Meri Simon, Associated Press Walt Harris holds up a jersey with his name after being introduced as the new Stanford football coach at a news conference in Palo Alto, Calif., yesterday. Harris signed a five-year deal. Click photo for larger image. More Pitt Coverage: AD Long not 'disappointed' by exit Cook: Harris should leave now, not later The University of Pittsburgh released this Walt Harris statement yesterday Weis wants Irish to be nasty, smart, hard-working unit

STANFORD, Calif. -- The mood is usually upbeat, happy and celebratory when a successful coach comes home to take his dream job. But in the case of Walt Harris, who was introduced yesterday as Stanford's head football coach, it was without a doubt a bittersweet moment.

Harris, who signed a five-year deal reportedly worth about $600,000 per year and includes a housing allowance, said all the right things about the opportunity that Stanford has given him..

But his body language told a different story. He barely cracked a smile throughout the entire news conference, he lacked a certain enthusiasm that is usually a part of these events and he politely, but firmly declined to answer questions about a very sore subject -- Pitt, and the circumstances surrounding his exit.

"I'm not going to talk about Pitt," Harris said several times when asked about his relationship with his former employer. "I'm here to talk about Stanford. What's in the past is in the past, let's focus on this great university and what we're going to do in the future. This is about what's in front, not what's in back."

Harris would not discuss Pitt because he's still very hurt because of the lack of respect and appreciation he feels he has received. He refused to discuss his strained relationship with Pitt athletic director Jeff Long or that members of the administration did not support him -- for a number of reasons beyond football -- or the fact that despite taking the Panthers to a Bowl Championship Series game, he was not offered a contract extension.

But Harris' new boss, Stanford athletic director Ted Leland, shed some light on the situation in discussing how Harris came to be the Cardinal coach. Leland was previously the athletic director at Pacific University and hired Harris as the football coach in 1989, so when he fired former coach Buddy Teevens Nov. 29, he already had Harris on his short list of candidates.

He wasn't the least bit shocked that, despite Harris' success, when he called Long to ask for permission to talk with Harris it was granted without hesitation. He also said that Pitt was looking to replace Harris -- a guy who had a 52-43 record and had been to six bowl games in eight years, which includes the upcoming Fiesta Bowl trip -- was not a red flag because he knew Harris is a man of high "integrity and character."

"I first knew something was wrong when I was watching Pitt on television and the announcers were talking about how upset the administration was with Walt and that his job was on the line," Leland said. "That surprised me, but when our job came open, we had some mutual friends who confirmed the whole thing and wondered whether or not [Harris to Stanford] could work.

"[I wasn't shocked to get permission] because I knew that there was something broken in the relationship between him and the University of Pittsburgh. I don't know all the facts and I don't understand it all, but I know Walt Harris is a good person. I think that Jeff Long is a nice guy but there are times when relationships go sour and that's the way I read this one.

"It was a relationship that, [Long and Harris] either needed to [be repaired] or they needed to separate, and they chose to separate and obviously we were able to benefit from it. To Walt's credit, he has never tried to lay blame on anyone else or say 'they acted like jerks and I am a great guy.' "

At one point Harris was asked whether or not there is a culture of impatience when it comes to football coaches and whether or not they are fired too quickly these days. He wasn't fired at Pitt, but he was certainly pushed out the door, and he again took the high road in answering it.

"College football is a great game, but there is so much pressure on a coach to win that he gets tested to maybe cut some corners in order to win," Harris said. "Our mission statement has always been we will not cut corners, we're going to do it the right way, which is maybe why it took a little longer time at the University of Pittsburgh to probably turn the program around."

Harris said he asked to remain with the Panthers through the Fiesta Bowl because he believed he had earned the right to coach in the school's first major bowl game in 20 years. The administration agreed and so he will remain with the team until after the game Jan. 1.

He said he will coach the Panthers during the day, then assemble his Stanford staff and recruit at night all the way up until the bowl before he takes over his duties at Stanford.

He also asked for permission to talk with several Pitt assistants about joining him at Stanford, although, he is scheduled to interview several current Stanford assistants for jobs today. He said he likely will hire an offensive coordinator, but he'll still serve as the quarterback's coach.

One other telling sign about Harris' feelings for how he was treated -- the few times he spoke of Long, he didn't name him by name.

"I just spoke with the athletic director there at Pittsburgh and he gave me permission to talk to some of the coaches," Harris said. "I did not want to cross any of the lines and be disloyal. That permission has been granted and there is a possibility that some of those coaches will have an opportunity to come here. Now whether they come here or not, that's up to them."

Leland was excited about getting Harris because he is "the most experienced coach Stanford has hired with the exception of Bill Walsh -- the second time." He said because the school is small and has very high academic standards, the job is tougher than most, especially since it is in the Pacific-10 Confernce with a number of large state schools and a couple of "so-called football factories."

He said the goal at Stanford is to win the Pac-10 title and the national championship, but it is equally, if not more, important to make sure that the school's academic standards are adhered to. At Pitt, Harris was known to stress academics but the Panthers' graduation rates have been among the lowest in the country over the past two years.

Leland sad he knows all about the Pitt's graduation rates but believes they don't tell a true story about Harris's commitment to academics.

"When he came here to interview, I told him right off the bat that we were going to have to be ready to explain the graduation rate because on paper that's not a very good looking number," Leland said. "He explained to me that there had been a lot of guys who went pro, there was a transition year for a large group of kids and that he felt a huge percentage of his present seniors were going to graduate. Our faculty - -and we had about eight members of our faculty who interviewed Walt and they understood that.

"They understood that he had done a pretty good job at Pitt, that he was committed to the Student-athlete and it wasn't reflected in the numbers."

Pitt sports information director E.J. Borghetti said the school had no comment about Leland's assertion that the relationship with Harris and Long and the administration was strained. He said that the subject had been exhausted and that it was time for all parties to move on.

Harris, whose divorce was recently made final, has at least one reason to truly be happy - he was apparently recently engaged. He was introduced at the news conference along with his fiancee Barb Stern.

Stern, however, applied Harris's approach to Pitt questions when asked when they got engaged.

"I'm not in the question answering business," she said politely with a smile.