PITTSBURGH — Like most people in this region, I woke up Wednesday to the sad and shocking news that Pittsburgh Steelers legend Franco Harris died at some point early that morning.
It was sad because death is always sad but especially in this case because Harris was about to embark on three days of celebrations, banquets, parties and receptions dedicated to him and his life and all that culminated with a big jersey retirement party on Saturday night at Acrisure Stadium. This was the week of the 50th anniversary of the "Immaculate Reception," and there were plenty of events scheduled leading up to the game Saturday between the Steelers and Raiders.
This was supposed to be his time. He was supposed to be with us for all of these celebrations. He was supposed to get to enjoy being the toast of the region.
It just didn't seem fair that he was gone, that he will miss it all and that he will not get to join his former teammates, friends, coaches, fans, business partners and the many, many people he has helped in some way through all of his charitable and community projects. Harris was far more than a football player, far more than a community leader, far more than just one heckuva nice guy, and he leaves a legacy as someone who made the world a better place pretty much every day he was on the planet.
This was also shocking because I swear we just saw Harris on TV doing multiple interviews, doing multiple appearances and looking every bit as fit and healthy as he was 50 years ago when he made the Immaculate Reception and became an instant Steelers legend. He was getting bombarded with requests, I am sure, and in true Harris fashion, he was trying to meet all of them. Every time I turned on the TV or looked on one of the social media apps in recent days, it seemed I saw him.
How could he go from seemingly being so healthy and vibrant and full of life to no longer with us in one day? I suppose if there is some lesson for all of us to be learned — and Harris embodied this — it is to make every single day count because you never know which day will be your last. The fact Harris was still visible, involved and active just a handful of hours before he died tells me he made every minute count.
He didn't waste a day of his life, but he also made sure his life wasn't just about himself but about all of those around him. We've heard so many times: "Franco was a Hall of Fame player, but he was even greater than that as a person," and it is true. I've never heard anyone who actually knows Harris have a bad word to say about him, and my interactions with him were always exceptional.
Harris was a role model to many in this region, but to me, he helped me develop a pride in my heritage and who I was and could become.
You often hear people say, "It is important for kids to have role models that look like them," and for me, that was Franco Harris. I was born in 1970, the son of an Italian woman named Mary Jo and an African-American named Ed. In 1970, well, it was tough for mixed-race couples to make it. My parents were extremely young, so they put me up for adoption because they believed it was the best thing to do in a world where nobody really wanted them to be together.
I never really understood it early in life, but as I grew older and looked back, the 1970s were awkward times for race relations in this country. The civil rights movement had just happened, was still happening, and there was a lot of mistrust between races, a lot of misplaced anger and a lot of struggles with things like integrated schools and neighborhoods and sports teams.
Me, I was adopted at birth by a German-Irish family, and my mom and dad, Clarence and Lois, did everything in their power to make me feel welcome in this world. We lived in a white community, but they did everything they could to connect me with African Americans and people who looked like me or had similar experiences to me. My dad is the greatest role model in the world and he taught me everything I know about life, but the one thing he couldn't teach me was how to be half-Italian and half-African American in a world that wasn't really ready to embrace people that looked like me.
That's why I never felt comfortable in my skin. It was hard to fit in and at times felt like many people didn't want to accept me.
I couldn't, at least in my mind, and there were times when I hated my skin color, even tried washing it off so I could look like those around me. It can be to be a mixed-race child now, even in these way more enlightened times, but in the 1970s, it was extremely hard. You were an outsider to all the races and back then, because of the times, it wasn't good to not feel like you had a home.
Then, along came Franco Harris, and my mom, Lois, was an artist and drew a little portrait of him in his Steelers uniforms but highlighting the fact his mom was Italian and his dad was African American. In other words, he "looked like me," the same mixture of races that I was, and here he was, a sports star who is loved and embraced by all.
I was only 2 at the time of the Immaculate Reception, so I don't remember it, but by the time the Steelers became a dynasty, I was old enough to have sports heroes. You better believe my first one was Franco Harris. And it was more than just, "He was the Steelers star running back," for me, it was, "He looks like me and he might be the coolest man on the planet, and that means I can be cool, as well." It really helped me even up through my teenage years to have a role model like Harris to look up to when feelings of being an outsider looking in began to take root.
That's why, even though there are many other Steelers stars from that era I was growing up in the 1970s with, Harris was always at the top of my list. And the best part is I got a chance on numerous occasions to meet him, to talk to him and to observe how he carried himself. It always reinforced what I believed when I was young — he was a true superstar and a great man whose life all of us should want to emulate.
You know how it is when you are a kid trying to fit in — being cool is as important as just about anything else. Harris made it cool for a young kid like me, who is half-Italian, half-African American, and it really helped me embrace who I was. And quite frankly, I have always tried to instill that same sense of pride in being a mixed-race person to youngsters all over who may have gone through many of the same issues in terms of coming to grips with their place in this world.
The coolest part of this is later in life I got a chance to meet and connect with my birth parents, and I learned my mom, Mary Jo, was a huge fan of Harris, too. It is something we were able to talk about and have in common from the first day we met and of course she, too, has always had an extra place in her heart for him. Yeah, I know it sounds like a Lifetime movie or an Oprah episode, but for me, it is reality, and Harris was always the role model I needed for someone who embraced his ethnicity and didn't let it hold him back.
We, collectively, as a city, a community, a fan base are all sad right now because we all lost a friend and a role model. Even if you didn't know Harris, even if you never knew him, there was so much good about him that he felt a like a friend. We loved to cheer for him, and that included all of his life after football. He loved to give back to the community as much, maybe more, as he liked to be celebrated.
Harris means a lot of things to a lot of people. To this native of western Pennsylvania and lifelong Steelers fan, he meant a whole lot more.
