Reprinted from Garnet&Black - October 2004

Running to Start - The Otis Harris Story
By Kent Babb

Maybe it’s irony.

All the practice and apprehension and hurt, and the starting line is the end of it all. It’s a new chapter, Otis Harris’ new beginning and the declaration that he knows himself better than anyone else, despite being coached in football and track and life since a month after he took his first steps.

Harris has listened to his thoughts all day and all evening, recounting what he must do right and what he must ignore. He has no idea he will win an Olympic gold medal in the 4x400-meter relay five days later. Besides, a gold in the 4x400-meter dash has been the victory he has dreamed about since convincing his father, the Rev. Otis Harris, Sr., that running had become more important than working for the family construction company, on top of shingling roofs during hot summers in Edwards, Miss.

Now is the time to make all the work and pain worthwhile. He talked to God just now and thanked him for the chance. Harris hasn’t been sure that God was listening when a computer error resulted in his suspension last season from USC’s track team. Instead of traveling to track meets with the team, Harris had to ask his father for extra money for gas and hotels so that he could drive himself to meets.

But the proof that God saw his tears in those hotels finally showed itself once he was under the bright silver stars in Athens, Greece, with his white Nikes pressed hard against the starting block.

He knows the runners in the lanes to his left, Jeremy Wariner and Derrick Brew, both USC runners with the nation’s worth of expectations. Each will win a medal, but he’s not racing them. He’s racing himself.

If he runs the race how he wants to run it, he knows that will be enough. Harris drops his head and waits for the starting gun, which will begin the most important 40 seconds of his life.

There it is. There they go.

Out of the Blocks

Otis Jr. couldn’t stop smiling. He had just beaten Sherman and Thomas Jenkins, the sons of one of the other preachers at Edwards Revival Center, running up that big, brown dirt hill behind the church. Otis Jr.’s navy-blue tie was in his hand, and his white, short-sleeve shirt was untucked and caked with dirt and sweat.

The 5-year-old runner was so proud of his most recent victory. But his mother, Cheryl Harris, was furious. Here she had spent all that time fixing him up nice, making sure the clip-on tie was straight and the shirt tucked evenly, and he had messed it up – again. She caught her husband smirking a bit.

Thing was, this happened a lot during the summer. Otis Jr. would come walking into the church’s main sanctuary after finishing children’s church and a quick race, and would pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. Of course he didn’t know how it happened.

“It was obvious that God had given him a gift; he had a gift for speed,” Otis Harris Sr. says. “When a kid is like that, you don’t have to look for talent. You can see it. You don’t have to hope or wish. It’s just there.”

There is no question of responsibility at the Edwards Revival Center, a full gospel church, which teaches its members to consult God in every daily decision. Jobs, finances, family, footraces – the result of everything is determined by the heavens, and believing otherwise is not an option.

The church also teaches that there are no accidents, that one’s success is directly related to how much work is put into the task. That’s why Otis Harris Sr. believes that when he asked for three boys when he was ready to begin his family, his devotion was rewarded. Damien came first, Otis Jr. was next, and 11 months after that, James was born.

Otis Harris Sr. did not wait long before he began teaching personal responsibility. When Otis Jr. was 10 months old, a month after he walked for the first time, his father began asking him to go into his bedroom and drag the blue-and-white diaper bag down the 20-foot hall and into the den.

If Otis Jr. had trouble, his father would stand on the far side of the den near the door and coach his son to keep trying, keep dragging the bag across the brown carpet.

“The word of God is clear. You have to remind them of struggles they’ve faced,” Otis Harris Sr. says. “When Otis Jr. was carrying the diaper bag, he would carry it to the car because struggles are something that people would have to deal with. Some people would grab the child and bring him to the car. But I taught him to be an overcomer in life. Then, when he’s older, he knows how to deal with almost any kind of problem.

The Second Stage: Better Than The Plan

Harris is way ahead of the pace and in the lead after 50 meters. He has about a three-step lead on Wariner, which means things are going better than Harris and USC coach Curtis Frye had planned.

Frye said later that his film studies revealed a trend in Wariner’s running style: He slows down with 350 meters left so that he will have enough energy to go all-out at the finish. But Harris isn’t letting him rest. Because Harris has the lead, Wariner must keep up with the pace or fall too far back to recover.

Wariner’s usual rest distance expires after the runners pass 100 meters. If Wariner keeps running at full speed for 400 meters, he will be too tired at the end for a speed blast. Harris isn’t even running at his full speed. He’s a closer, after all. The last 100 meters is where he wins races. If Harris can just keep this pace for 300 more meters, he’ll win gold.

“OK, OK, you’re on it,” Frye remembers whispering to himself during the race, a different type of comment than Harris might have been used to.

“Just keep with the pace.”

Finding His Calling

Otis Harris Sr. always hoped Otis Jr. would play receiver and James would play linebacker on the same college football team.

Otis Jr. sure had the wheels and could catch rockets. And after his ninth-grade football season at Hinds County Agricultural High School, Otis Jr. thought he could work on his speed and footwork for the next football season by joining the track team.

That’s all it would be, a tune-up for next year’s football season. Besides, freshmen don’t do well their first seasons, right? They’re still kicking their knees up and flailing their arms a little because it takes a while to learn proper mechanics. Freshmen don’t finish fourth in Mississippi’s Class AA state championship meet. Right?

Well, Otis Jr. did. And after that, he didn’t lose another race for more than two years.

Football seasons, all of a sudden, became little more than something to do in the fall. Still, he was so good. His senior season, he caught nine passes and scored 11 touchdowns, which meant 81 percent of the time Otis Jr. touched the ball, he scored.

But because winning came so easily, losses were that much more difficult to stomach. Otis Jr. didn’t catch Marcus Carson, a runner for cross-town rival Raymond High School, during a meet Otis Jr.’s senior season. He just let Carson get too far in front before the final 100 meters. After Otis Jr. almost caught Carson and went stride-for-stride for about 50 yards, Otis Jr. was about to pass Carson before the finish line ended the race a second too early.

All Otis Jr. could do was put a towel over his face and lie in the infield grass and wonder why things happened like they did. Why had he been punished? What had he done wrong?

The Third Stage: Victory Is In Sight

Harris hits the middle of the second turn at Olympic Stadium and can see the finish line for the first time.

He’s going to win the gold medal. But he has to kick now – shift into high gear. He’s where he wants to be, in the lead when he hits the straightaway.

The endless practices that have trained his brain to ignore his body’s pleas for oxygen and rest have paid off so far. His body just has to hold up 10 more seconds. Just keep pumping.

With about 100 meters left, Harris sees Wariner coming in the peripheral vision of his left eye.

Will the finish line ever come?

For about 30 meters, Wariner and Harris are side-by-side, convincing their bodies not to give up. Harris can feel his muscles tightening, but he must convince his mind that it’s normal.

Shouldn’t Wariner, who never rested, be fading by now?

The Facts Don’t Matter

Imagine feeling inadequate because you didn’t exhaust you muscles all day today. You’re not worthy of all these expectations because you didn’t work hard enough.

Never mind that you’re falling asleep in your chair at 10 p.m. and that your friends joke that you have narcolepsy because you doze off during your favorite television shows.

If you don’t work hard enough for this to happen, you haven’t been productive enough.

Maybe that comes from beliefs that eternal judgment is the result of apathy, that Harris must break himself down just to get back up with a new mission of not going to the ground again.

Frye has tried, time and again, to push through a lifetime of those beliefs to reach something new: optimism. Instead, Harris has debated all sorts of topics, quoting facts and figures that support his beliefs.

Frye, though, repeats his rebuttal like a staccato drum line: “The facts don’t matter.”

In the past, Harris has had trouble believing he can do something until he has done it. When he got second at the 2002 NCAA championship in the 400 meters, he seemed surprised by his finish, USC assistant track coach Stan Rosenthal says.

“That made him get the confidence he needed inwardly that he used to express outwardly,” Rosenthal says. “Getting second really made a difference to him. Before that, he acted like he was really confident, but I don’t think he was.”

But when the facts don’t matter, anything is possible. Harris was ruled academically ineligible and was red-shirted for the 2004 season. He says a computer error counted a class twice, which put him below the school’s standards for academic responsibility.

Because the Athletics Department could not provide Harris with transportation or equipment, he drove to each meet, paid his way in and stuffed his feet into old cleats that rubbed the bottoms so much during practice that he had blisters.

But Frye convinced Harris that the past had nothing to do with the future. And an Olympic medal was possible if only he had confidence. After a long summer and making the decision not to enroll at USC for the fall semester so that he could train for Athens, Harris finally bought into Frye’s teachings.

“He’s not signed anywhere, running for any school. This is not an Olympian. He’s just acting like he wants to run,” Harris says. “Those are the facts. But they don’t matter. Whatever happened before was finished. I was looking at the future. And I knew I could go win a medal.

The Finish

Harris and Wariner are side-by-side during the last few seconds of the race. Just before the end, Frye sees Harris’s body tighten, which Frye knows will disrupt his mechanics and slow him.

Wariner’s mechanics have been perfect the whole race.

Harris will still win, Frye thinks, because Harris finishes races so well. But he continues to tense – instead of staying as vertical as possible, his shoulders get behind his hips, something Frye and Harris have worked on tirelessly to avoid.

Harris slowed down; Wariner didn’t. Wariner pushes through the finish tape with his arms outreached, and Harris passes the line with his face pointed at the sky. Wariner finished the race in 44 seconds, and Harris wins silver with a 44:16, almost a half-second better than his personal best.

No, Harris didn’t win the race he has dreamed of winning all those years. And like the moments after the loss his high school senior year, he wants to be alone with his thoughts.

He slides on his warm-up pants and a white T-shirt before resting his head on a chair in an empty corridor of the stadium.

He’s talking to God right now, thanking Him again for the opportunity.

Frye snaps a picture, which will become documentation that Harris’ life began anew without victory. And for the first time, Harris is comfortable despite not being the best.

“I took my body to a place it had never been,” Harris says. “A few months ago, I didn’t think I would be here. I just thank God I got the chance and that I won a medal.”

That doesn’t sound like a man who thinks he was punished in Athens. Sounds like one who thinks he was blessed.

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