http://www.timesonline.com/
Published: Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:32 PM EST
TAMPA, Fla. -- All types of reporters have descended upon the Super Bowl. One of the politicos asked James Harrison what he might say to the President if he got to the White House.
“I’m not going to the White House,” snapped Harrison. “All right?”
And so ended another media session for Harrison, who looked more tired than he does at the end of one of his legendary workouts. It was the second Steelers press conference of the week, and reporters sensed he was done and they left him alone.
James Harrison was the 14th of 14 children in the merged marriage of James and Mildred Harrison of Akron, Ohio. James Jr. looks like his dad, but acts like his mom.“He’s like me,” Mildred said. “You be nice to people, they take kindness as a weakness. They truly do.”
And so the chip on James Jr.’s shoulder was planted. But …
“He wasn’t a hard-headed child,” his mom said. “I’d tell him something and he knew that’s what I meant. I didn’t have to worry about him.”
Mildred could recall two “whuppings” James Jr. received: once by his dad for playing with the guns in the attic, and a second for being out after the street lights came on.
Neither parent realized their son’s brute strength until he picked his 250-pound grandmother out of the bathtub, into which she’d fallen, and carried her to her bed.
“We weren’t home at the time,” Mildred said. “But he said, ‘I picked her up like a baby and carried her and put her in the bed.’ He was 15 or 16 years old. He’s always been very strong.”
And that strength served him well on the football field. He transferred from Hovan Catholic after his freshman year to a school with a long tradition of losing.
“He went to Coventry, the first suburb outside of Akron,” said Zac Jackson, who works for ClevelandBrowns.com. “I went to Manchester, the next one down. We were the small-school football powerhouse. Coventry was always the big rival. They always stunk, but it was always going to be a one-touchdown game, even though the talent was four touchdowns. It was that type of rivalry.
“But when James came that all changed. They had like 91 athletes on that team and James was the scariest of them out there. He was known in communities for miles around as somebody you didn’t mess with — on the field or off.”
Harrison was the team’s star running back and linebacker, and the Akron Beacon-Journal did a large feature on him.
“He said this is the year we’re coming through Manchester,” Jackson said. “Everything you don’t say, he would say.”
The week before the game, with Coventry sporting an unlikely 8-0 record, Harrison was suspended for responding to racial taunts with obscene gestures.
He was ejected and had to miss the next week’s game against Manchester, and Manchester won.
“It was one of the biggest gifts Manchester football ever got,” Jackson said. “That’s a legendary game.”
Three months later, the parents of a boy who’d been shot in the rear end with a BB gun pointed the finger at Harrison, and a legal fight was under way. Harrison was exonerated when an assistant coach finally took responsibility, but the damage had been done. Harrison’s many scholarship offers from the best big schools in the nation had dried up. He was left with Kent State.
At Kent State, Harrison became All-MAC first team outside linebacker his senior season and finished third in the league’s Defensive Player of the Year voting. He led the MAC with 15 sacks, and his victims included Byron Leftwich, Drew Brees and one Ben Roethlisberger. Yet, Harrison wasn’t drafted in 2002. Did it have to do with character issues?
“No way,” said a scout with the Steelers. “If he came out today, we’d have the same problem with his size and speed.”
Harrison had two choices: sign with the Steelers or the Baltimore Ravens. The Steelers only offered him a free-agent contract.
“He was late for the rookie camp,” said Mike Archer, then the linebackers coach with the Steelers under Bill Cowher.
Harrison reported to the Steelers, but glared holes through coaches who tried to correct his mistakes.
“He was a different cat,” Archer said. “He was a surly street kid. He reminded me of Greg Lloyd a little bit. He didn’t trust anybody. He eventually developed his trust in some of those guys. The guys who did a good job with him that year were Joey (Porter) and Jason (Gildon) and Clark (Haggans). Those guys kind of took him under their wing and said, ‘Hey, you can play in this league. You’ve got the strength, but you’ve got to learn and they’re trying to help you learn.’
“And then once he accepted that, then he really began to make progress where I could tell he cared about football, because he would ask questions.”
Harrison’s first taste of pro ball came in the preseason game that opened Detroit’s Ford Field.
He was scheduled to play the second half because of an injury to Gildon, but Gildon’s replacement, Haggans, got hurt on the opening kickoff and Harrison had to play the entire game.
“He played very well that day,” Archer said. “I remember Bill saying after the game, ‘This guy’s got a chance.’ And he asked me, ‘If we cut him, do you think anybody will pick him up?’ And I said, ‘Coach, I don’t know.’
“Thank goodness nobody did and we signed him back. And he played that day with a broken thumb. Nobody knows that, because when practice started the next week for the regular season, after he cleared waivers, he was on the practice squad.”
Harrison was activated near the end of the season, but was cut again in the 2003 camp. He was again signed to the practice squad, then released in October.
He was picked up by the Ravens at the end of the season, sent to NFL Europe, and was cut by the Ravens.
The Steelers called him a week before the 2004 training camp after Haggans broke his hand lifting weights.
That’s when the legend of James Harrison began to unfold.
Harrison replaced an ejected Porter right before the Cleveland game that year and played well.
The next year in Cleveland he slammed a fan who had run out onto the field. He was a special-teams star, but didn’t become a full-time starter until Mike Tomlin came along in 2007.
Harrison was the team’s MVP that season, and the league’s Defensive MVP the next. Now he’s on the verge of starting his first Super Bowl.
“He had a chip on his shoulder because everyone told him he was too short, he was too slow, he was too this, he was too that,” Archer said. “And he got cut and people said he can’t play. Well, that drove him. That motivated him even more to do it.”
He still wears that chip on his shoulder.
What was his career turning point?
“Maturing,” Harrison said. “Handling situations different. And then getting the opportunity to play.”
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