Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Here Comes The Major – WVU's Harris To Be Immortalized Saturday
November 01, 2021 06:01 PM | Football, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Major Harris gets a big chuckle today when he recalls sleeping through his pregame meeting with quarterbacks coach Dwight Wallace before West Virginia's 1987 game against Rutgers.
It takes a lot to get Dwight Wallace's blood to boil, so it was quite a feat for the Maj getting Dwight all riled up that Nov. 14 morning at Lakeview Resort.
Considering Ben Reed was Major's roommate that year, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Benny may have hit the snooze button once or twice, but the net of it was Wallace had to march up to his young quarterback's room and physically wake him up!
"He jumped on me while I was in bed," Major recalled earlier today, laughing. "I was under the covers and couldn't even move. We were thinking it's seven o'clock when it's really eight."
When Wallace retells the story today, he does so with a sense of remorse. It was simply a case of him seeing so much potential in a player he cared about and wanting his young quarterback to take things a little more seriously in football and in life.
It's not something a coach could do to a player today, but Major took it then as it was intended to be taken.
"Look at it this way," Harris began, "you're getting ready to play a football game for a team that's on the borderline of having another losing season, and your quarterback is not showing up on time for a team meeting. How are you going to react to that?
"It was just like Bobby Knight getting on a player. I respect that. Sometimes players need tough love, and I think it was exactly what I needed at the time," Harris explained. "I never looked at it as a negative."
Nor did Major Harris ever look back after it happened.
Later that afternoon, he hurdled a Rutgers defender on the way to a 24-yard touchdown run, prompting WTAE's Bill Hillgrove to tell people sitting around him in the press box that Harris was West Virginia's first legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate.
I know the Pitt guy said it because I heard him say it.
Two years later, Hillgrove's words turned prophetic when Harris was sitting right next to Andre Ware and Anthony Thompson at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City for the 1989 Heisman Trophy awards ceremony.
Ware's prodigious passing numbers ultimately earned him college football's highest honor that year, but Major Harris, from the Hill District in Pittsburgh and West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, was right there among the best players in college football.
Thirty years later, in 2009, the National Football Foundation inducted Harris into the College Football Hall of Fame, and earlier this summer, the West Virginia University Athletic Council formally approved the retirement of Harris' No. 9.
During Saturday's game against 11th-ranked Oklahoma State, Harris' number will be officially retired during an on-field ceremony at the end of the first quarter. He becomes only the fifth football player in school history to have his number retired, joining Ira Errett Rodgers, Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley and Darryl Talley.
All five are either in the college or professional football hall of fame - or both. Honors like this just aren't passed out like candy on Halloween around here.
"It's definitely surprising," Harris said of his number retirement. "I guess as you get older you think, 'Well, I used to play football' and I guess that's what awards are for. I haven't played football in more than 30 years and you see something like this happen and, yeah, you're surprised."
You can sense the apprehension in his voice when he talks about it. Today, Major's hair is graying, his belly is a little bit bigger than it was when he was a player, but those eyes still twinkle, his smile is still genuine and his heart is still as pure as it was the day he was born 53 years ago.
Pressing him to say more about what a wonderful legacy he's left at West Virginia University is not an easy thing to do.
"I don't want to sound big-headed," he gently pushed back. "I respect it, but I can't get caught up in it. The way I see it is we had a helluva team and to be honest, it takes a team effort for something like this to happen. To me, I'd want all of the guys I played with to have their initials and their numbers on that jersey because they were all a part of it."
Think back to 1988, during a time when almost one in every five West Virginian was unemployed and people were leaving the state in droves.
Follansbee's Lou Holtz (although he grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio) used to joke that the only good thing to come out of West Virginia was an empty bus. A great line, for sure, but to hear that from such a successful coach – and one of our own – was devastating.
To many, it still stings all these years later.
Could you imagine Nick Saban or Jimbo Fisher saying something like that today?
Back then, many people here were down and nearly out, but in came Major Harris and that great 1988 football team to lift up an entire state. For at least a couple of hours each Saturday, our problems were forgotten.
The sheer joy Major brought to the people in the Mountain State - from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between as Tony Caridi likes to say - is impossible to calculate.
How many 32-year-old adults walking the Earth today have the first name Major?
How many pets?
The dude got write-in votes for governor in 1988 for God's sake!
I posted a thread on Twitter Saturday night asking fans to tweet their favorite memories of Major Harris.
Two days later, they're still coming in.
"I was a true freshman, redshirting during the '89 season. His game vs. South Carolina was the best performance I have EVER seen," former Mountaineer standout safety and Huntington native Michael Collins wrote.
"In the early 90's I was in a 3 on 3 tournament against Major. He dunked on me. Saw him out on the town that night. My buddy said, 'You dunked on my friend over here.' Major said, 'I didn't dunk on nobody.' Then he looks me up and down and said, 'Alright maybe I did,'" tweeted Chris Guyer.
"I went to a summer camp when I was in elementary school that, I believe, was at Cedar Lakes. Major was there as a camp counselor or in some capacity. We all acted like we were meeting a superhero," Bryan Walker said.
"That '88 season was the first time I can remember when a home game wasn't just a game, it was an event," wrote former WVU student Michael Freer. "That's what WVU football felt like back then. You were excited for a Saturday home game on Monday. What a time to be a WVU student."
"The first WVU game I ever went to was the '88 (I think) season opener vs. Bowling Green. I was eight. All I remember is Maj carving up the Falcons and the Eers putting up 62 points. Been a fan ever since," Caleb Wygal wrote.
Then there's this from Richard Clay, "I saw him at Speedway with my son about 15 years ago. He stopped to talk with us. He autographed my son's hat. He is my favorite Mountaineer of all-time (without a doubt). I will believe until my death that an uninjured Major Harris beats ND and we are National Champions."
Christopher Cooper tweeted, "His joy for the game may be the only thing more infectious than his dual-threat skill set. Major was and is and always will be a @WVUfootball legend!"
And, finally, from yikes_d, "Me and my cousin went to (Don) Nehlen's football camp at about the same age. I remember the pizza parties at the end of camp and Major would always come in and speak to us. Giving advice or a funny story. He always encouraged the youth!"
There were several other tweets referencing the well-told story of Major running over to his apartment across the street from the stadium and getting the jacket he was presented at the Heisman Trophy ceremony to give to a sick child who had just been released from WVU Children's Hospital.
The youngster was wandering the hallway at the Facilities Building with his family hoping to meet his idol, Major Harris.
Nobody would have ever known anything about this if not for the fact that Tony Caridi happened to be in the building that day and saw it with his own two eyes.
What Major did was simply the act of a prince.
There are hundreds of more stories like this.
Major Harris' No. 9 may be officially getting retired this Saturday afternoon, but his legacy will forever live on to the thousands of West Virginians who became lifelong Mountaineer football fans after watching him play.
It takes a lot to get Dwight Wallace's blood to boil, so it was quite a feat for the Maj getting Dwight all riled up that Nov. 14 morning at Lakeview Resort.
Considering Ben Reed was Major's roommate that year, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Benny may have hit the snooze button once or twice, but the net of it was Wallace had to march up to his young quarterback's room and physically wake him up!
"He jumped on me while I was in bed," Major recalled earlier today, laughing. "I was under the covers and couldn't even move. We were thinking it's seven o'clock when it's really eight."
When Wallace retells the story today, he does so with a sense of remorse. It was simply a case of him seeing so much potential in a player he cared about and wanting his young quarterback to take things a little more seriously in football and in life.
It's not something a coach could do to a player today, but Major took it then as it was intended to be taken.
"Look at it this way," Harris began, "you're getting ready to play a football game for a team that's on the borderline of having another losing season, and your quarterback is not showing up on time for a team meeting. How are you going to react to that?
"It was just like Bobby Knight getting on a player. I respect that. Sometimes players need tough love, and I think it was exactly what I needed at the time," Harris explained. "I never looked at it as a negative."
Nor did Major Harris ever look back after it happened.
Later that afternoon, he hurdled a Rutgers defender on the way to a 24-yard touchdown run, prompting WTAE's Bill Hillgrove to tell people sitting around him in the press box that Harris was West Virginia's first legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate.
I know the Pitt guy said it because I heard him say it.
Two years later, Hillgrove's words turned prophetic when Harris was sitting right next to Andre Ware and Anthony Thompson at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City for the 1989 Heisman Trophy awards ceremony.
Ware's prodigious passing numbers ultimately earned him college football's highest honor that year, but Major Harris, from the Hill District in Pittsburgh and West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, was right there among the best players in college football.
Thirty years later, in 2009, the National Football Foundation inducted Harris into the College Football Hall of Fame, and earlier this summer, the West Virginia University Athletic Council formally approved the retirement of Harris' No. 9.
During Saturday's game against 11th-ranked Oklahoma State, Harris' number will be officially retired during an on-field ceremony at the end of the first quarter. He becomes only the fifth football player in school history to have his number retired, joining Ira Errett Rodgers, Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley and Darryl Talley.
All five are either in the college or professional football hall of fame - or both. Honors like this just aren't passed out like candy on Halloween around here.
"It's definitely surprising," Harris said of his number retirement. "I guess as you get older you think, 'Well, I used to play football' and I guess that's what awards are for. I haven't played football in more than 30 years and you see something like this happen and, yeah, you're surprised."
You can sense the apprehension in his voice when he talks about it. Today, Major's hair is graying, his belly is a little bit bigger than it was when he was a player, but those eyes still twinkle, his smile is still genuine and his heart is still as pure as it was the day he was born 53 years ago.
Pressing him to say more about what a wonderful legacy he's left at West Virginia University is not an easy thing to do.
"I don't want to sound big-headed," he gently pushed back. "I respect it, but I can't get caught up in it. The way I see it is we had a helluva team and to be honest, it takes a team effort for something like this to happen. To me, I'd want all of the guys I played with to have their initials and their numbers on that jersey because they were all a part of it."
Think back to 1988, during a time when almost one in every five West Virginian was unemployed and people were leaving the state in droves.
Follansbee's Lou Holtz (although he grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio) used to joke that the only good thing to come out of West Virginia was an empty bus. A great line, for sure, but to hear that from such a successful coach – and one of our own – was devastating.
To many, it still stings all these years later.
Could you imagine Nick Saban or Jimbo Fisher saying something like that today?
Back then, many people here were down and nearly out, but in came Major Harris and that great 1988 football team to lift up an entire state. For at least a couple of hours each Saturday, our problems were forgotten.
The sheer joy Major brought to the people in the Mountain State - from Weirton to Welch, Martinsburg to Matewan and all points in between as Tony Caridi likes to say - is impossible to calculate.
How many 32-year-old adults walking the Earth today have the first name Major?
How many pets?The dude got write-in votes for governor in 1988 for God's sake!
I posted a thread on Twitter Saturday night asking fans to tweet their favorite memories of Major Harris.
Two days later, they're still coming in.
"I was a true freshman, redshirting during the '89 season. His game vs. South Carolina was the best performance I have EVER seen," former Mountaineer standout safety and Huntington native Michael Collins wrote.
"In the early 90's I was in a 3 on 3 tournament against Major. He dunked on me. Saw him out on the town that night. My buddy said, 'You dunked on my friend over here.' Major said, 'I didn't dunk on nobody.' Then he looks me up and down and said, 'Alright maybe I did,'" tweeted Chris Guyer.
"I went to a summer camp when I was in elementary school that, I believe, was at Cedar Lakes. Major was there as a camp counselor or in some capacity. We all acted like we were meeting a superhero," Bryan Walker said.
"That '88 season was the first time I can remember when a home game wasn't just a game, it was an event," wrote former WVU student Michael Freer. "That's what WVU football felt like back then. You were excited for a Saturday home game on Monday. What a time to be a WVU student."
"The first WVU game I ever went to was the '88 (I think) season opener vs. Bowling Green. I was eight. All I remember is Maj carving up the Falcons and the Eers putting up 62 points. Been a fan ever since," Caleb Wygal wrote.
Then there's this from Richard Clay, "I saw him at Speedway with my son about 15 years ago. He stopped to talk with us. He autographed my son's hat. He is my favorite Mountaineer of all-time (without a doubt). I will believe until my death that an uninjured Major Harris beats ND and we are National Champions."
Christopher Cooper tweeted, "His joy for the game may be the only thing more infectious than his dual-threat skill set. Major was and is and always will be a @WVUfootball legend!"
And, finally, from yikes_d, "Me and my cousin went to (Don) Nehlen's football camp at about the same age. I remember the pizza parties at the end of camp and Major would always come in and speak to us. Giving advice or a funny story. He always encouraged the youth!"
There were several other tweets referencing the well-told story of Major running over to his apartment across the street from the stadium and getting the jacket he was presented at the Heisman Trophy ceremony to give to a sick child who had just been released from WVU Children's Hospital.
The youngster was wandering the hallway at the Facilities Building with his family hoping to meet his idol, Major Harris.
Nobody would have ever known anything about this if not for the fact that Tony Caridi happened to be in the building that day and saw it with his own two eyes.
What Major did was simply the act of a prince.
There are hundreds of more stories like this.
Major Harris' No. 9 may be officially getting retired this Saturday afternoon, but his legacy will forever live on to the thousands of West Virginians who became lifelong Mountaineer football fans after watching him play.
Rich Rodriguez | Dec. 3
Wednesday, December 03
Reid Carrico | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
Jeff Weimer | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
Rich Rodriguez | Nov. 29
Saturday, November 29
