Star just wants to keep fans smiling
On Wednesday, Mission senior Niamey Harris was named the Academic Athletic Association’s boys basketball Player of the Year for the second consecutive season. That came three months after winning the football award from the same San Francisco public school league for a second consecutive time.
Winning both awards in the same school year had never been done before, let alone twice.
Which begs the question: Does the soft-spoken, mild-mannered, 6-foot-2½, 185-pounder have a favorite sport?
“Basketball,” he said. “I love basketball. I love the way it makes me feel when my team wins. I love to make the fans happy. I love seeing everyone smile.”
Nobody wearing the brown and gold has ever elicited such joy while playing those two sports. As a quarterback and defensive back, Harris led Mission to three straight Turkey Day Games — two of which Mission won — and a 27-11 record.
Harris is a four-year starter in basketball, during which time the Bears have gone 104-28 and won three straight San Francisco Section titles. Following a resounding 64-54 semifinal win at top seed St. Ignatius Tuesday, the 33-1 Bears will play for the school’s first Northern California championship Saturday at Vanden-Fairfield in Division 3.
It marks only the fourth time an AAA team has reached the final. Only Washington in 1982 prevailed, before losing in the state final to Carson-Los Angeles. Mission is chasing history.
“That would bring a whole lot of smiles,” Harris said about winning a state title.
Harris has been making people smile since the day he was born 17 years ago, said his oldest sister, Caprisha Moody, a licensed family therapist living in San Leandro. “My mom always wanted a boy, so when Niamey was finally born, it was like, ‘Jackpot.’ ”
But growing up in Hunters Point as an only son, with a single mom and two older sisters, wasn’t easy.
One of his first childhood heroes, recordbreaking Lincoln running back David Henderson, was shot and killed in 2011. Henderson was 21. No arrests have been made.
Harris said he’s lost two friends in the past two months to gun violence.
“It’s hard to sleep some nights,” he said. “You can just be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I just try to stay in my space. Do the right things. Be with my family. Do homework. Get to school. Get to practice. … You have to take out your anger in positive ways.”
Said Moody: “Navigating in the inner city for young males is a major challenge. But he’s had lot of great male mentors. And he’s had his sports.”
He’s had the best of all worlds with the Bears basketball team — his second family — and coach Arnold Zelaya, who celebrated his 48th birthday Friday. He received a card from Harris.
“It said, ‘Happy birthday, Dad,’ ” Zelaya said. “I don’t get real sentimental often, but that got to me.”
Said Harris: “He’s always there for me. For all of us. He’s tough on us, but he believes in us.”
Zelaya, Mission’s dean of students, grew up in San Francisco and is familiar with the neighborhoods. The Bears come from throughout the city: the Fillmore, Potrero Hill, Hunters Point.
“Kids have had to leave the beefs from the streets and come together,” he said. “We’re all lined up wearing the same uniform.”
And Harris, whose is averaging 15.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.6 steals per game this season, is the unquestioned leader. He had a game-high 22 points and a momentumchanging dunk against St. Ignatius.
St. Ignatius coach Rob Marcaletti said the fourth-quarter dunk wasn’t the play that deflated him. It came a few plays later, when a Mission player threw the ball out of bounds.
Harris “just clapped and told his guys, ‘We’re good,’ ” Marcaletti said. “There was no doubt in his voice or manner. He has such a strong, positive presence. He’s such a leader. He just carried Mission and put them on his back.”
Said Zelaya: “If he doesn’t panic, then no one else does. He doesn’t have to say much. Just be Niamey.”