A twin just knows certain things.
Like how to get his brother into just the right wrestling hold at just the right time so as to leave no marks and no evidence.
Like how to tell what his twin is thinking before he gets two words out of his mouth.
Gerald Harris has always known when something’s up with his twin Chris, like when Chris called to tell him last year that in just the second game of his rookie year, he had replaced veteran Mike Green as the Bears’ starting free safety.
Gerald also knew something was wrong last September when he spoke to his brother after Chris had lost his starting spot to rookie Danieal Manning and again when Chris pulled his quad muscle in early October.
But Gerald also learned a little something about his brother during those down times that put him on the inactive list for five games this season.
“He was down for about a minute about it,” Gerald said, “but he stayed positive the entire time, battling the quad injury and a high ankle sprain and when he was out of the lineup. For him to stay positive was great because there were points where I could see him say this season just might not be my season, but he never did. For that alone, I’m proud of him.”
After two years of experiencing seemingly all the ups and downs an NFL career can offer, Harris finds himself on the cusp of the biggest game of his life and at the hub of potentially the most compelling spot on the field Sunday.
That’s because New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, elusive rookie running back Reggie Bush and surprising rookie wide receiver Marques Colston undoubtedly will put the heat on the Bears’ secondary.
Harris, who started at strong safety last week, where he has been since Week 12 in place of the injured and still-recovering Todd Johnson, said that pressure is fine with him.
“I love it, man. That’s what you play this game for,” he said. “Danieal and I have done a pretty good job eliminating the big plays these last couple of games. That’s the big thing. If we don’t give up the big play, we don’t lose. Point blank.”
A sixth-round draft choice out of Louisiana-Monroe, Harris still has trouble grasping that he is in this position at all.
“I never, ever dreamed about this as kid,” Harris said. “I know how a lot of players in this league say this was their dream, but my dream was to play in the major leagues. It’s funny how things change.”
Charles and Fannie Harris, now-retired educators who worked with juvenile delinquents for 28 years, raised four children–the twins have two older sisters, Lolita and Shaundra–in Little Rock, Ark., where the boys gravitated to baseball. Chris was a talented center fielder, but in junior high and high school, his second-biggest love was the trumpet, where he was first chair in the orchestra and got on the football field mostly as a member of the marching band. He played football only one season in high school.
“He has a great ear for music,” Charles Harris said. “He used to play the national anthem at games sometimes. He really thought that was going to be his career.”
Harris says he planned to attend college on a music scholarship.
But the twins also wanted to make the most of their high school careers, and after being coaxed by friends and coaches, decided to try football their senior season.
“My brother and I talked,” Harris said, “and we were like, `What the heck, let’s try everything.'”
At once, Harris remembered what he loved most about football from junior high. And his father remembered the kickoff return that spurred it.
“He had the potential when he was younger, but some kind of light had to go on,” Charles said. “Then once, when he was in 6th grade, we kicked off and he made a big hit on the return man, and that hit right there just turned the light on.”
His son remembered the hit.
“I don’t know what it is;I can’t explain it,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not a violent person. I just love to hit.”
The twins went their separate ways for college–Gerald heading off to the University of Memphis, where he now is close to completing his master’s degree in administration, and Chris going to the only Division I-A school that offered him a scholarship.
“It really started to become a reality of how good he was his junior year when they were playing Ole Miss in the first game of season and he picked off Eli Manning on a deep ball,” Gerald recalled. “He was all over the place that game, and I started to realize that maybe he can take this somewhere. But it was kind of one of those things where it was still a long shot.
“I don’t think it really hit me until the day he called me last season and told me I’m going to be in the starting lineup for the first time.”
A sprained knee kept Harris out of two games late in the ’05 season, but he led the team with a career-high 11 tackles against Carolina in the Bears’ playoff loss and came into this season with high hopes. Maybe too high, his father worried.
“As a young person, that opportunity is always there [to lose perspective],” he said. “You just hope and pray, do the best you can do as a parent and just trust in your teaching and his upbringing that he’ll keep his head on straight. I keep attempting to drill into him that it’s not him, that the Lord showed favoritism in giving him the gifts he has and he has to recognize his purpose and utilize his platform to help others.”
He need not have worried.
Last June before heading to Bears training camp, Harris was one of a group of NFL players to travel with the USO on a 12-day trip to visit American military personnel stationed in Afghanistan.
“That opened my eyes a lot and made me view things in a totally different way,” said Harris, who still keeps in e-mail contact with a few soldiers he met and would like to go on a similar trip to Iraq this summer, possibly with teammates Tommie Harris and Charles Tillman.
“The temperatures were up to about 120, and just seeing what those troops were going through in full fatigues, boots, with M-16s strapped on their backs all day long, makes you realize how easy we have it. I said I would never complain about training camp again.”
Nor would he complain about being demoted to the second team the season’s second week.
“To come in and start as a rookie for 13 games last season, then come in my second season and have my starting job taken away, it made me grow up quick, real quick,” he said.
“When it first happened, I was kind of bummed out about it, pretty upset, as anybody would be, and I took it kind of hard for a second. But then I took a deep breath, a step back, and decided if coaches felt that was best, I’d go on the practice field and get better. Dealing with adversity is all a part of life, especially life in the NFL. In two years, it all came back full circle.”
Harris has ended up seeing plenty of action with the injuries to Johnson and Mike Brown.
“The way this league is, you have to have heart, you have to adapt and I definitely give him respect for that,” cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. said.
Gerald Harris was in Chicago with his brother and mother last week before returning to Memphis, but he doesn’t have to be in the same room as his brother to know how he feels.
“It’s just one of those things being around someone for 24 years, they can’t hide too much from you, and Chris is happy a lot right now,” he said. “I can feel him smiling right through the phone.”
