PA Season Ticket Holder
04-24-2003, 12:30 PM
April 23, 2003) -- James Harris doesn't forget the past, but his focus is on the present.
He has a big job as the new vice president of player personnel for the Jacksonville Jaguars. In three days, that job gets even bigger as he oversees his first NFL draft.
There is no time for Harris to allow his thoughts to become bogged down with the obstacles he and the Jaguars must overcome to succeed, such as making up for previous drafts that didn't provide enough help and coping with salary-cap issues he inherited. All of that is history. It's significant in terms of how the Jags must proceed and what Harris must try to fix, but he can't allow it to get in the way. He simply won't let it.
"I've always been a person that tried to be focused," Harris says. "That's a part of my personality."
It served him well in 1969, when he became only the second black man to play quarterback in the NFL and, as a result, confronted plenty of bigotry.
It served him well as he worked his way from the bottom of the league's scouting ranks after failing to land a job in coaching.
And it serves Harris well today in the front-office position he had dreamed of filling after spending six years as a scout with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, four years as an assistant general manager for the New York Jets, and the last six as the head of pro scouting for the Baltimore Ravens.
Harris, 55, was never short of reasons he could have cited for giving up on his football dreams.
http://nfl.com/draft/story/6332405
He has a big job as the new vice president of player personnel for the Jacksonville Jaguars. In three days, that job gets even bigger as he oversees his first NFL draft.
There is no time for Harris to allow his thoughts to become bogged down with the obstacles he and the Jaguars must overcome to succeed, such as making up for previous drafts that didn't provide enough help and coping with salary-cap issues he inherited. All of that is history. It's significant in terms of how the Jags must proceed and what Harris must try to fix, but he can't allow it to get in the way. He simply won't let it.
"I've always been a person that tried to be focused," Harris says. "That's a part of my personality."
It served him well in 1969, when he became only the second black man to play quarterback in the NFL and, as a result, confronted plenty of bigotry.
It served him well as he worked his way from the bottom of the league's scouting ranks after failing to land a job in coaching.
And it serves Harris well today in the front-office position he had dreamed of filling after spending six years as a scout with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, four years as an assistant general manager for the New York Jets, and the last six as the head of pro scouting for the Baltimore Ravens.
Harris, 55, was never short of reasons he could have cited for giving up on his football dreams.
http://nfl.com/draft/story/6332405