[CBFF] [Fwd: Rookie Harrison aims to reward Bears' risk]

[Tom Shannon]

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    Bears rookie carrying weight from one mistake


      Rookie Harrison hopes to reward Bears' risk with hard work on, off
      the field

David Haugh

On the Bears

May 4, 2008

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By the time Marcus Harrison got up from the spot on the street curb 
where a Fayetteville policeman had ordered him to sit that night last 
August, he knew what direction he was headed.

First Harrison was going to the Washington County (Ark.) Detention 
Center in handcuffs. And when the sun rose on his second chance the 
following morning, he vowed to straighten out a life that had suddenly, 
stunningly gone crooked.

"I realized I had made a stupid mistake and decided then to do whatever 
was necessary to make it right again," Harrison said. "Maybe God had to 
shoot me down for me to eventually do what I had to do."

The Bears thought enough of Harrison's football ability to select the 
former Arkansas star in the third round of last weekend's NFL draft. The 
August arrest was the main reason the 6-foot-3-inch, 310-pound defensive 
tackle was still around in the third round.

Before Harrison was pulled over just after 11 p.m. on a quiet 
residential street for driving 38 miles per hour in a 25-m.p.h. zone, 
his football career had been cruising along just fine.

He had stood up in front of his Arkansas teammates after being named 
team captain.

Every Razorback in the room that night admired Harrison, an exemplary 
leader whose church upbringing and military prep school background made 
him a yes-sir, no-sir type of guy. A guy everyone at that team meeting 
trusted.

Before sending his players off for their last free weekend, 
then-Arkansas coach Houston Nutt specifically told his team: "We've had 
the perfect camp scenario all summer, and let's end it that way."

It didn't, of course. For reasons that still escape Harrison, 23, he 
made a decision that ultimately cost him millions of dollars.

According to a Fayetteville police report, Harrison stopped at a gas 
station and bought drugs from a man he had never met, he later admitted.

When police pulled over Harrison a few minutes later for speeding, they 
smelled marijuana smoke as he rolled down the window of his gray Chevy 
Caprice.

An officer asked Harrison to step out of the vehicle, and a search of 
the car revealed two cigars under the seat containing a total of two 
grams of marijuana. When an officer asked Harrison if he had anything 
else illegal on him, he volunteered that he had a blue pill wrapped in a 
plastic bag in the right cargo pocket of his pants.

The pill was Ecstasy, a synthetic drug popular on the college party scene.

"Once I saw the lights on behind me, it wasn't like I was going to lie 
to police or anyone," Harrison recalled. "I knew I had made a mistake, 
so I told them up front where [the drugs] were."


    Honesty is best policy

Harrison took the same direct approach with Nutt, the first person he 
called from jail, and parents Calvin and Michelle, the mom and dad who 
raised him to know better.

The one-game suspension Nutt handed down was nothing compared to the 
look of devastation Michelle Harrison wore when she saw her son after 
the arrest.

"We all make mistakes, but this was one I didn't want to hear about 
again," Michelle Harrison said. "It was the first big mistake he had 
made in 23 years. I told him this too shall pass, but he had to be 
honest about it."

That was the advice Harrison followed as he sat across a lunch table 
from Lovie Smith for two hours in March recounting the episode and the 
effects that will follow him into his rookie season.

Yes, Harrison acknowledged, he has several months left on a nine-month 
court-ordered program supervised by a no-nonsense Arkansas judge that 
includes Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, drug tests and counseling.

Yes, if he successfully completes that program, his police record will 
be expunged. Yes, he accepts that the NFL could get involved in 
monitoring the results of his drug tests, and a stigma will stick to him 
in the league tighter than any offensive lineman.

Yes, Harrison left the meeting believing Smith wanted to help a young 
man redeem himself the way he has tried with previous supposed character 
risks.

"Marcus told me after that meeting, 'Mom, I've got a good feeling for 
Coach Lovie,' " Michelle Harrison said.

Just don't use the example of Tank Johnson to illustrate how Smith and 
the Bears have tried to help charismatic defensive tackles with troubled 
pasts.


    Bears stand behind him

He was asked if he knows about the Bears' history with Johnson, who was 
cut in June 2007 after a series of well-documented run-ins with police 
in the Chicago area and in Arizona. He paused.

"I know all about Tank and I respect him as a player, I respect him as a 
person, but I'm not Tank Johnson," Harrison said. "The one thing Chicago 
won't have to worry about is me getting into trouble. That was a 
one-time thing."

Predictably, Harrison's lawyer believes his regret is sincere. W.H. 
Taylor defended Harrison partly because he was convinced "this was 
totally out of character" for a guy with no trouble in his background.

Not surprisingly, his former Arkansas coaches and all of "Pig Sooey" 
Nation believe Harrison's arrest was more aberration than red flag.

"Sometimes good people do bad things and this was not Marcus," longtime 
Arkansas trainer Dean Weber said.

Of course, Bears management agrees.

The most unexpected but welcome support out of Halas Hall came from 
Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris, who started calling Harrison 
through a mutual friend long before anyone knew they'd be sharing a 
meeting room.

"It's meant a lot," Harrison said. "Teams compared me to Tommie, and 
that's who I most try to play like."

Going through his first official practice in his No. 94 Bears jersey at 
Friday's rookie mini-camp, Harrison did a pretty good Harris 
impersonation. A day earlier Harrison had worried about the pace of 
Bears practice because his predraft schedule had prevented regular 
workouts the last three weeks. But the layoff didn't stop Harrison from 
turning some heads.

He displayed Harris-like quickness through agility drills and looked 
more nimble running to the ball than most 310-pounders. And the left 
knee that had undergone ACL surgery a year ago no longer warrants a 
brace—or much concern.

"That actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be," Harrison said, 
his shirt soaked with sweat. "I think I can do this."


    Has the skills to start

Based on talent alone, general manager Jerry Angelo calls Harrison one 
of five potential starters from the Bears' draft. According to 
NFLDraftscout.com's predraft rankings, Harrison was the fifth-best pro 
prospect among 149 defensive tackles. Mel Kiper Jr. said Harrison had 
"first-round ability."

There were 89 players and six defensive tackles selected before the 
Bears chose Harrison with the 27th pick of the third round. That was 
later than expected, but nobody in the family's home was complaining.

Almost immediately, the phone started ringing with calls from the 312 
area code.

"Aunts, uncles, cousins," Harrison said. "My mom grew up in Markham."

Michelle Harrison moved to Arkansas from south suburban Markham with her 
mom just before finishing high school. She married Calvin, an 
electrician who admits to pushing Marcus hard as a young football 
player, and they raised two children in North Little Rock.

The Harrisons immersed their kids in the local church where Marcus sang 
in the choir and danced skillfully enough to perform flips. Steeped in 
Southern manners, Harrison still calls men he meets for the first time 
"sir" and women "ma'am."

Yet enough Chicago flavor lingered in the Harrison household that 
Michelle asked her son to look for two local delicacies in his travels 
north this weekend: Salerno butter cookies and Jay's potato chips.

"Marcus always dreamed of playing for the Bears because his mom was a 
Walter Payton fan and a Refrigerator Perry fan," Michelle Harrison said. 
"He was getting sad [during the draft] when he kept getting passed, so 
after the Bears took him, I said, 'See, boy, you're getting what you 
wanted.' "

Meanwhile, the Bears insist they know what they are getting. If they're 
right, Chicago will be more thrilled than the Harrisons.

dhaugh at tribune.com <mailto:dhaugh at tribune.com>

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