Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Sports

The evening of March 29, 2008, was supposed to be filled with fun for the members of the Bulls rugby team. The Bulls had finished their game at a tournament in Wayne, Neb., earlier that day and were preparing for a social event that night.

But March 29, 2008, was the day Josh Harris, then a junior on the rugby team, received the phone call from his older brother Jeffery that would turn his world upside turn.

Jeffery wouldn't tell Josh on the phone what happened, but Jeffrey told him he needed to come home to Kansas City immediately.

"He just said, 'You got to come home,'" Josh said. "I said, 'All right, I'll be home after the tournament.' But he just told me I had to get home soon. You knew something bad had happened, but I wasn't exactly sure [what]."

After Josh received hugs and handshakes of support from his teammates, three team members drove Josh home. There, Josh received the tragic news from his mother: Josh's younger brother Jeremy, 20, had been killed in a car accident.

Josh said he was pretty close with Jeremy, who was a year and a half younger than Josh. Jeremy was in his second semester at Northwest Missouri State University at the time of the accident. Josh said his younger brother - a mountain of a man at 6 feet 5 inches and more than 300 pounds - "was a big dude, but he was gentle at the same time." Jeremy wrote poetry, and some of his work is published.

The day of the funeral, the Bulls postponed their game, and the entire team and head coach Bill Sexton were there to support Josh.

Instead of taking time off from classes after his brother's death, Josh - now a senior nearing graduation - instead plunged back into school. Using academics as a coping mechanism, he achieved the first 4.0 of his college career that semester.

"It was obviously hard weeks and months, but I just got back up here and got back to work really," Josh said. "Knowing I had support both here and at home really helped. I just kind of put my head down and went."

Please see HARRIS, Page 21

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On the rugby field the next fall, Sexton said Josh started playing the best rugby of his college career - so good that Sexton was pushing for Josh to play on the regional all-star team before Josh suffered an ankle injury.

But midway through the fall semester, Josh hit a wall. After surging forward strongly after his brother's death, Josh said the emotional toll eventually caught up with him. With about six weeks left in the semester, Josh pulled out of classes and went home to be with his family.

Continued...

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