Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca
Trevor Harris enters his second season as the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ starting quarterback prepared in every possible way.
As the face of the team’s offence and the voice in the huddle, Harris goes to great lengths to make sure that he’s not just ready on the field in the physical aspect of his job.
“I’ve worked with a brain trainer. He kind of helped me with (mental obstacles) and I’ve recently been talking to this guy, a mental toughness coach,” Harris said during Mark’s CFL Week in Winnipeg.
Harris fully explained his military-inspired combat training to CFL.ca’s Don Landry last season.
Harris also spent a great portion of the off-season studying leadership, trying to find ways to be better in that compartment in 2018.
“I get pretty good counselling through the books that I read, too,” he said.
“I’m a big time reader. I read books on team culture, I read leadership books. I read a lot of Jon Gordon, some Navy SEAL books.”
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Trevor Harris heads into his second season as a full-time starting quarterback (Chris Hofley/Ottawa REDBLACKS)
Harris finds valuable nuggets in what he reads, but he’s always looking for more information and perspectives.
“Recently one that I read was The Power of Positive Leadership. Right now I’m reading a book called No One Gets There Alone. Shoot, I’ve read Lead for God’s Sake, The Compound Effect, a lot of self-help books,” Harris said.
“They’re ways to make myself a better person, make myself a better teammate and a better leader, is really my aim.”
The self-help route is an important one for Harris, and it paid off for him last year, as he took control of the offence after Henry Burris’ retirement. Harris had a career year in 2017, making 398 of 572 passes for 4,679 yards, 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.
With the REDBLACKS bowing out in the Eastern Semi-Final last year, falling victim to the crossover Saskatchewan Roughriders, Harris is still seeking his first playoff win. Ottawa GM Marcel Desjardins told CFL.ca in January that he thought Harris’ preparation was great.
“Both Xs and Os-wise and just the mental and physical side of it in terms of preparation,” he said.
“A lot of that is off-season work. Every guy has to understand what makes him tick. Coaches and management can help but at the end of the day it comes down to the player. He wants to do those things, but at the same time you try it and if you don’t think it’s beneficial it doesn’t’ mean you continue it. You try to get a feel for what helps you and what doesn’t and why it does or doesn’t and you just evolve from there in terms of your preparation.”
The six-month wait to get this season rolling is finally over for Harris. He was unhappy with his team’s start last season (they were 1-6-1 after eight weeks) and wants to remedy that this year. You can hear the military influence in him when he looked ahead at the season that day in Winnipeg.
“Just in general, football excites me,” he said. “Getting the team together and seeing how we can get everyone to buy into one vision and get everyone to buy into the team vision of us doing things together; collectively we’re better than individually. I’ve always enjoyed that.
“That’s something that I’ve progressed in this off-season, is how I can do that. Because as teams, the greatest team wins the championship, not the individuals. That’s what the really fun thing about it is, how can we do that? How can we become that great team that everyone’s pointing at? That’s our long-term vision.
“We’re using the telescope to see where we want to be, the microscope to do what we need to do today and just (going through) that process of how it gets there.”
