Year In Review Series: Ed Tait takes a look back at the 2017 Blue Bombers season with his Top 10 stories of the year…

#1 – Harris and the Chase for 1K-1K

Anyone who has been around the man understands full well it’s a fool’s game to bet against him. He works too hard, spends too many hours in the gym and is simply too dedicated at his craft not to succeed.

And, just as important, Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Andrew Harris has been driven to prove people wrong since the moment he slipped on a pair of cleats.

But… to break a Canadian Football League record that had stood for 31 years?

To win a rushing title and lead the league in catches – as a running back, no less – and capture the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian Player Award, all after blowing out 30 candles on his birthday cake?

Yet, there stood the Winnipeg product in Ottawa during Grey Cup week accepting the top Canadian award and essentially defying the law of diminishing returns as a running back authoring his best season when others at his position are usually in decline.

The season Harris authored – all the individual awards while playing such a pivotal role in a 12-6 campaign – leads our list of the Top 10 Bomber stories of 2017 for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is his drive resonates with so many in this blue-collar town, but also because it is in lock-step with the organization’s revival.

Yes, Matt Nichols might be this team’s MVP, but it’s Harris who is the unquestioned face of the franchise.

A CFL All-Star in both of his years with the Bombers, Harris one-upped a solid 2016 season with a spectacular 2017. He became the first Bomber since Fred Reid to win the rushing title, the first Bomber since Doug Brown to win the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian honour, and the first Bomber to lead the league in receptions since Milt Stegall in 2002.

And, in pulling in 105 catches, he smashed not only the Bombers’ single-season record for receptions by a running back – previously 71, set by Robert Mimbs – but the league mark of 102, set by Craig Ellis of the Saskatchewan Roughriders back in 1985.

So yeah, those are big-time numbers, even if he fell short of his stated goal of becoming the first player in CFL history to rush for 1,000 yards and finish with 1,000 yards receiving in the same year (he went 1,035-857).

Now, to really understand Harris and the pursuit of all these goals you must know where he’s come from and the road he’s travelled to CFL stardom. It’s not just that he is a Canadian player at a position long dominated by Americans, or that he came from the junior football ranks, or that he was first brought aboard by the B.C. Lions as a kick-return/receiver prospect.

It’s that he’s overcome all those long odds when so many had their doubts.

“It comes down to me trying to prove myself all the time,” Harris said in a conversation with bluebombers.com before the Grey Cup. “No matter what kind of season I’ve had, I always feel like there’s something I have to prove.

“This year it was, ‘He’s 30 now.’ When I first came to Winnipeg it was, ‘I have to prove that it was worth me coming here or whether I was worth this amount of money.’

“I’ve always felt that I’ve been looked at as an underdog, even with my amateur background and coming from junior. It’s always been about that, about proving things to myself and to everyone else that I can play and do it at a high level.

“As an athlete, no matter what you do there are always going to be critics, there are always going to be people that you have to prove yourself to. I take that as a challenge. Those are the things that motivate me.”

The Bombers posted some gaudy offensive numbers in 2017, chief among them the attack finishing second in scoring. But what shouldn’t be lost in Harris’ accomplishment is he put up his own gaudy numbers while Weston Dressler and Darvin Adams missed a combined 10 games and with Nichols out for a game and a half due to hand and calf injuries. Even when the club’s weaponry was all on the field, defences keyed on #33, knowing the Bombers attack often flowed through their gifted running back.

And yet he still produced week after week after week.

Part of his success this season comes from his continued dedication to his craft and taking care of his body. He’s smarter now about all of that, factoring in things like diet and regular visits to Thermea.

“I’ve heard people talk about me being 30 now,” said Harris. “You get to that mark and it’s like you want to prove you can still play and still be explosive and still do all the things you’ve been doing your whole career.

“It was a challenge to myself. It was like, ‘OK, I am 30 now. But I can still do this and be better than I ever have.”

The results quite clearly speak for themselves.

This is the last in a series recapping the Top 10 Bomber stories of 2017.

Previous:
#10 – Drafting First Overall
#9 – A Call to the Hall
#8 – A Canada Day Christening
#7 – The Miracle on Chancellor Matheson
#6 – Bryant and Harris Haul in the Hardware
#5 – A Defence Under the Microscope
#4 – Critical Injuries at Critical Times
#3 – Nichols Cements Spot as QB-1
#2 – A Playoff Tilt at IGF