By James A. McCray III
Prince George’s County, Content Manager
Society tends to believe that when the body is in pain, the logical thought would be to purchase painkillers.
However, in the case of Westlake senior linebacker and running back Evan Harris, a painkiller was far from his mind Thursday night at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, home of the 3A state championship game.
Yes, Harris played with a broken left hand, yes he had broke it 13 days prior to the state title game, yes it was in a cast and heavily taped, but no, the senior was not going to miss a chance to play for a state title.
Harris originally noticed the problem in his left hand during the 3A South regional championship game against Lackey on Nov. 21.
“I knew something was wrong with it,” Harris said. “I thought I dislocated my finger, so I was moving it around just thinking I was putting it back in place. On the next offensive series, I got hit on it and that is when I knew something was wrong.
“I came out and couldn’t move [my hand]. But, I said, ‘We can’t lose this game, so let’s put some tape on it and let’s go.'”
Harris finished the Lackey game with 10 tackles as Westlake went on to win that game in the late stages.
The next day, instead of resting and preparing for a trip to the state semi-final game, Harris was in a doctor’s office waiting to hear a final word on if he would be cleared to play.
Even though the news was grim at first, Harris was in no way ready to end his high-school career in a doctor’s office as opposed to on a football field.
“They said they were not going to let me play at first,” Harris explained. “I had begged them, got on my knees, tears coming down my face. It is my senior year, it meant so much to me and it has for these last three years. I had to step up, and I couldn’t let down my brothers.”
Harris has done no sorts of letting down his Westlake brethren as he was the unequivocal leader of the Westlake defense throughout the 2008 football season. Not just a leader on the defensive side of the ball, but Harris was the overall team captain.
“Evan is a hard-working player,” Westlake running back Devon Smith said. “He is the captain of the entire team. … No one even knew he had a broken hand in the Lackey game because he was doing everything he was supposed to do.
“He would walk around school complaining about his hand, but when it is game time, Evan came through.”
On what it meant to him on a more personal note, Smith added: “It meant a lot to me. Not many kids, not many players can do that, especially with a broken hand. He kept playing the same way and he held our defense down.”
Harris did in fact hold the defense down as he totaled 13 tackles and forced a fumble in the 24-21 overtime victory at Seneca Valley in the 3A state semi-final game that earned Westlake the trip to Baltimore.
Thursday night was the pinnacle for all of the Westlake Wolverines, in particular the seniors, as a 13-0 victory against Wilde Lake of Howard County earned the Wolverines its first-ever football state championship.
Despite playing with his left hand padded just as heavily as his the shoulder pads underneath his No. 17 jersey, Harris earned 11 tackles and forced a fumble in the defensive shutout and indeed playing through the pain to earn all of the pleasure of being named a state champion.
“Well, actually I wasn’t in any pain at all this game, or in the Seneca game,” Harris said.
When asked does his feel any lingering pain in that left hand after earning the state championship, Harris simply added: “It doesn’t even matter.”
And in turn Harris went a long way in proving that the best painkiller may truly be a state championship.
tmccray@digitalsports.com
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