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View Full Version : Aggressive Compulsive: Harrison Walks Alone



stillers4me
10-31-2010, 09:35 AM
By JUDY BATTISTA (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/judy_battista/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: October 30, 2010

[/URL] PITTSBURGH — He finally learned the complex Pittsburgh Steelers (http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/sports/football&pos=Frame4A&sn2=d067838f/fe0a8c02&sn1=a27d8378/2c8d3592&camp=foxsearch2010_emailtools_1225556c_nyt5&ad=bs_120x60alt_10k_date_DEC3&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fbla ckswan) defense a few years ago with the help of two wristbands, base defenses scribbled on one, Dick LeBeau’s myriad blitzes on the other. But when the N.F.L. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_football_league/index.html?inline=nyt-org) told linebacker James Harrison 12 days ago that the way he thought he had always tackled was wrong, he reacted not with the studied determination it took for him to make it to the league, but with the ferocity that has propelled him to the elite of defensive players.

“My first reaction was, ‘I quit,’ ” he said Wednesday, still not smiling.

It was unimaginable to the rest of the N.F.L. that Harrison, the 2008 defensive player of the year, could consider retiring so suddenly. He had become the face of the N.F.L.’s crackdown on hits to the head.

He was so angry about being fined $75,000 on Oct. 19 for his hit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81dS21QTgkQ&feature=fvst) on Cleveland receiver Mohamed Massaquoi — the largest of three fines the league levied that day — that his teammate James Farrior (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/james_farrior/index.html?inline=nyt-per) said he tried to persuade Harrison to come to his house “before he did anything drastic.”..........

Read more: [URL]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/sports/football/31harrison.html?src=twrhp

stillers4me
10-31-2010, 09:36 AM
I wish these reporters would do more to get their facts straight.....Harrison was absolved of the school shooting incident because someone else did it.




Q: You were holding out for one of your coaches?
JH: Yeah. My linebacker coach.
Q: What happened?
JH: It was like maybe four or five of us. We were just shooting the BB gun around the locker room. I got shot. Other guys got shot. It really wasn’t a big deal. But to tell you the truth, this is what it came down to: I went to a school that was all white. It had about seven, eight black people in it. The dude didn’t like the fact that I started over his son. He felt his son should’ve started over me. He left the school in the middle of the year and decided that this was a big story and he went and snitched and told everything and it came out like I was this cat who was out there trying to hurt somebody. So after all that was said and done, they wanted to press charges, felony assault and all that stuff. The coach shot the guy whose mom was pressing charges. He had shot the boy in his butt. It wasn’t a big deal, but the coach ended up losing his job and ended up settling out on some lesser charge.


http://pit.scout.com/2/834732.html

I have informed the New York Times of the error in this article with the link to the above story. :chuckle: