Trevor Harris executed his favourite kneel-down shortly before training camp in 2015.
Although he didn’t take a knee as part of the Victory Formation, he ended up celebrating the biggest win of his life.
On May 21, 2015, Trevor delivered a highly original marriage proposal to Kalie Denton.
The event was witnessed by all the students and staff during a pep rally at North Union Elementary School in Richwood, Ohio, where Kalie was a Grade 2 teacher.
A decade later, Trevor is widely recognizable as the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ starting quarterback. But in the precious seconds that led up to the proposal, his future wife didn’t even know he was there.
She did take note of the school’s mascot, Wildcat — unaware that Trevor was inside the costume.
“I had absolutely no idea,” Kalie says while seated beside Trevor at the family’s off-season home near Columbus, Ohio.
“Little did I know that it would be the best surprise of my whole life.”
At the time, Trevor was poised to depart for the Toronto Argonauts’ training camp to begin his fourth CFL season.
“My plan was if she said no, to put the Wildcat head back on, dance out of there, and just go to Canada,” Trevor recalls.
“I said, ‘If she says no, I’ll just leave the country.’ ”
No such worries. Trevor and Kalie were married on Dec. 19, 2015.
The proud parents of T.J. (age eight), Trace (who is about to turn five) and Tripp (who turns two in late May) are expecting a fourth child, who is due in early March.
“It’s really neat to think about the path that God had us go down,” Kalie says. “The things that we went through — good and bad and in-between — really set us up for an awesome marriage.
“When it was time, it was time, and God brought that to us.”
Their first date — orchestrated by Kalie’s aunt (Kim Atherton) and Trevor’s oldest sister (Autumn) — was at the G & R Tavern in the village of Waldo, Ohio.
“I actually didn’t want to go,” says the 38-year-old son of Tom and Suzanne Harris, who signed with the Roughriders two years ago today — Valentine’s Day 2023.
“My mom paid me $50. I was like, ‘I’m getting ready to go to college. I don’t want to start a relationship. I just want to leave things here, go to college, and focus on ball.’
“My mom said, ‘I’ll give you $50. Just keep the change.’ ”
Trevor and Kalie quickly hit it off. They were in a relationship for about 2½ years before splitting up when she went to college.
Kalie stayed in Ohio, attending Urbana University and playing volleyball for the Blue Knights.
By then, Trevor was the starting quarterback at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania.
“We were apart for seven years, but I was kind of the weirdo who would check in every once in a while and see how she was doing and making sure everything was OK, even though she had a boyfriend … a long-term boyfriend,” he recalls.
“Actually, there was a time when they split up, and I helped them get back together. It was one of those things where I wanted her to be happy before myself. It was the best thing, because it was what made her happy at the time.
“I continued to check in every now and then. She eventually got engaged. I thought, ‘Maybe the first love cuts the deepest.’
“She was always the one who got away.”
Or so he thought.
“One random day, I heard they had split up,” Trevor continues. “Her aunt had actually alerted me to that. Then Kalie randomly texted me.”
She did so after acquiring some valuable inside information.
“I just remember talking to my aunt and my family members and they told me he probably had a little bit more deeper feelings than I really knew at that time,” Kalie says.
“Going through a breakup and him helping me through that, that’s what true love is. That’s how deep the love is that you want for yourself — someone who’s going to put your happiness in front of their own.
“I was like, ‘Maybe he’s been the one for me this whole time. I’d better just make sure.’
“I texted him and it was all history from there.”
The second chapter of their relationship endures.
“Everybody always tells you that when you fall in love and you find the right person, it’s obvious,” Trevor says.
“When you know, you know. I kind of always knew with her. Even when we split up, I was always trying to find the relationship that made me feel that way.
“I’ve thrown to some wide-open receivers, but marrying her was more obvious than anything of that nature. If you’re looking at a wide-open receiver and thinking, ‘This is a touchdown,’ it was more obvious than that. It felt like, ‘This is what I’m supposed to do.’ ”
Trevor felt similarly when, unselfishly, he helped Kalie get back together with her boyfriend.
“I tell quarterbacks, ‘Don’t force deep shots,’ ” he says. “My theory is, ‘You shoot your shot when it’s there.’ It wasn’t the right time.
“To me, it’s about making the correct decisions for the people around you more so than it is about yourself. It’s kind of a life metaphor. It ended up working out. It always does.
“I think the times we try and force things, it’s sort of a lack of faith in Christ and what His plan is for us.
“To me, fate is going to be fate. Whatever we’re supposed to do in this life, if we can just stay within the will of God, that is when we hit our ceiling as people.
“I always felt that good things come around as long as you keep making the right decisions and putting other people first.”
With a relationship renewed, the next decision was obvious.
“I think it was kind of a month of us dating and I just knew,” Trevor says. “I was like, ‘Why wait?’
“I was getting ready to leave for Canada, so I decided to throw a surprise assembly for her elementary school.
“My sister is really close with the principal of the school. Their softball team was going to the state Final Four, so my sister called the principal and said, ‘Is there any way you could throw a surprise assembly? I know it’s only one day in advance, but …’
“So they kind of staged this thing and celebrated the softball team going to the Final Four. Then we rigged a (scenario) where the second-grade teacher has got to come down and dance with the Wildcat.
“I was the Wildcat and I told them, ‘As soon as I start dancing with her, cut the music off,’ and I’ll just see what happens.”
So out came Trevor, who was thoughtful enough to wear a suit — the mascot’s uniform — for the occasion.
Wildcat emerged, spun in circles, and exhorted the crowd to cheer. The audience was most obliging.
Trevor approached Kalie and, as planned, they danced for a few seconds.
Off came the mascot’s head — in a good way, we assure you.
Wildcat then discarded his paws and produced an engagement ring.
Trevor’s right knee soon hit the ground.
“I don’t even remember what I said,” he says. “I blacked out and said some stuff.”
“I don’t remember what you said, either,” Kalie adds, laughing.
This much is certain: She said yes. Instantly.
“All the kids were going crazy,” Kalie says. “It was so cute.”
After a lengthy embrace, the newly engaged couple was joined on-stage by members of the Harris and Denton families.
(In an old-school move, Trevor had already sought and received permission from Jim and Marie Denton to marry their daughter.)
Nearly a decade has elapsed since Suzanne Harris thoughtfully bankrolled that momentous first date at G & R Tavern, where the fried bologna sandwich is a world-renowned specialty and the pickles are suitably sweet.
For the longest time, it appeared that two lives were headed in different directions.
But all the while, Trevor and Kalie were meant for one another.
Although their relationship included a seven-year intermission, the hiatus also seems like a blessing once hindsight enters the equation.
“So much would have looked so different had we been together earlier,” Kalie concludes. “We would have started a family earlier, but we wouldn’t have these beautiful boys that we have, and who knows what this (latest) one is yet?
“God’s timing is perfect. We’ve been able to have an awesome marriage because of it.”
