Jonathan Harris
By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
It would be extremely difficult to come close to the achievements of Jim Thorpe, named as the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century in a poll conducted by ABC Sports. So when former Klahowya football coach tagged then freshman Jonathan Harris with the nickname “Jim Thorpe” he did it to emphasize Harris’ versatility and not to say Harris is the greatest athlete of the 21st Century.
Current Klahowya football coach Dan Ericson isn’t afraid to repeat the nickname for Harris, now a senior running back and defensive end for the 2-2,0-1 in the Olympic League Eagles.
“He’s our version of Jim Thorpe, or Bo Jackson,” says Ericson, adding on to the legend of Harris with Jackson, the former NFL and MLB player. “He can do anything he wants to do. He can punt the ball, he kicked the ball off a tee 40-45 yards, and he had never done that before. He had a good year at lacrosse and he has played basketball in the past.”
Harris has played lacrosse for coach Rob Hawley, who looks at him like Ericson does.
“Well, yeah,” says Hawley, “but at a lower scale (then Thorpe), but he’s that kind of athlete in my mind. There are times when he’s got the ball and running in the open field that it’s man versus boys. He’s so strong and fast and in the open field there is not much anybody can do to stop him. He’s so strong that he runs right through people.”
Harris was an all-Olympic League defensive end in football last year, but the six-foot, 205-pound Harris could play just about anywhere on the field for the Eagles and do well.
“He is a great kid and great athlete who can do anything on the field or in the weight room,” says Ericson.
That great kid remark extends outside of sports. His mother (Terry) points out her son, “is working on his Eagle scout. His anticipated project is building a boat shed for (Olympic) Lutherhaven. Reaching Eagle has been an ongoing process of his youth, instilling leadership development and community involvement. “
Jonathan Harris (44)
Harris leads the Eagles in several offensive and defensive categories. He has a team-leading 353 yards rushing and 410 all-purpose yards. He has a team-leading four touchdowns, one of them receiving, and has a team-leading five sacks. He is third in total tackles with 29, and is tied for the team lead with 10 solo tackles.
He gained 168 yards and scored twice in Klahowya’s season-opening 22-7 win against Cleveland.
He got banged up a little bit two weeks ago when the Eagles lost their first game, a 34-29 at North Kitsap. He had to get stitches in his hand. But that owie has not deterred him from playing.
On top of everything, Harris is relatively new to football. He only started playing it in the ninth grade when he transferred from Chico’s Christ the King School. And his introduction to the sport was ugly: He broke his left wrist in a junior varsity game, and that brought his season to a quick end.
“It was hard playing basketball,” Harris said of his freshman season on the hardwood court. “I couldn’t use my left hand too well.”
Harris started playing basketball in the fifth grade at Christ the King School and played it through his sophomore year at Klahowya. He made the Klahowya varsity that year, but mainly sat on the bench. He had been known at Christ the King School for his rebounding, but he wasn’t getting much board work on the bench, so he decided not to try out for the team last season.
“This year I think I will try out for basketball,” says Harris, whose father is Lloyd and who is the older brother to Ethan, a freshman at Klahowya who does not play a sport.
Harris began to play lacrosse his sophomore year and was second string midfielder for the Eagles. He quickly discovered he loved lacrosse.
“It’s pretty close to football and to hockey too,” says Harris. “It’s pretty much like hockey except it’s played in the air. It’s a physical sport with lots of contact and I like that. And it turns out I am pretty good at it too.
“I got some decent playing time my junior year. I did all the face-offs and won most of them. And I was 15th in the state in groundballs, and I scored a couple goals.”
Hawley said Harris started out in lacrosse as a goalie, but mid-way through his sophomore year he switched him to the field as a center mid-fielder in charge of face-offs. He has been a little behind teammates in turns of playing the sport, but Hawley said he’s going to expand Harris’ role this spring.
“I expect this coming season I can use him more on the offensive end as an offensive threat,” says Hawley.
Even with his improving ability in lacrosse, Harris believes football is his best sport and hopes to be able to play it in college. He attended two football camps over the summer, one at Portland State and the other the Northwest Elite at Mercer Island High School. And a Portland State coach paid a visit in West Sound to look at him and several other Eagle players (David Leer and Latrell Simpson) and others in the area.
Harris is also looking at Central Washington and Eastern Washington to continue his football career. No matter where he goes, Harris says it would likely be as a defensive player.
“I like the hitting,” he says. “And I’m not as nervous on defense as I am playing offense.”
Whatever the future holds, Harris hopes it has something to do with construction.
“I would like to do something in construction management or be a project manager, or have my own construction business or work for the government or state in construction,” he says. “I just enjoy the building of houses or how hospitals are built. It kind of fascinates me. There is an engineering side to it, but I’m not much into engineering. I’m more into design.”
The basis design for Harris now, though, is to take his Jim Thorpe-like abilities and try to help the Eagles to the football post-season, give the school’s basketball team some rebounding help this winter, and then this spring put his athletic skills to work for the successful Klahowya lacrosse program.
