A Lesson Learned

Chris Harris had his best game of the season Sunday afternoon in the Bears' 38-34 victory over the Jets. He recorded 11 tackles, 10 of them solo, recovered a Santonio Holmes fumble in the 1st quarter, and then picked off Sanchez with less than a minute left to clinch the game for Chicago.

To most people, Harris is known as the Bears' hard-hitting safety. To a smaller number of us, he's @ChrisHarrisNFL, his Twitter account, where he interacts with fans and critics alike almost daily. In fact, Chris Harris is one of the most accessible modern athletes. Between Twitter and his blog, he's established a unique way of using social media to showcase his personality and enhance his brand.
Athletes on Twitter often give away tickets to games, usually holding some kind of contest to determine who wins them. On Christmas night, Harris did just that. He had four pairs of tickets for the Jets game and asked four questions about himself. The first person to correctly answer the question would be given a pair of tickets.
I normally don't get caught up in these sort of things because I start convincing myself I have a great chance of winning. This usually leads to disappointment -- that I could have avoided. But I decided to give this contest a try. It was Christmas night and I was Christmased out. The alternative to taking part in a contest to win Bears tickets was watching one of one of four Christmas movies I'd seen ten times a piece, or listen to one of 250 Christmas songs I'd been listening to for the entire month of December.

First question from Harris (all of which I'm paraphrasing, by the way): What was the name of my school mascot?

Google is my friend. Now there's two ways of going about this question. Look up where Chris went to school (Louisiana-Monroe), and either hope the mascot is in the title, or then do another Google search for the mascot. This approach takes too much time. It's a race against anyone else who may be answering, some of who probably didn't need to look it up.
I decided to go all in and typed in "Chris Harris School Mascot." To my surprise, an interview of his with WGN was the second result, and it contained the answer, "War Eagles." I was a little hesitant at first. What if I responded and was wrong? How stupid would that look?
I wrote back. I was right. I was too slow. Someone else won. Next question I would just have to pull the trigger. I decided to leave the tab of the interview up. I thought he might ask another question that could be answered from that page.

Second question: What number did I originally wear as a freshman in college before switching numbers before my sophomore year?

This was a tough one. I thought it might be on the tab I already had up but it wasn't. I immediately realized that this wasn't an answer I or anyone else could simply Google search. It was going to take a little bit of detective work and luck. I typed in "Chris Harris College Number" and clicked on an ESPN.com link. Each year listed him as number 5. I figured that was the number he had switched to after his sophomore year, seeing as the information was so widely available.
I don't remember how I got there, but eventually ended up on Louisiana-Monroe's program for the upcoming 2003 season, Harris' junior year. The article didn't mention Harris' number, but when I scrolled all the way down, there was a picture of a number 20 making a tackle, with the name Harris on the back of his jersey. The caption read: FS Chris Harris. That was my break. I was convinced I had the information others didn't. I was going to be the first to get this question that others were too stupid to figure out. They all probably thought the answer was 5.
I responded to Harris with my answer and patiently waited. I thought I had a great shot. My heart began beating a little faster. I started refreshing the page every ten seconds. About ten minutes later I found out I didn't win. That was my best chance, I thought, and I just wasn't quick enough.

Third question: What was my favorite football team growing up?

The answer was the Dallas Cowboys. It was on the WGN tab I had left open. The same tab everyone else responding was probably consulting as well. I was beat out again.

Fourth and final question: Who is my favorite NFL safety of all time?

Let me preface this question by saying, I had spent the last five minutes memorizing the answers to all of the WGN questions. Two of the three questions were from that list, so I decided to go with the odds and assume the fourth one would come from there. The WGN question was: Favorite player growing up? And the answer was Steve Atwater.
Atwater's name immediately popped into my head. "Write it down," a voice inside my head shouted. "You'll win." Another voice said, "You memorized his name, but you don't know what position Steve Atwater played, you idiot." And I didn't. I had to Google Steve Atwater, saw he played safety, and responded to Harris with the answer. I knew I'd be too slow, and I was. The couple seconds it took to Google Atwater's position were what cost me.

The saying "showing your age" is usually referring to old age. Not in this case. Atwater's name sounded familiar, but I was downright embarrassed when I saw that he retired in 1999, when I was 12 years old. No excuses for not knowing him.
To be fair, on a scale of one 1 to 10, my knowledge of football history is probably about a 3. Basketball is about a 7, and baseball around 5. I blame this disparity on two things:
1) The Bulls won their sixth championship in 1998. I was completely enamored with basketball at the time. I delved into every NBA book I could find and knew more about the NBA than most 12 year-olds.
2) 1998 was also the year that Mark McGwire and Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa rewrote the record books by belting 70 and 66 home runs, respectively. That sparked my love for baseball, and baseball statistics in general. I became pretty familiar with records and players from different eras around that time.
The Bears went 4-12 in 1998, finishing last in what was then the NFC Central. That was their second straight year finishing last in the division and they would finish last for two more years. I wasn't as interested in football as a kid because my team wasn't any good. If they were, I'd probably know the history a little better.
Anyway, I started reading up on Steve Atwater after losing out on the tickets. He played ten of his eleven seasons with the Denver Broncos and was selected to the Pro Bowl eight times. I was especially interested in the way Wade Phillips, who was Denver's defensive coordinator at the time, used Atwater. He played him close to the line of scrimmage, basically as a fourth linebacker.
As a result, Atwater was able to total more than one thousand tackles in his career, an astonishing number for a safety. Atwater is probably best known for a hit he put on Chiefs running back Christian "The Nigerian Powerhouse" Okoye, shown in the video below.




I've always been interested in the way different athletes rise to fame, and especially how certain athletes are inextricably linked through out time. For those who witnessed the hit, Atwater and Okoye will always share a place in NFL history together.
Okoye's story is pretty fascinating as well. Once one of the most dominant power runners in football before injuries and disinterest curbed his career, Okoye established a reputation as a gentle giant and Tecmo Super Bowl legend. Here's a pretty good video on Okoye during his prime, although a bit cringe-worthy during some parts compared to the Politically Correct standards of today.



I didn't win the tickets, but got a nice history lesson in exchange. That's a pretty good consolation prize in my book. Best believe I'll be ready for any Steve Atwater related questions in the near future.