Rob Vanstone: The powerful perspective of Trevor Harris — “With every adversity you face, there’s a seed of equal opportunity to grow”
At a time when you think it would be a priority for Trevor Harris to prop up an injured right leg, he is more concerned with elevating the people around him.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ quarterback leaves that overwhelming impression during a wide-ranging, eyebrow-raising interview that occurs barely a month after he underwent surgery.
The crutches are placed on a chair before Harris takes a few steps and sits down on a couch in Mosaic Stadium’s players’ lounge. There is not a trace of discomfort on his face or disillusionment in his voice as he speaks optimistically about a comeback that might very well top any fourth-quarter heroics he has engineered since becoming a CFLer in 2012.
“I’m hoping to be back on the field the last three or four games this year,” he says.
October.
He is talking about October.
“When I started looking at the timetable and kind of where I was at and the hurdles you have to clear and how quickly you’re able to get over those, I’ve had to ask questions like, ‘Am I being overly ambitious here? Is this kind of dumb for me to do this?’ ” Harris says.
“The doctors have told me, ‘Early on, we would have thought, yeah, that wouldn’t have been a good idea, but seeing where you’re at now, it’s really encouraging and we wouldn’t say it’s out of the realm of possibility.’
“So I’m very encouraged with their responses with where I’m at and also with how I’m feeling.”
It is a remarkably rapid recovery for someone who on July 15 suffered a tibial plateau fracture of his right knee — an injury that required surgery — against the Calgary Stampeders.
The next day, the Roughriders issued a statement that read in part: “We are optimistic that Trevor will make a full recovery and are not ready to rule out a return at some point. We know Trevor will tackle his recovery with the same focus and tenacity that he shows on the football field.”
That, of course, has proven to be true.
Harris has attacked the recuperative process with the assistance of medical professionals, the Roughriders’ training staff, and a therapeutic tool known as ARPneuro, which safely uses electrical stimulation to accelerate the recovery of a stricken area.
Along the way, Harris has been buoyed by the love and support of his wife, Kalie, and three sons (T.J., Trace and three-month-old Tripp).
“I got a lot of messages from people saying, ‘Make sure you really enjoy your time with your family through this,’ because it’s easy to kind of sit there and look in the mirror and say, ‘Woe is me. Why did this happen to me?’ ” Harris says.
“I posted on my Instagram when I got hurt about how I haven’t really said ‘why me?’ in this process, because I could have easily said that for the opposite reason.
“Why am I getting to play professional football and live out my dream and other people don’t? I’ve been very, very fortunate for 14 years to go through professional football, living my dream, marrying my dream woman, and having the kids that I have.
“I’ve always been ‘why me?’ in terms of being able to do that. I’ve even found times during this to say, ‘I have an opportunity here to glorify Christ. I have an opportunity here to sing the praises of our athletic treatment team here and of the people at ARP who have been really helping me to get back from an injury that not a lot of people have been able to get back from, within a timetable that I’ve kind of set for myself.
“I have gotten to spend a tonne of time with my family, which has been great. But also, with my wife going from two kids to having a newborn and then me getting hurt, she went from two kids to four pretty quickly, having to take care of me.”
The severity of the injury was such that, in the early days after the Calgary game, Kalie had to help her husband get in and out of the bathtub.
“I had to have one leg outside of the tub,” the 37-year-old passer says. “My leg was up on the outside of the tub and I was pouring water on my head like I bathe my kids.”
His upbeat nature, by contrast, cannot be doused.
“With every adversity you face, there’s a seed of equal opportunity to grow and learn and get better,” Harris says. “When we go through things, I think a lot of times in the future you can help people to go through similar things.
“I’ve had all my senses open during this entire time so that I can take great mental notes about how I feel and the things I’m thinking. That way, in the future, If I’m ever mentoring a kid, helping a kid, or if I’m coaching, I can level with him and be there with him in that moment.”
Without prompting from an interviewer, Harris revisits that awful moment on July 15.
Six minutes into the fourth quarter, he scrambled for 17 yards on second-and-long and came inches away from moving the chains.
But, as Harris approached first-down territory, he was felled by a Stampeders lineman who was knocked into the quarterback and accidentally rolled over on to his right leg.
A Mosaic Stadium crowd was instantly silenced as Harris was tended to on the field for several minutes, while players and coaches on both sides looked crestfallen.
“When I was laying on the field, the only thing I could think of was that when I told my dad I was going to play quarterback, he told me I was a wimp because quarterbacks are soft,” says the proud son of Tom Harris, of Waldo, Ohio.
“He told me to promise him I’d never slide … and he actually told me to start sliding in 2016, so I tried to start learning how to slide back then.
“And the one thing he made me promise him was that I’d never lay on the football field — that I’d always get up and walk off the field, get off the field.
“So when I was laying there, I knew my leg was pretty shattered, because when I went down, if you’ve ever broken a stick over your knee, that’s the sound that was in my head.
“It kind of raises the hairs on my arm, because when I was going down, I felt that and I heard that sound. It was just like breaking a stick over your knee. I could hear it.
“I tried to roll over and to get my leg to go up and it didn’t go anywhere. It felt like 1,000 pounds. At that point, I was like, ‘There’s nothing I can do.’ The one thing I kept thinking was that my dad told me to get off the field and I couldn’t.
“I was like, ‘This can’t be my last play, because I’m not going to play however many thousands of snaps I’ve played and have my last one be where I wasn’t able to listen to my dad and get off the field.’ ”
He eventually left the playing surface on a cart, but not before acknowledging the 28,842 spectators who extended him a warm ovation.
“I heard the people clapping as I was going off the field,” he says. “I was not in the right head space, but I remember seeing other people get carted off the field and I always used to think, ‘Just please give us a wave to let us know you’re OK.’
“And when I was on the field getting carted off, I kind of snapped out of it for a second and I gave them a wave. I was really appreciative of the applause.”
Encouraging words also buoyed his spirits.
“I got to the hospital, got all the information, and the next morning I woke up at about five o’clock and I had so many supportive messages,” Harris says. “It was tremendous to hear from everybody — obviously, not in the setting that you’d have liked.
“But I cried a lot, not because of pain or anything of that nature. It was more that the game gets taken away from you and, when you put so much into it, it’s difficult in situations like that. You feel vulnerable and, a lot of times, people say they’re OK and they’re not OK.
“In that moment, I was OK. I had good perspective just in terms of what’s been taken away from me, as opposed to my faith or my family or my kids or whatever it would be.
“It sure did stink in that moment, but right now I’m in great spirits. I’m very far ahead of the game in terms of where they thought I would be.”
Harris hopes to receive more uplifting news on Friday, when X-rays are to be taken.
“It’s a big day,” he says. “Hopefully we see some good calcification and I can start to do a little bit of weight-bearing stuff.
“I couldn’t ask for a better team of people helping me recover, with the swiftness of the doctors here, the training staff here, of how they took care of me.
“It’s just one of those things where I’ve been very blessed to have what I have.”
That includes an unshakably positive perspective, which has been noted and appreciated at Mosaic Stadium since Harris signed with the Roughriders as a high-priority free agent on Feb. 14.
“I’m big on always thinking the best is yet to come, and I still believe that,” he states.
“Whether that’s true or not, time will tell, but the frame of mind to be in is always in a gratitude mindset, always in a positive-thinking mindset of ‘Where can you grow and get better?’ and ‘How can you grow and get better?’
“I’ll find a way to get better every year that I’m playing this game and every year I’m blessed to be able to play pro football, even if it’s in coaching. I’m always going to feel that way.
“But to play past a certain age, it still requires a sort of wherewithal or commitment that is very uncommon. I’m aware of that, and I know that the injury that I sustained is not a small injury.
“It’s going to take an uncommon commitment to growing, developing, rehabbing, restoring and being able to surpass where I was even before, but I’m prepared for that.”
Preparation has always been paramount for Harris, either in the meeting rooms or in the gym.
A supremely conditioned athlete, his well-established emphasis on training and nutrition has also been beneficial.
And then there are the good vibes provided by fans who have sent cards and letters to Harris. Every one of those kind gestures is appreciated by the entire family.
“There are a few things in my locker that I haven’t opened yet,” he says. “I just want to wait for the right time.
“When I got to the hospital, I think I had 125 text messages. And I took the time that night when I was by myself to clear them all, respond to them all. I think I had over 125 more when I woke up the next day.
“The support was really well-felt. I had countless messages in my inbox on Instagram and Facebook and whatnot. I haven’t even gotten back to all the people yet on Instagram, but it’s really great to hear from everybody.
“Obviously, it’s not the circumstances you’d like, but you know you have a great support system. The fans reaching out were really, really amazing. You could really feel the support of Rider Nation.”
Now the goal is to see it, and savour it, sooner than anyone could have envisioned barely a month ago.
