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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Proving Them Wrong

by: Steve Politi
RivalsHigh.com
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The bullet ripped through the toddler’s temple and split in two, with half exiting from the back of his skull and half through the side. Doctors told Sandy Porter that her son, Ronnie Harris, would die.
Ronnie Harris was determined to play football.
He proved them wrong.

The same doctors told her that Ronnie would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, that he would never walk or talk again. That her 2-year-old son was doomed to a life as a vegetable.
He proved them wrong again.

Ronnie made it out of that wheelchair. He started over, learning to walk and talk and even eat again. He had no use of his right hand and walked with a limp, but his mom became convinced that he could do anything that the other kids could do.

And then, when he was fourth grade, he asked the question that stunned her: “Can I play football?”
She worried. But how could she say no? Ronnie had grown up in White Hall, Arkansas, and like every kid in the small town, had dreamt of playing for the Razorbacks. That dream was unlikely.
But he didn’t let a tragic accident stop him from playing football his entire life – a proud member of the White Hall football team.

“At first my mom said, ‘Well, can’t he be the water boy or something?’” Sandy Porter said. “I said, ‘Mom, the water boy is for nerds.’”

Ronnie, now a senior, has proven them wrong again. His ability to beat the odds is what makes him a natural nominee for the Rudy Award, which honor inspirational football players who best define what Rudy refers to as the Four Cs: Character, Courage, Contribution and Commitment.

“Ronnie Harris being a Bulldog and a member of the team is remarkable,” Mike Vaughn, the head coach at White Hall, wrote in nominating his player for the Rudy Award. “This young man never gives up, even when others said, ‘It’s alright if you do give up!’ I wish that Ronnie had been given a chance to compete athletically with the other boys on a level playing ground, but the challenges that Ronnie has overcome will without a doubt prepare him for this biggest game – the game of life!”

Sandy Porter still has trouble talking about May 10, 1994, the day she returned home to see the ambulances in her neighborhood. Ronnie was playing at a friend’s house when the boys opened a dresser drawer and found a loaded 38 mm handgun. The other boy pointed the gun over Ronnie’s left eye and pulled the trigger.
At first, when Porter heard someone had been shot, she misheard and thought the injury was to his hand. Then she saw her son on the front porch, the blood on his face.

“I don’t remember much more about that day,” she said, “until after we got to the hospital.”
Her son would make it, but the ordeal was just beginning. The active toddler, who just hours before had been running around a yapping up a storm, needed a feeding tube to eat at first and had to learn to talk again, starting with baby words.

It was a long recovery, but his mother quickly discovered that losing the use of his right arm was not going to hold her son back. He joined the Little League in town. But football was his favorite sport. He plays on the defensive line and always seems to be in the middle of the action.

“She gets worried,” Ronnie said, “but she knows I’ll be alright. I always get back up.”
His mom was worried about head injuries - “Football is a dangerous sport even without the injury,” she said - but she relented. He played on dominant teams at the Pop Warner level, and at high school, Vaughn said he was an example for the other kids in the program.

“When Ronnie hits the field the crowd erupts with cheers and clapping cheering on their beloved No. 58,” his mom wrote in the nomination for the Rudy. “He runs on that field and football is all that’s on his mind. Getting into the backfield and finding the ball and taking who ever has it down to the turf.”
With each step, proving them wrong again.
“My teammates say I’m a big inspiration to them,” Ronnie said. “They look up to me. When they think they can’t do something, they look at me and say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’” p






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