Loran Smith’s Sports Column: Arnold Harrison
Published 2:11 pm Tuesday, October 17, 2023
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ROSWELL – At a prosperous automobile dealership, everyone is in
motion. Nothing is idling except for a smooth-running engine which has
just been finely tuned to make a satisfied customer more satisfied.
The service department is like a doctor’s office—a hi-tech
environment with a machine to effect rehab for every ailment or need. In
the body shop there is bumping and grinding as every wrinkle or dent is
eliminated, making a fender look like it did when it was in mint condition
when it left the factory for dealership delivery.
The scene reminds you of a beehive where everybody has a role to
play in the success of the operation. No one is relaxing except for the
customers in the waiting room.
Sales folk, men and women, are trained to manage their
communication skills along with arming themselves with knowledge of their
product and making sure they are familiar with all vehicle details that gives
the customer the confidence that they can trust the presentation.
At the Nalley Toyota dealership in Roswell, the man who is most
active in the dealership is the dealer himself, Arnold Harrison, who, if he
chose to, could flash two Super Bowl rings from his four-year tenure with
the Pittsburgh Steelers. (He played a fifth year with the Cleveland Browns.)
An overachiever since his formative years, dating back to grade
school, Arnold has always given anything he undertakes his best effort.
With the good fortune of signing with the Steelers after lettering four years
at Georgia, he doesn’t want to consider what might have been on his
resume if he had played on teams with poor personnel.
He played for a highly regarded coach at Pittsburgh, Bill Cower, and
enjoyed success at Georgia, where he won an SEC ring under Mark Richt
in 2002.
Football taught him to underscore the time-honored basics:
teamwork, self-sacrifice, second effort, work ethic and an assortment of
other intangibles which enabled him to enjoy success at every level,
starting out at Josie High School in Augusta.
In football, he was never the first to dash to the showers. He stayed
late on the practice field, spending time on drills that would make him a
better and more effective player.
He would ask himself questions growing up: “Are you the type of
person who is going to be at work 15 to 20 minutes early or are you the one
that’s coming in on three wheels from staying out all night. I chose good
habits, like I never took up drinking. How can one not see that smoking is
one of the worst habits there is for a young person?”
Arnold has always appreciated his parents’ influence and steered
clear of trouble, vacillating toward kids with good habits. He bonded with
the “good guy” leaders. Early on, he appreciated those with moral and
ethical standards. With maturity, he saw that integrity made a difference in
business.
When he was graduated from the University of Georgia, he would like
to have played in the National Football League forever but understood that
was not likely. This led him to prepare himself for life after football.
Now that he is entrenched in the automobile industry, what he
learned from competing in football serves him well in business. “In greater
Atlanta,” he says, “there are 17 Toyota stores so if a person wants a
Toyota, he can shop at a lot of places. We have to be able to compete
every day if we want to succeed. Fortunately, we have been very
successful, and what I learned in football at the University of Georgia and
at Pittsburgh are very much a foundation for what we are accomplishing in
the car business.”
Dating back to his early high school days, Arnold set goals. One was
to be a successful leader. He realized that to be a good leader, he had to
be a good teammate. He enjoys people and finds emotional fulfillment in
making friends and developing relationships.
He underscored good study habits which led to a college degree and
enabled him to find a niche on Super Bowl championship teams where
there was an abundance of talented players which made him realize that
the best route for him to make the team was to excel at special team play.
Instead of drinking beer with his buddies, Arnold was reading
motivational books and accentuating positives that made him a better
student and a better person which has brought him Super Bowl rings and
high marks in the tough, competitive business world. Arnold Harrison is a
Dawg for all seasons.