Reunited In Spirit Ewu Defender Just Getting To Know Brother Who Died On WSU Field

Occasionally, Ed Harris asks himself if it’s possible to miss someone you never knew. And with each story he hears about his oldest brother, Spud, he becomes more convinced you can.

“It’s funny how you run into people and hear them talk about your own brother you never really knew,” admitted Harris, a senior defensive end for Eastern Washington University. “They know a lot more about him than me and it seems weird. But as people explain little things about him, it helps me understand him.

“He sounds like he was a nice guy - somebody I would have liked knowing.”

Hayward “Spud” Harris collapsed and died on the football practice field at Washington State University on Aug. 22, 1979. An autopsy performed the day after the tragedy failed to pinpoint the cause of death.

“His heart just stopped beating, I guess,” said Ed, who was barely 3 years old and too young to forge memories of how Spud would roughhouse with him on the living-room floor of their Tacoma home whenever he returned from college.

Mark Smaha, who was in his second year as an athletic trainer at WSU, vividly recalls the events leading up to Spud Harris’ death.

“It was in the first 20 minutes of practice,” Smaha said. “We had just gone through stretching and warmups. He had hardly broken a sweat.”

Spud, a standout wrestler and football player at Lakes High School, was a 6-foot-4, 273-pound senior letterwinner and projected starter at defensive end. He was running through drills with the other defensive linemen on the two-man blocking sled. Smaha was about 40 yards away tending to one of Harris’ teammates, who had just suffered a concussion.

“All of a sudden I heard somebody yell, ‘Trainer!”’ Smaha recalled. “It was kind of strange, because I instinctively had a sense there was something really wrong.”

When Smaha got to Harris, he was on his hands and knees with his head hanging down.

“He wasn’t lying on the ground like you would expect,” Smaha said. “He was in kind of a convulsive state, so I got down on my hands and knees and looked into his eyes and yelled at him, but he didn’t respond.”

Smaha said he proceeded to roll Harris onto his back and started cardiopulmonary resuscitation - to no avail.

“His heart had just flat-out stopped,” Smaha concluded, “and there was nothing in the autopsy the next day that revealed an enlarged heart or any pre-existing conditions.

“I don’t know - if the same circumstances would have occurred with the technology we have today - if we could have determined something more definitive or not, but at the time there was nothing.”

Brothers become a concern

Spud Harris’ death was as confusing as it was shocking. And it left his grief-stricken parents, Thomas and Gloria Harris, facing some difficult decisions about the athletic futures of their three other sons - including Ed, the “baby” of the family.

Was the problem hereditary? Could it happen again? Should they hold their other sons out of sports, despite their obvious talents?

Gloria Harris, an instructional aide at Oakbrook Elementary School in Tacoma, said she and her husband, a retired army veteran who served two tours of duty as a ground soldier in Vietnam, carefully considered all of the potential consequences. They had each of their three sons undergo thorough physical checkups when they were young.

But they eventually decided to let Thomas Jr., Anthony and Ed pursue their athletic dreams.

“We felt like when it’s your time, you’re going to leave here, no matter what,” Gloria Harris explained. “You could walk out and get hit by a car, or whatever. I couldn’t hold them back from doing what they wanted just because of the unfortunate thing that happened to their older brother.

“So, I just put my trust in the Lord and he brought ‘em on through. “

All three of Spud Harris’ younger brothers went on to participate in various sports in high school. Thomas Jr., 26, was an all-state football player and later played defensive end at Yakima Valley Community College and Pacific Lutheran University. Anthony, 25, was also a multi-sport prep standout, but went into the military out of high school.

Ed, a football and track star at Steilacoom and a two-year letterwinner at Eastern, will make his 10th start on the Eagles’ defensive line in Saturday night’s 6:35 non-conference matchup against Eastern Oregon at Woodward Field.

At 21, he is the same age as Spud when he died. But he spends little time worrying about whether he might be destined to suffer a similar fate.

“Sure, you think about stuff,” Harris admitted, “but I really don’t let it get to me. It’s something, that if it happens, I can’t do anything about, anyway. I just have to play my game, do what I have to do on the field and hope God watches over me.”

EWU coach remembers Spud

Eastern coach Mike Kramer, after closing his college football career as an offensive and defensive lineman at Idaho in 1975, met Spud Harris the following year. Harris was a sophomore at WSU and Kramer was an assistant coach and student teacher in his hometown of Colton.

“Let’s just say Spud and I were in certain social situations together,” Kramer said. “We weren’t real close friends, but he knew who I was and I knew who he was.”

Kramer didn’t make the connection between Spud and Ed Harris until he made an in-home recruiting visit during Ed’s senior year in high school.

“I was going to sit down and I noticed a picture of Spud with (former WSU coach) Jim Walden hanging on the wall,” Kramer recalled. “I got all excited and told his mom and dad how I had known Spud. We conversed for a long time and you could see the pride and hurt in their eyes. We almost forgot all about Ed.

“I was just shocked that he and Spud were brothers.”

Upon learning of the relationship, however, Kramer said he questioned Thomas and Gloria Harris about the health of their youngest son.

“I was wondering, ‘What if I’m recruiting a kid who, down the road - God forbid, has the same potential to have something like that happen to him,” Kramer explained. “But they said they had already covered that avenue.”

Making his own mark

Ed Harris signed with EWU but sat out his freshman year because of academic deficiencies. And it was during the fall of 1994 that he made his first visit to Pullman to see where his brother had died.

Harris said his mother had asked him one time about the possibility of attending Washington State.

“But the way I see it, that was like (Spud’s) stomping grounds,” Ed explained. “That’s where he had his dreams and his winnings, and I wasn’t interested in trying to follow in his footsteps there.

“I don’t think I would have found it all that comfortable.”

Now Ed Harris is living his dreams on the EWU campus. Since his freshman year,, the 6-foot-4, 255-pounder has emerged as one of the top defenders on an Eagles team that could be among the best in the Division I-AA ranks.

He had three sacks in last Saturday’s 63-7 rout of Rocky Mountain College.

“Last year (as a junior), he had some bright shining moments,” Kramer said, “but because of the year he missed, he played like a sophomore. He gets better and matures every single day, so his best football is definitely in front of him.

“And it’s going to be a travesty this fall when his eligibility is used up. Another year of eligibility for Ed would make him one of the premier players on our team next fall.”

And the kind of player Spud Harris probably would have liked to have known.

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