MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — It is almost eerie to think about how Wednesday's Christmas came early for college football recruits across the country, including at West Virginia University, and crossed paths with the untimely, unexpected death of a Pittsburgh Steeler icon, the author of "The Immaculate Reception." Franco Harris.
There were so many messages in the feelings throughout football that ranged for the joy of the young players taking the next step toward trying to carve out their niche in the game that was once ruled by Franco and his Italian Army.
Innocents, they are, filled with more dreams than accomplishments, about to face their first real tests as they travel down life's paths. Some will succeed, more will fail. The most will land in between. In that way football and life are as one.
Some, perhaps, have not even heard of "The Immaculate Reception," which is to celebrate its 50th anniversary this week.
Harris was to be honored for the play that beat the Oakland Raiders in the most improbable, nearly impossible of fashions, a Terry Bradshaw pass seemingly broken up by Jack Tatum only to have the ball ricochet downfield where Harris scooped it up at shoe-top level and ran it in for the game winning score.
That miracle on the final play of the game did not win a Super Bowl but it gave impetus to a Super Bowl franchise. It was the Steeler's first playoff win ever. It injected an aura into the Steeler bloodline and lifted Harris to a place in history that would only grow over the years.
Without that play our world would not become as good a place as it became, because Harris, despite being a member of the hated enemy in Morgantown, where he was part of the yearly muggings Penn State inflicted upon the Mountaineers, became a caring, giving member of the community, that loved him back; not just for the catch, but for all he had done within the community.
Somewhere out there, in this recruiting class, there is probably the next Franco Harris, but first we have to understand that they have a different world to exist in.
They will be tempted with money and with transfer pressures, they will have to endure a lesser role as Harris did at Penn State, being not the star of those great Joe Paterno teams, but the fullback whose first chore was to block for Lydell Mitchell.
If there was a message in that play that Harris would transmit to this year's recruiting classes everywhere, it was this:
"No matter how hopeless something appears ... you don't ever give up. Anything can happen."
That he said a few of years ago in a USA Today article on the anniversary of the catch, noting it was a message that had been ingrained in him by Paterno:
"Go to the ball! Go to the ball!" Paterno would say over and over.
"I know it's hard to believe that was in my head," Harris said. "That's one thing that I did when I first went to practice with the Steelers. When you hear things like that as (a college) player, it kind of just goes through you. But when I got to the next level it was 'What are the things I need to do now that will make me better, that can make difference?'"
He thought of what Paterno said and now visitors to Pittsburgh are greeted in the city with a statue of him making "The Immaculate Reception."
We all have an effect on others and that goes for the new players, the ones Neal Brown will try to mold into winners and champions and people.
He had spent a hectic few days in the final days of recruitment leading up to signing day and there was much going through his mind on Wednesday morning when he awoke and turned on ESPN and learned of Harris' death.
"That's a historical play," Neal Brown began when asked what he would like his recruits to take out of Harris and the play he made. "First off, signing day is a weird day for a coach because you have this uneasiness about signing day.
"Like the night before is uneasy. Even the guys you talked to, and it's good, because it's never good until it's signed and delivered. You get up early, but your work is done by 9 a.m. So I had ESPN in my office and I enjoyed watching the coverage of Franco Harris.
"The thing that really stood out is watching and hearing what his former teammates said about him. That, to me, if the people you played with speak highly of you, then that's really good. For a guy like him who was a leader and a tough guy — he might not be the most popular or the most liked, but he was respected, which is the most important thing."
So many people live their lives for money, for fame, for fun ... but when it comes time to tally it all up, what you have done, how you have done it and what it has meant to those closest to you ... well, that's respect, and it's the one thing Brown believes his new players should gun for as they move their time at WVU and beyond.
