South Lake alum talks on bullying
Jonotthan Harrison: ‘It’s like a permanent brand inside of me.’
SPORTS
No matter how long Jonotthan Harrison plays in the NFL, he can’t shake the image of a group of neighborhood boys getting on top of him and pummeling him.
Sometimes the New York Jets center still can hear taunts about his size or about how he rode a bus for those with special needs. Because his school in the tiny Lake County town of Mascotte did not offer advanced classes, Harrison — who, tests showed, had a high IQ — had one way to get to a school two cities over that did.
Even when he was a freshman at South Lake High School, Harrison said upperclassmen occasionally pinned him down and struck him with objects.
“My mindset was, ‘Hey, if I can just endure this long enough, eventually we can become friends. Let me not fight back,’ ” Harrison said. “I didn’t have that mean streak in me at that age. I wasn’t really confident. I wasn’t really tough when I was younger, so people really exploited that.”
Harrison, 28, is among the 32 nominees (one for each team) for the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. The winner will be announced in Miami during the “NFL Honors” program, beginning at 8 on Saturday night on Fox.
The announcement will come a day before the San Francisco 49ers (15-3) and
Kansas City Chiefs (14-4) meet in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium.
A global ambassador for the nonprofit Stomp Out Bullying, the former UF lineman spoke with the Sentinel.
Q: Did people dismiss the bullying you incurred because of your size?
A: “Yes. It’s like, ‘He’s a big kid. He’s fine. He should be the bully.’ Blah, blah, blah. I don’t believe that at all.
“Even in my adult life, if I’m at a bar hanging out, it’s typically the biggest guy in the bar that someone wants to mess with. It’s the weirdest thing. Me not being a violent person and my family not promoting violence, I just became the easiest target.”
“I am the way I am now partly because of bullying. Whether it’s image issues or confidence issues, it’s like a permanent brand inside of me.”
— Jonotthan Harrison, New York Jets center
Q: How does being bullied stick with you? A: “We’re talking about this like seven or eight years after I grew out of this bullying phase. Eventually I just realized I was using it as fuel to my fire without even noticing. As soon as I got on the football field, this was my fuel.
“Everybody who told me I couldn’t and everyone who tried to hold me back and gave me a hard time, this is me proving to myself, first and foremost, and then proving the naysayers and the people who tried to restrict my growth wrong as well.”
Q: What do people who never have been bullied not understand?
A: “I don’t think they understand how deeply detrimental it is. I am the way I am now partly because of bullying. Deep inside, there’s things that resonate with me almost on a daily basis from my past. Whether it’s image issues or confidence issues, it’s like a permanent brand inside of me.”
Q: How much has social media made bullying worse for children today? A: “A hundred-and-thirty percent. I don’t have any kids yet, but I’m terrified for my children when they come into this world because of the advances in social media.
“If someone feels confident enough to post a picture of herself, maybe a girl who is feeling pretty today, there is going to be somebody who says, ‘Oh, look at her makeup or look at her hair.’ Those things affect the individual from developing normally. We shouldn’t have to change the way we look to be accepted.”
Q: Last year, a young boy in Altamonte Springs was bullied at school because of a hand-drawn shirt he wore supporting his favorite team, the University of Tennessee. (For being a Walter Payton Man of the Year finalist, Harrison was awarded $40,000 to donate to a charity of his choice. He selected Stomp Out Bullying, helping raising $1 million for the organization through sales of that T-shirt.) How did that episode affect you?
A: “I was devastated. This can’t be real life. It’s so insensitive of people to make fun of someone who’s just trying to fit in.
“There was a kid I went to middle school with. His family wasn’t well off, and he would wear the same shoes for years on end with holes in them. People would give him a hard time. Granted, he was pretty tough, and the comments didn’t seem to affect him. But thinking back [it’s] like, ‘Why should we be evil or cruel to each other?’ ”
Q: How do we begin to eradicate bullying? A: “It takes everyone buying in and committing to the cause. We should try to push more positive reinforcement for people doing good deeds and good acts.
“Reward the people who are doing the right thing, so people can see that this is how we should handle things. It starts in the schools, with the youth of today, because they are the future.
“Social media is huge with kids nowadays. That might be the best way to start. We start sending things, and posts go viral or hashtags, whatever it is. Just more of that to overemphasize this issue.”