Determination helped safety Erik Harris overcome hardships to land with Raiders.
He made chips, worked at UPS before cracking Raiders’ roster
In three decades as a college football head coach, John Luckhardt recalls receiving a number of letters from parents writing him about their sons.
The one sent to him about 10 years ago from a New Oxford, Pa., mother named Christine Higgins, he says, was different.
Higgins wrote about the second of her six children, Erik Harris — not only his high school athletic exploits but the role he played at home helping raise four younger brothers. What resonates with Luckhardt today when he thinks about the Raiders safety is the same thing that came to mind when their paths first crossed at California University of Pennsylvania — and it encompasses much more than football.
“I just think he exemplifies
what you’d like to call the American experiment,” Luckhardt said in a phone call. “He created a small opportunity and at every level he’s improved that to greater opportunities. And it’s not been an easy task for him along the way.”
Lightly recruited out of high school and undrafted out of college, Harris’ journey to the NFL included a year out of organized football, jobs at a potato chip factory and with UPS and three years playing in the Canadian Football League. He tore his ACL as an NFL rookie. Now 28, Harris is entering his second season with the Raiders and, according to head coach Jon Gruden, is in contention for a starting safety job.
That determination, Higgins said, is something she recognized in her son at an early age. His nickname in youth football was Whiplash “because that was how he hit,” she said. A few times, Higgins tried broaching the subject of careers besides sports with her son.
“He was like, ‘Mom, I don’t need to think about that, because I’m going to play in the NFL,’ ” Higgins said by phone. “He would say that all the time. And I would just drop the subject, because he really didn’t want to talk about it. He had his mind set.”
Higgins worked for 15 years in an Utz potato chip factory, often on the night shift. After her oldest child and only daughter moved away, Higgins said, “Erik took over where she left off ” watching the younger siblings.
“He would make sure we were in bed on time, do the dishes, take out the trash, straighten up the house for my mom,” said Aaron Brown, at 23 the next-oldest after Harris. “Because when she came home in the morning she wasn’t trying to do all that.
“I always looked at Erik as more than just a brother. None of us really had our fathers in our lives growing up. So he was always that role model. Growing up I wanted to be just like him.”
Harris starred at New Oxford High School in football and track and field, and Higgins expected that colleges would come calling. But contact from Division I schools fizzled and Harris ended up with more scholarship offers for track than football. Higgins suspects SAT scores played a part but said: “The right people, I guess, just didn’t know of him.”
So Higgins decided to introduce them. She wrote a letter, packaged it with Harris’ newspaper clippings and a highlight tape and sent it off to the California (Pa.) coaching staff.
“She kept saying, ‘There’s no way it can end like this,’ ” Harris said.
She was right. By the time Luckhardt saw the materials, California (Pa.) had used its scholarship money for the coming season. But the program accepted Harris as a preferred walk-on and he became an all-conference defensive back for the Division II Vulcans, even punting as a senior.
Harris took off spring of his senior year to prepare for the NFL draft. But he wasn’t drafted, no team signed him as an undrafted rookie and he received zero invites to rookie minicamps. So it was back to Pennsylvania, where he got a summer job at an Utz chip factory in Hanover.
His job title, he learned the first day, was: “Corn mixer.”
“I’m like, ‘What’s a corn mixer?’ ” Harris recalls. “And everyone just looked at me. I had the worst job in the whole factory. It was miserable.”
Every 30 minutes, Harris poured 50-pound bags of corn flour into a mixer and pushed the flour down. Days lasted 11 hours and temperatures in the room reached 110 degrees.
“I didn’t think he would stick with it,” Higgins said. “And I was kind of concerned, him working in the heat like that.
“He said, ‘Nope. I started, I want to finish it.’ And he did. He hung in there.”
As a positive, Harris said, he emerged from the summer in “great shape.” He also got a glimpse at where he did not want to end up.
“I went back to school and I actually made dean’s list for the first time,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I’m going to school, I’m sitting front row and I’m all passing all these classes.’ ”
While in school, Harris said, he got a job as a part-time supervisor at UPS, working from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. In spring 2013, he heard about a freeagent tryout for the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, drove five hours to Buffalo, N.Y., and paid the $80 fee to try out. Three days later, he was offered a contract.
“I didn’t have an agent at the time so I signed for whatever they threw at me,” Harris said. “I was expecting twins at the time, too, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take whatever.’ ”
Harris played three seasons for the Tiger-Cats. Then-defensive coordinator Orlondo Steinauer said Harris broke in with special teams “and worked hard at it until he became a starter — and then he still didn’t take himself off special teams.”
Steinauer recalled Harris as a versatile defender who even played some tight end. In one 2014 game, Harris recorded a sack, an interception and a touchdown catch on offense.
In February 2016, Harris got his NFL break, signing a reserve/future contract with the Saints. Said Steinauer: “We knew that if he got a real opportunity, he wasn’t coming back.”
Harris played in four games in 2016 before injuring his knee, was waived by New Orleans in September 2017 and signed with the Raiders shortly thereafter. He played in 15 games with five tackles last season but could be in for a bigger role this year.
In June, Gruden said Harris had been “stunning” in spring workouts. Gruden backed up that statement early in camp, saying of Harris: “Right now, he has a chance to be a fulltime starter for the Oakland Raiders.”
A potential snag occurred the first week when Harris fractured his right index finger jamming receiver Jordy Nelson at the line. Harris missed just three days of practice and has played since with the finger wrapped. As safeties Marcus Gilchrist and Obi Melifonwu dealt with injuries, Harris recognized the opportunity before him.
“I’m 28,” he said. “So I felt like this was a big year for me to get that special teams label off me. … I want to let people know that I do have something to offer on the defensive side of the ball.”
Luckhardt, who has retired from coaching, said he still follows Harris and occasionally updates former college teammates of his progress.
“If there’s anybody that you’d like to root for to make it, and to have success, this is a kid that deserves it,” Luckhardt said. “He’s created his own opportunities. He’s not asked for anything. He’s not expected anybody to hand him anything.”
Brown, the younger brother, who was lightly recruited out of New Oxford High, is now a defensive back at California (Pa.), following a familiar path. He said Harris recently asked for his game film to analyze.
“Seeing his path and things he’s been through … it’s very encouraging, gives me a lot of hope,” Brown said. “Because obviously, I have the same dreams as he does.”
Higgins said she can’t remember Harris getting discouraged at any point in his road to the NFL.
“He always seemed real driven,” Higgins said. “Every little setback just made him work harder. He felt like he had something to prove.”
Fittingly, with Harris, that applies off the field as well. Harris and his wife Theresa are expecting their fourth child in September. The family still lives in Louisiana, which Harris acknowledged is “not easy for us” during the season but “keeps me driven.”
“She basically sacrificed her future plans, to be a mom and hold our family together while I’m out here kind of living my dream,” Harris said of his wife. “And we’re doing it together.
“I give a lot of credit to my mom. Just growing up without a dad, I always said I was going to be there for my kids and I was going to give them what I never had. Thank God and praise the Lord, I’m in a situation to do that.”