Pine Bluff’s gentle giant and town hero: Meet Mizzou signee Jordon Harris
Jordon Harris could’ve used one of a dozen different excuses to throw his life away and derail his future.
Harris grew up in Pine Blulff, Arkansas. It is one of the most dangerous cities in the state. He’s lost friends and classmates to gun violence and his older sister died from cancer in 2018. Harris lives with his mom, a younger sister and his nephew.
Instead of being on the corners late at night selling drugs or running with the wrong crowd in the streets, the 6-foot-7, 230-pound Harris used his environment as motivation so that he can help his family and hopefully one day move them out of Pine Bluff.
“I just want to move them out of where we live now and create a better future for them,” Harris said. "I want them (his little sister and nephew) to see with God they can do anything. It (his sister’s death) changed my perception of sports. It felt like I had a little bit more motivation. It’s a life lesson. Don’t wait until the end. Give everything at the beginning.”
Pursuing football
Originally, it was going to be basketball that was going to help Harris reach his goals of helping provide a better life for his family. He started playing fourth grade.
He got an offer from Oral Roberts before the start of his sophomore season and recently helped lead Pine Bluff high school to the Class 5A state title, the school’s first state championship since 2015.
He scored 13 points and used his 7-foot-1 wingspan to block four shots and get a steal in the title game. Harris averaged about nine points and 10 rebounds per game last season en route to all-state honors.
However, the path to his dreams of getting his family out of Pine Bluff took a detour last summer.
Harris missed most of the AAU basketball circuit and his chances to impress some scouts due to a patellar tendon injury, and that’s when he and his AAU coach Lenell Brown had a heart-to-heart conversation about giving football a chance.
“Jordon would tell himself all the time that he would make it out,” Brown said. “He loves his mom to death and he wants to give her the world and the only thing he can see ahead is making that happen. Jordon’s a really good basketball player, but he’s an undersized basketball player and he saw the writing on the wall that it’s going to be hard to do what he wants to do for his mom if he continues to play basketball.
“As a basketball coach and role model for Jordon, I like to be honest with Jordon and at best I’m thinking 'Jordon, you could play college basketball. You could. But if you really want to go to the next level and make the money that you’re saying you want to make you need to give football a try.'”
During that same summer, Pine Bluff hired a football coach who had walked in the same shoes Harris does 21 years earlier, in Micheal Williams.
Williams, a Pine Bluff native, also went to Pine Bluff and got a football scholarship to attend Paul Quinn in Dallas.
He went on to become the wide receivers coach for national powerhouse Duncanville (Tex.) and was on the sidelines for one of the most memorable and viral high school state championship moments in recent history in 2018 when Duncanville lost to North Shore in the Class 6A title game on a hail mary as time expired.
“One of the first people I met was Jordon because in the interview when they were trying to entice me to take the job they were asking me what I can do if I had a 6-foot-6 kid that never really played football before,” Williams said. “I told them he would be recruited by almost every school in the nation. When I first saw him he was a little skinnier than I imagined. … I was like 'We’ve got to put some weight on this dude,' but now he’s as strong as an ox.
“I didn’t think he would be that strong and run this well. He’s a lot different than what I thought he would’ve been. I was thinking maybe basketball players don’t like to be physical. We’re going to have to take it easy on him and throw some jump balls out there, but he changed my whole perspective. He’s stiff-arming people and knocking them over.”
In his lone high school football season last fall, Harris recorded 15 tackles, five tackles for loss and three sacks as a defensive lineman, according to MaxPreps. On offense, he lined up at tight end and recorded five receptions for 126 yards and three touchdowns.
Despite Harris’ limited football experience, Williams said that among all the college players he’s coached, Harris is easily in his top five of players he’s ever coached. That's a list that includes Ja’Quinden Jackson (Utah running back), Zeriah Beason (Washington State wide receiver), Marquez Beason (Alabama A&M defensive back) and Roderick Daniels (SMU wide receiver). He cited Harris’ determination to live up to his potential as the main reason.
"He has a special drive to be the best he can be,” Williams said. “When he takes on something, he just takes it on. For example, he will call me 一 ‘Coach, I hope I’m not bothering you, but on this play do we run this or that?'
"I’ll say 'Jordon what's up, what are you up to?' And he will say he’s just watching film. That’s really unheard of for a kid who has never really played football, but he totally bought in. He knows the whole offense up and down and can teach you and tell you everything about it."
"He’s a hero for a lot of kids"
Harris’ achievements on the hardwood and the gridiron are nothing to scoff at. He honestly believes that football will help him get himself and his family out of their current living situation, but he hasn’t just limited himself to sports. He stays busy with extracurriculars in-between sports.
“I’m a member of many clubs 一 Gentleman’s Club, National Honor Society, I’m the president of Gamers United, I’m a part of a non-profit organization called TOPPS and I’m a member of the advisory board for that,” Harris said. “Coming into my freshman year my teachers were talking about getting your resume built up and getting your community service hours built up by volunteering, so that’s what I’ve been doing trying to get that.”
Harris also boasts a 4.0 GPA and said he wants to be an industrial engineer if football isn’t in the cards after college.
He may catch people’s attention due to his physical attributes and capabilities, but what’s in between his ears and in his heart has already touched many lives in his community.
“He’s a hero for a lot of kids on his little league team because they look at him like he’s already made it to the NFL,” Williams said. “They want him to sign autographs and I look at him like he’s their hero. He came from the same community, they live in the same area, he lives right down the street from a lot of those guys and look what he’s doing. You don’t have to do otherwise.”
Williams knows the streets of Pine Bluff all too well and said there are only limited options for kids growing up there. He admires Harris for taking the high road and staying out of trouble that many others fall victim to.
“In most cases, it ends up being gangs or drugs,” Williams said. “Either you’re going off to school (college) or you’re probably going to be in a gang, using drugs or selling drugs to the youth.
“It’s the crime rate and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t take the job went it opened up the last time three years ago. It’s poverty-ridden around here. There’s not a lot of stuff to do for the kids. There isn’t any place where the kids can just hang out because you’re scared kids are going to be around drive-by shootings and stuff of that nature. I didn’t want to go back to something like this and I didn’t want to raise my kids in a place somewhere that I grew up in that’s even worse now. But this time the Lord pricked my spirit to try and come help the kids.”
TOPPS, which stands for Targeting Our People’s Priorities with Service, is a youth non-profit program that assists people. Within TOPPS, Harris is part of a program called DREAMS, which stands for Dreams Require Educating and Motivating Students, that helps the top high school students around the city with their ACT scores, tutoring, completing college applications, doing college tours and more.
“A lot of students enroll in our program because they want help academically, but Jordon just wants to be more involved,” TOPPS sponsor Mike Dove said. “These activities he’s a part of, he doesn’t have to do it. They’re always on weekends, so Jordon will leave basketball practice or film studies for football and come be a part of giving back, helping the community in whatever way he can.”
Dove has been a part of TOPPS for the past 21 years and despite knowing Harris for only two years he said he’s someone he wants his own newborn to be like.
“I use the term gentle giant which is something I’ve heard used a lot,” Dove said. “Personally, he’s the most mannerable student. … As an athlete, he’s amazing I know that but the person 一 I look at him as a little brother, as I do all the students in our program, but I truly wish that my son can grow to be just like Jordon in every capacity. He’s that well-rounded.”
At this moment, it’s unclear what side of the ball Harris will line up on when he arrives in the fall. He will undoubtedly have his work cut out for him; he's played less football than every one of his future teammates. But that's nothing compared to the adversity he's already overcome to get here.
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