Family fears for missing ex-Coug Harris

Concerned by lack of response and exposure, the family of missing basketball star Tony Harris wants to go to Brazil in hopes of finding the player themselves.

Harris, who made his athletic name at Garfield High in Seattle and Washington State, signed a month-to-month contract to play in Brasilia, the capital city in central Brazil. But the last his family in Seattle heard from him was a phone call on Nov. 4, when Lori Harris, his wife of two years, said he feared for his safety.

Lori Harris has tried to get assistance from the Brazilian government and local government, yet officials seem disinterested in the case, she said. She has only recently been offered help from Tony’s team, with housing for her stepfather and his friend once they make the trip to Brazil. Lori, a social worker, will remain in Kent because she is expecting the couple’s first child in December.

“If I wasn’t pregnant, I would have been down there a week ago,” she said in a phone interview. “My biggest hope is that they can be a thorn in the side of the consulate and the media. They can be there every day saying, ‘What are you doing, what’s the plan?’ And my husband knows my stepdad very well, so maybe just seeing his face on the news – if my husband is hiding because he’s scared – he’ll see he has family there and that it’s safe for him. He can come home.”

Tony, who’ll turn 37 this month, was unemployed and joined the Brazilian team as a way to make money for his family, which includes his 14-year-old son, his wife said. He starred in Brazil from 2000-05, earning Player of the Year honors and winning a championship for Uberlandia before retiring.

Harris’ current team is owned by the same organization but has a different coach. The previous coach and Harris had a shaky relationship, according to Lori, and upon Tony’s return to Brazil on Oct. 31, he learned he might be in trouble.

The former coach wasn’t happy that Harris had left the team in the middle of the 2005 season, she said.

“He found that the coach had made some statements about him that made him feel like it could maybe impact his ability to do well,” she said. “It might upset people and might even put him in harm’s way.”

On Friday (Nov. 2), “He called me and said, ‘I need to come home,’ “Lori said.

Since his passport was being held by the team, Harris was prevented from taking an immediate flight out of the country. Until a replacement passport could be obtained, his plan was to wait at a friend’s house, a two-day trip to northern Brazil. Erika Abdulmassih, the Brazilian friend, had befriended Harris at the hotel where Harris used to live, Lori said. Two days later, on Nov. 4, Harris called to tell Lori that he was in a taxi for an eight-hour drive to meet a bus, where he’d take a 20-hour ride to meet Abdulmassih, communicating with Lori on the taxi driver’s cellphone.

Lori was told later that the taxi driver stopped for gas in a small town. He left the car to get some food, while Harris waited.

Then sirens went off.

“It’s still unclear to me whether they (the police) were driving by or whether they stopped, but Tony was just gone,” Lori said. “His laptop computer, credit cards and personal effects were left. It’s a nightmare. Erika called me Monday morning and was like, ‘Where is he?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ “

Lori Harris said since then she has received two unconfirmed sightings of her husband.

Harris, a guard, led an unlikely 1994 Cougars team to the NCAA tournament, where WSU lost in the first round to Boston College 67-64. He went on to play in Cypress and South America.

The family described his Brazilian popularity as rock-star-like, in an interview on radio station KKNW Tuesday afternoon. His photograph hung on restaurant walls and there were always autograph seekers surrounding Harris, Lori said.

The lack of communication is uncharacteristic of Harris, she said.

Calls by The Times to the Brazilian embassy in Washington, D.C., were not returned.

The family is trying to raise airfare for the trip to Brazil to investigate on their own.

“It’s very disheartening because my husband gave his life to Brazil,” Lori said. “He won championships for them and loved his team. This is how you repay him?”