Harris ready to take the Grey Cup stage
REGINA — On the day before perhaps the biggest game of his hall-of-fame-bound career, Andrew Harris had the clock turned back for him.
“It looks like he’s 25-years old again,” Toronto Argonauts head coach Ryan Dinwiddie said on Saturday, after his team had completed its walkthrough and final practice of the season.
Told that Dinwiddie had whittled 10 years off of him, the running back was enthused.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
“This is the time that you play for, that you get ready for. Before the season this is what your goal is in training camp and we’re here. Even when I was in junior and we’d come to Saskatoon and play and it was minus-20 C or something outside and I was out there running around trying to set a tone and an attitude, an energy and just have fun with it.”
109th Grey Cup
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If he’s practised with the energy of a 25-year-old, Harris is hanging onto the wisdom that’s accumulated through his 12-year career. That run has seen him lift the Grey Cup three times and establish himself as one of the greatest players — Canadian or otherwise — the league has seen.
He heads into the 109th Grey Cup game as its central storyline. In a nutshell:
- A Winnipegger that signed with his hometown team in 2016
- Led them to back-to-back Grey Cups in 2019 and 2021
- Found the business side of the game waiting for him in free agency in 2022
- Signed a contract with the Argos with a sour taste still swirling in his mouth
- Helps get that new team to the Grey Cup, where he or the Blue Bombers will three-peat on Sunday
- Oh, and he recovered from a career-threatening torn pectoral muscle to play in the Eastern Final
That’s a lot for Harris to carry into his fourth Grey Cup appearance. Time heals some wounds, whether we want them to or not. Harris didn’t rule out tapping into those feelings to a point on Sunday.
“Getting to this point, maybe (I’m) tapping into that,” Harris said.
“When I get on the field, once kickoff goes and whoever gets the ball, once they get up there for that first offensive play all you need to worry about is is executing. I’m not worried about anything else. Honouring my teammates, playing for my teammates, making plays. That’s that’s all that matters to me. I’m not worried about them (the Blue Bombers) or anything else.”
Harris has been an open book this season. He’s told reporters he’s considering retiring and exploring coaching, depending on the outcome of this game. He spoke freely about what he felt when the Bombers told him they wouldn’t look to re-sign him as a free agent and when he put his name to an Argos’ contract quickly after.
If there’s one player on his team that can relate to all of that, it’s Brandon Banks. The 34-year-old receiver spent this first eight years of his career with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and was also looking for a new team as a free agent this year.
Banks had his day in the sun with his former team when he had 80 receiving yards, four on the ground and a pair of touchdowns at Tim Hortons Field in a rout of a win over the Ticats.
“To be honest, man, it felt good,” Banks said, thinking back on finding the end zone the ways that he did.
“You know how it went in Hamilton. I just wanted to let people know how I am. I like to prove people wrong. I play with a chip on my shoulder. Getting in the end zone twice was a pretty good feeling for me. Winning was a good feeling for me. Satisfying, it was fun.”
Harris plays with that chip on his shoulder too and has basked in proving his doubters or critics wrong over the years. Banks sees that in his newfound teammate.
“Andrew’s a vet, he’s played hundreds of games. He’s probably a little more emotional about it but it’ll be no different for him,” Banks said. “He’s a professional athlete, he does all the right things. He’s been a champion before, he’ll handle it very well.”
Harris will be surrounded by a variety of motivating factors on game day. While he lines up against his former team with a chance to take the Grey Cup from them, he’ll have family watching him as well. His 14-year-old daughter Hazel, who Harris said shies away from the cold, will be in the stands at Mosaic to support him. His newborn son, Axton, will be just 10-days old on Sunday, but he’ll be there as well.
“I think what really makes him special is that he’s got that championship DNA,” said Argos’ quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson. He pointed to Harris’ recovery from his torn pectoral muscle.
“It’s incredible what he’s done and I can’t imagine what he’s gone through,” he said.
“He went through the the range of emotions from the game being taken away from from his career potentially being done. To be in that darkest moment. You know, people can spend years there. They can spend the rest of their life in that moment. Instantly, he just snapped out of it. And I’m sure he had those moments but he snapped out of it.
“It’s just a testament to his is humanity, his ability as leader. He’s an old soul. To fight back physically and get back to a place where he can play and play at a high level, it’s one of the most incredible things I’ve seen.”
Harris’ career has shown that he thrives on big stages and is fully capable of lifting his team to wins. Upending his former team’s three-peat bid could stand as the greatest chapter of his story.
“Another person kind of comes out, another gear comes out of me,” Harris said of those big stage moments.
“I just excel in these big stakes games and big moments. At this point now in my career, that may be the case tomorrow. Maybe I have to show myself in a different way: as a leader, keeping guys focused. I’m ready for whatever comes my way tomorrow, and I just can’t wait to seize the opportunity.”
