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

[Victor Waldron]

I don't see where it indicates he was a "first-time marijuana user."

I like what I read, seems more positive than what I read about Tank
and Ced in the past. Remorseful, direct, has his mother involved. The
indicators are pointing in the right direction so we'll have to see.

Speaking of Ced, it will be *very interesting* what he has to say.
Boating and drinking (like drinking and driving) is stupid enough, but
he was endangering the other 15 people on the boat *and* he resisted
arrest?!?!?!? Forget about the off the field issues for a moment. Does
this sound like someone who could possibly be focused on getting
himself ready to bust up DBs on the football field??

V

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Jim Ferolie <ferolie at charter.net> wrote:
> 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."
>
>
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