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

[Jim Ferolie]

Direct is good, up-front is very good, and quite possibly he learned the 
wildly differing values of some fun relaxation vs. a great career. But 
blunt-smoking in the car alone while speeding is not something a first-time 
marijuana user does.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Shannon" <tshanno at gmail.com>


>
>    Bears rookie carrying weight from one mistake
>
>
>      Rookie Harrison hopes to reward Bears' risk with hard work on, off
>      the field
>
> David Haugh
>
> 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."