a household name. He’s not. But the state’s most important sports institutions have recognised what he’s done.
He entered the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016 as the recipient of the Indiana Fever Silver Medal Award, given to individuals for contributions other than as a player or coach. Harrell has also been honored by the IHSAA, the state coaches’ associations in football and basketball and the Indiana Officials Association. He was inducted into the Monroe County Sports Hall of Fame in 2021.
Harrell’s efforts at the Bloomington paper and in establishing JohnHarrell.net earned him a place in the Indiana Sportswriter and Sportscaster Hall of Fame.
These aren’t participation trophies. These are recognitions from the organisations that run high school sports in Indiana. The IHSAA doesn’t hand out awards lightly. Neither do state coaches’ associations. When they honoured Harrell, they were saying: “This man has made our sport better.”
The Connection to Jeff Sagarin and National Rankings
One thread that ties Harrell’s work to a much larger sports analytics landscape is his connection to Jeff Sagarin, the legendary computer rating guru.
In 2023, Sagarin retired his long-running Sagarin Ratings in USA Today, where the predictions were correct nearly 75 percent of the time. For decades, Sagarin’s ratings were the gold standard for college football and basketball prediction. But those ratings wouldn’t have been nearly as accurate without Harrell’s data on the high school level feeding into the system.
Jeff Sagarin’s Indiana high school football ratings are made possible by the diligent and accurate score data provided since 1981 by John Harrell. That’s a 45-year partnership built on one man’s commitment to getting the numbers right.
How to Use JohnHarrell.net for Football Schedules and Scores
If you’re looking for current Indiana high school football information, the site is straightforward to navigate. You can find:
Daily scoreboards showing updated results from games across the state. Schedule listings for every Indiana high school football programme, organised by conference and class. Historical records and standings that let you compare teams from different seasons. Rankings and ratings based on actual performance data. Postponement notices so you know when games have been rescheduled.
The site isn’t flashy. It doesn’t have auto-playing videos or pop-up ads. It’s built for function, not for profit. That’s by design. Harrell built it for coaches, players, and fans who need accurate information fast. Everything else is noise.
John Harrell’s Impact on Indiana Basketball Too
While football gets attention in the fall, Harrell’s basketball work is equally important. He compiles sports stats for high school football and boys’ and girls’ basketball. Not just for one team or conference, but for every team in the state.
Indiana basketball has one of the deepest high school traditions in America. The state tournament is legendary. Coaches like Gene Keady cut their teeth in Indiana high school ball. The talent pipeline feeds D1 programmes across the country. None of that changes, but what does change is the transparency and accessibility of information. Harrell made it possible for anyone to understand the actual quality of competition at any level of Indiana high school basketball.
The Quiet Dedication That Defines Indiana Sports Culture
What makes Harrell’s story remarkable isn’t just the volume of work. It’s the manner in which he does it. He’s not seeking attention. He doesn’t monetise the site aggressively. He’s not trying to build a personal brand.
Bob Hammel, former legendary Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor and Harrell’s friend, contends that his former colleague deserves all the accolades for his contributions to Indiana sports. “I’ll guarantee you, no one has ever achieved distinction more quietly. There’s a real possibility – I’d say it’s almost a certainty – that there were times when he put in a full day’s work and never said one word. But no sportswriter has ever been known by more people border to border throughout Indiana than John Harrell.”
That quote captures it perfectly. Harrell is known across the entire state. Coaches know him. Athletic directors know him. Sports information directors know him. Fans and players know him. But he’s not famous in the way athletes or flashy media personalities are famous. He’s famous because he shows up, does the work, and lets the work speak.
What’s the Takeaway?
If you’re a parent with a kid playing Indiana high school football or basketball, bookmark JohnHarrell.net. You’ll use it constantly. If you’re a coach, a player, or just a fan who cares about Indiana sports, you’re already using it without thinking about it.
John Harrell built something that lasted because he solved a real problem and never stopped solving it. He didn’t wait for someone else to do it better. He didn’t give up when it grew tedious. He turned up in his basement office in Bloomington, entered 1,700 football scores and 10,000 basketball scores every single year, updated the rankings, and went home knowing that coaches, players, and fans across all 92 counties in Indiana had accurate information.
That’s the opposite of flashy. It’s the opposite of self-promotion. It’s just work, done right, every single day. In a world that rewards noise and visibility, John Harrell reminds us that some of the most important contributions happen quietly, in the background, serving people who actually need the information.
If Indiana high school sports are healthy, transparent, and competitive, John Harrell’s fingerprints are all over that success.
Read More About: Jodi Faeth
