Amazing article about Andrew Harris; Mike Beamish

[WestCoastJoe]

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/foot ... story.html

Lions' star Andrew Harris embraces football and Hazel after initial love for hockey

Proud mom recalls son's passion for scoring goals and feeling part of a real family in junior football

By Mike Beamish, Vancouver Sun November 16, 2012

Growing up in Winnipeg, raised by a single mom, Andrew Harris did not have the more conventional upbringing of many of his friends. But his dream was the same as many other prairie kids dreaming of a future on Canada’s great frozen stage.

He wanted to play in the National Hockey League.

“My icons were Steve Yzerman and Paul Kariya,” said Harris, the running back of the Lions, aware of the odd juxtaposition of talking hockey, in the week leading to Sunday’s West Division Final against the Calgary Stampeders at BC Place Stadium. “I was fast. I used to win the fastest skating competitions when I got older. I could score goals, and I liked to stick my nose in there. I would lead my team in points and penalty minutes. I guess I’m still sticking my nose in there today, but in a different way.”

Harris’s mom, Carlene Boivin, remembers Andrew’s first year in organized hockey, playing for the Riverview Rangers as a nine-year-old. She was astounded to see him score “130 goals” in his first season, having little idea that her son could be so good in his first year against others who had a two- or three-year head start. He could swoop and dart after pucks, deliver checks and hit the top corners with his shot. The lightning quickness that he shows today on the football field manifested itself first on the ice rink.

“Andrew always excelled at any sport he attempted,” she said. “I don’t think I ever saw him lose a draw (faceoffs). When he got older, teams from the Western Hockey League and the Manitoba Junior League started to show some interest.”

But times were not easy. Carlene, who works today as a social worker, assisting intellectually challenged adults to find jobs in the workplace, sometimes needed two jobs to make ends meet, for mom and her only child.

The dropout rate for many elite players in minor hockey begins when the demands to stay on the treadmill, as others fall behind and spin off, becomes too much.

For Harris, now 25, it was much more basic than that.

“The fees, the equipment, the travel expenses, I don’t know how a lot of families today can afford it,” Harris said. “I played at a time when composite sticks were just coming out. They were about $100. I played with a wooden stick, because I would go through one every week. When I looked around, I was the only one on the team who had one. I used to wear this old bubblehead helmet, something from the ‘80s. I got teased about it, but I took it. That’s part of the rite in growing up. But it just got too expensive for us. I still think about what might have happened if I stuck with it. Some of the kids I played with are in the NHL or the AHL. But I don’t go around with a lot of regret. I found football, and I love the game.”

A childhood friend and hockey rival of Harris, Ryan Reaves, who went on to be drafted by the St. Louis Blues, is the son of Willard Reaves, a former running back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and the CFL’s most outstanding player in 1984.

Carlene believes Andrew was every bit the equal of Ryan as a hockey player. But it’s more Willard Reaves, an All-American at Northern Arizona before coming to Canada, that he’s become.

“Andrew is a naturally humble, unselfish person,” Carlene said. “I tired to instil values in Andrew that he was part of a larger whole, and that he should give something back to the community. I think that’s why he loves football so much. It’s the ultimate team sport. Everybody on the team has a job and a purpose. And it takes everybody pulling together to be successful. No man can do it alone.”

Aware of socio-economic differences, and the pay-for-play mentality of minor sports, Harris’s favourite charity is the Boys and Girls Club, which provides social, education and athletic opportunities for kids. In partnership with Lions teammate Angus Reid, who runs a silkscreening business, he is selling caricature “Andrew Harris No. 33” T-shirts for $25. Proceeds go to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Vancouver.

Harris admits he never had a strong father figure in his life, until he went to the junior Vancouver Island Raiders of the B.C. Football Conference as a 17-year-old. Nanaimo businessman Hadi Abassi, who owns the team, became his surrogate dad. Matthew (Snoop) Blokker, the team’s coach, was like an uncle. Hamead Rashid, the general manager, now a Vancouver real estate agent, looked after him like a big brother.

“When your child leaves home at a young age, you want to make sure he’s in good hands,” Carlene said. “Those men treated him like family. It probably was the first time in his life Andrew felt he was part of a family.”

Harris has never met his natural father, though he is at a stage of life when he is exploring his roots and seeking to connect. He believes the man lives today in the Vancouver area.

“He was a cricket player, from Barbados, and a pretty good one, I’m told,” Harris said. “I think he was on their national team (cricket is the passion of Barbados). I don’t know anything about cricket. I don’t know anything about the rules. I don’t know if he knows I even exist. It’s tough. It’s not something I like to talk about too much. But I would like to meet him, if that day ever comes. I guess I come from an interesting gene pool.”

On his mother’s side, Carlene’s uncle is the late Don Ross, an end who played for the Lions from 1955-57, in the early years of Empire Stadium, the team’s original home. He later got into politics and was mayor of Surrey from 1980-88, the municipality that is home to the Lions’ training facility.

“A cricket player on one side, and a football player on the other,” Harris said. “I guess that’s helped me get to where I am today.”

As a junior, Harris was what football people call a “freak” runner, who confounded coaches trying to draw up schemes to stop him. He either simply outran defenders, or left them clutching air, because his style followed no predictable pattern.

As he did when he was a nine-year-old hockey player, Harris scored in electrifying style for the Raiders. He won the Wally Buono Award as the top junior in the country, and played with great, passionate bursts of energy, as he does today.

“From the moment I first shook Andrew’s hand, you could tell there was something special about him,” Abassi said. “He was very mature, and very driven. Andrew knew what he wanted in life, and he went right after it. You don’t meet many people like him, in any walk of life. You couldn’t help but be impressed by the way he stuck to his regimen, careful with his diet, putting in the hours in the gym. He is a wonderful player. More than that, he’s a wonderful young man.”

This season, his third in the CFL, Harris became the first Canadian to lead the league in yards from scrimmage (a combination of rushing and receiving yards) in 45 years. He is one of only two homegrown players to do it. The last was Terry Evanshen, in 1967, the year Evanshen won the first of two Canadian player of the year awards. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

Harris, unlike Evanshen, won’t be the most outstanding Canadian player in the CFL this year. That honour probably will go to the Stampeders’ Jon Cornish, who became the first homebrew to lead the league in rushing since 1988.

Comparisons between Cornish and Harris can be odious but they’re inevitable.

Middle linebacker Adam Bighill is anything but impartial on the subject, since he’s Harris’s teammate. But Bighill practises against Harris on a weekly basis, so he has an appreciation for how difficult it is to mark him.

“Cornish or Harris? I’d take Harris,” Bighill said. “He’s a better all-around player. Jon comes at you hard, and he has a good burst. But Andrew can beat you in a lot of different ways. Fades, screens, wheel routes. He can beat you as a receiver. And, whoosh, he can beat you as a runner. He’s so elusive. And people underestimate his power. He’s not particularly big (5-11, 195), but he’s solid when he hits you, and his legs never stop moving. It takes a lot, sometimes a lot of guys, to bring him down.”

Being a full-time player doesn’t allow Harris to be a full-time father, one of his regrets of the football life.

When he was 20, he fathered a child, a daughter, Hazel, who refers to him as “daddy” and watches his streaking image on television back home in Winnipeg, with her mother. Although Harris no longer is involved in a relationship with his former girlfriend, he maintains close ties to the woman and her family. He has purchased a condo in Winnipeg to be near his daughter, and takes every opportunity he can to be involved in her upbringing.

“Being his mom, and Hazel’s ‘grandma’”, I’m a little biased,” Carlene said. “But Andrew adores Hazel. They have a special bond that is magical. We wants to be with her, any time he can.”

“Now that she’s older (four) there’s such a bigger bond between us,” Harris said. “We spend a lot of time every week, talking on the phone. It’s tough being away from her, but football is the life I’ve chosen. I want to get back to Hazel as soon as the season is over.”

That which reveals his humanity and his character is a side of Harris that is shielded from public view.

On Sunday, the public side of Andrew Harris plays for the Lions and more than 40,000 of their fans, with a berth in the Grey Cup at stake.

But privately, he feels extra pressure to perform well, for a little girl watching in Winnipeg, waving an orange-and-black pom-pom, and rooting for daddy to bring it all home.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Lion ... z2CVGYHUxn

[WestCoastJoe]

Andrew Harris is just about my favourite player. And I don't usually think in those terms.

I love the way he runs. As Bighill says, he is so elusive. And very, very hard to bring down.

It seems to me that he has truly exceptional mental qualities for an athlete.

I admire how he has come from a humble background, not born to wealth, but has no resentment.

I respect how he appreciates his gifts and his opportunities.

As much as I admire him as an athlete, this is the kind of guy who is an amazing role model for young people.

“From the moment I first shook Andrew’s hand, you could tell there was something special about him,” Abassi said. “He was very mature, and very driven. Andrew knew what he wanted in life, and he went right after it. You don’t meet many people like him, in any walk of life. You couldn’t help but be impressed by the way he stuck to his regimen, careful with his diet, putting in the hours in the gym. He is a wonderful player. More than that, he’s a wonderful young man.”

Absolutely right.

[Rammer]

Harris puts his pants on one leg at a time, and they stay there. Sounds like a very sound young man who the Lions are very lucky to have in their lineup.

[TheLionKing]

Wouldn't it be something if Harris was a 2 sports athlete: running back for the Lions and a high scoring winger for the Canucks ?

[sj-roc]

Wouldn't it be something if Harris was a 2 sports athlete: running back for the Lions and a high scoring winger for the Canucks ?

He might have been capable of it but highly doubtful either team would ever allow such an arrangement.

[AC/DC Rocks]

Just read the article a couple hours ago and thought the exact same thing,
great article.
Nice job Mike.

[SammyGreene]

Outstanding job by Mike and really great to see Andrew and his mom open about his life like that. Really thankful to see this terrific athlete and person in a Lions uniform. At the same time, sad to read the cost of hockey stopped him from realizing his potential in that sport.

[South Pender]

He's sure an easy guy to like.
I agree, Sammy; that is sad. Reminds me of that heart-rending TV ad about kids that can't afford outside-of-school sports.

[almo89]

Did any of you catch his interview with Rintoul and Chapman earlier in the week? It was pretty good. He was asked about NFL possibilities. Harris said that he will take it a year at a time which is pretty much what most young players in the CFL say, but what he said to follow it up that made it interesting. He said he really likes it here in Vancouver and is really getting use to it. He said he wants to play and doesn't like the idea of going to the NFL and not get to play. He also commented on how guys change after getting cut in the NFL and then coming back to the CFL. I felt all of his comments were really geniune and I get the feeling that he'll stay here for a while unless he gets an offer that he can't refuse from down south

[AC/DC Rocks]

Yeah I was listening, good interview.
Here's hoping Harris is a Lion for a while.