HAMILTON — Many dads receive a tie for Father’s Day. Tom Harris got a win.
“It’s a gift for me,” the proud father of quarterback Trevor Harris said on Sunday at Tim Hortons Field, where he watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33-30.
Tom and his wife, Suzanne, travelled to southern Ontario from the family home in Waldo, Ohio and were richly rewarded for enduring the rigours of the road when their 38-year-old son threw for 390 yards and two touchdowns in a dramatic, come-from-behind win that improved the Roughriders’ record to 2-0.
“I texted him on the way to the stadium: ‘Trevor, thank you so much for all the different places you’ve taken us and all the different things we’ve gotten to do because of what you love to do,’ ” Suzanne Harris said.
“He loves this. We love that he loves it. It has just been unreal, the different things that we’ve gotten to do and the people we’ve met.”
Mr. and Mrs. Harris expanded their already vast network of friends after they arrived in Hamilton.
The travelling party also included four relatives — Jim Denton Sr. (grandfather of Trevor’s wife, Kalie), Jim and Geneva Denton (Kalie’s parents) and Kim Atherton (Kalie’s aunt).
The families of Trevor and Kalie were accompanied on the weekend excursion by five close friends — Tammy Roush, Mark Meyer, Marge Meyer-Nugent, Debbie Nugent and Mike Nugent.
“Mike met Trevor at the YMCA this past off-season,” Suzanne noted.
“Mike was watching Trevor throw the football so he went over to him and asked, ‘Would you like me to catch for you?’ Trevor said ‘sure’ and he gave Mike — a 70-year-old — a pair of gloves and they threw together.
“Mike said, ‘Call me anytime. I really enjoyed this.’ They became friends and, when Trevor needed him during the off-season, Mike would help.”
The staunch support was also evident when Tom, Suzanne, family members and friends turned out to watch Trevor play football, baseball and basketball at Pleasant High School in Marion, Ohio, which is 15 kilometres from Waldo (population: 330).
Suzanne missed only one game throughout the time Trevor quarterbacked the Fighting Scots of Edinboro University. Edinboro, Pa., is nearly 350 kilometres from Waldo.
At Edinboro, Trevor set a scroll of passing records, some of which were eclipsed by his younger brother, Cody.
Cody is now a physician assistant in Marion, where his sisters — Chantress, a teacher, and Autumn, a nurse — reside.
“All our kids are great,” Tom said. “We’re blessed.”
So are the kids, who have marvelled at their parents’ remarkable strength, resilience and character.
Suzanne conquered cancer in 2009, after undergoing surgery along with nine months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
“I think I was strong, first of all, because of my faith,” she said.
“I knew that I had to be strong for my kids and I wanted them to see how I made it through that so that they would do that someday when they were faced with a hard time.”
The family was tested yet again after Tom and Suzanne were seriously injured in a motorcycle accident on June 2, 2012.
“It’s something that wasn’t even our fault,” Tom recalled. “Something blew off a car and hit me in the face.
“We were pushing on a curve down by a riverbank and it just came up off the road. I can remember watching it glance off the road and I just blacked out. We went down over the riverbank and dropped into a ravine.”
The impact left Tom with a fractured back, a fractured neck, a concussion and 75 facial stitches.
“And Suzanne probably ended up worse than I did,” Tom noted.
Only an Achilles tendon prevented Suzanne’s left foot from being severed.
“When I landed, my boot was on my hip,” she said.
“I also broke the orbital bone. I had a concussion. I had vertigo. I crushed my finger. I crushed my wrist.”
Nothing could crush her spirit.
After being rushed to the hospital, Suzanne was wheeled into the operating room. Just before the anaesthetic was to be applied, the doors swung open and the beeping of the machines was drowned out by a loud and emphatic voice.
“This guy goes, ‘Is Suzanne Harris asleep?!’ ” she recalled. “He was told, ‘I’m just putting her to sleep now.’ The guy said, ‘Don’t put her under! She has a phone call!’ ”
It was from Tom.
“He was refusing treatment until he was told that I was alive,” Suzanne continued. “He wanted to hear my voice.
“I heard his voice: ‘Suzanne, are you OK?’ I said, ‘I’m OK. You need to get fixed so we can help each other when we get home.’
“Then, all of a sudden, I was out.”
Four days after Suzanne was released from the hospital, Tom went back to work.
Tom’s work ethic is such that he farmed and operated a construction firm (Professional Contractors).
“We built two houses on our property,” he said. “The first one, we built it when we first got married (on Aug. 21, 1982). I built it on weekends and at night.
“I built the other one on weekends and nights because we were so busy building other people’s houses and we wanted to get ours done.”
If that sounds gruelling, consider what Tom did during his supposed leisure time.
He used to box against inmates on Thursday nights at the Marion Correctional Institute.
“It gave the prisoners something to do,” Tom said, matter-of-factly.
“Sometimes I’d be out of town and I’d tell my boss, ‘Hey, I’ve got to get home. I’ve got to box at the prison.’ He’d say, ‘Why are you doing that?’
“It was just fun, you know. Sometimes it didn’t feel so good, but it was fun.”
Always an attendee at her children’s events, Suzanne invariably took a pass when it came to attending her husband’s boxing matches.
When was there time, anyway?
Her story, and that of her family, cannot be told without referencing her mother, Martha Douce.
Martha founded Douce Dance Studios in 1943.
Suzanne — who has two sisters and a brother — was only two when she began dancing and, well, she has never stopped.
She now runs the dance studio, which offers instruction in tap, jazz, ballet, baton, gymnastics … you name it.
All four of her children took dance classes, which ultimately benefited Trevor in his football career.
“When he was out of high school and starting to go to different colleges, every time he would go to a college and he would be at a Senior Day, they’d say, ‘Your footwork is good,’ ” Suzanne said.
“He’d say, ‘Yeah, my mom’s a dance teacher. I’ve taken dance my whole life.’ ”
That, of course, was music to his mother’s ears — another source of teeming parental pride.
“Trevor has been special since he was little,” Tom said. “We always knew there was something different.
“He hung out with his friends but anytime anything was going wrong, he was home. He just knew when to be home. He was always focused — a different type of child.
“In college, Trevor’s friends would always call him at two o’clock in the morning. He was always the one who would go pick people up and take them home.”
If someone needs a different kind of pick-me-up, Trevor is always there for support.
“He listens to others and he really soaks everything in and he uses it,” Suzanne said. “He loves to share. He doesn’t talk bad about people. Everything’s positive and it’s awesome.”
Plus, he calls his mom every day.
“She’s got nine lives,” Trevor said. “She beat cancer. They both had a motorcycle accident where they were both life-flighted. I wasn’t sure if they were going to make it.
“I’m just grateful that my parents are here. I’m kind of a mama’s boy and my dad has always been my role model in terms of who I’ve looked up to as far as what it is to be a man and a father and a husband.
“Just for them to be here in life in general for me is amazing. Especially at 38, they’re the ones that I look to, and I still feel like a little kid, because these guys in here (in the locker room) start asking me if we had colour TV when I first played.
“It’s one of those situations where I appreciate seeing them. It kind of makes me feel like a kid again.”
The appreciation, of course, extends both ways.
“He makes us real proud,” Tom concluded. “I’m glad he’s our son.”
