The news that Joe Harris is retiring makes me realize how old I am, considering that I was already 20 years into my career in journalism when my favorite Joe Harris story took place.
It was March 16, 2014, a sunny, unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon down in Greensboro.
Virginia, which hadn’t won the ACC Tournament since way back in 1976, was on its way to beating Duke, with Harris scoring 15 points, including hitting a back-breaking three with two minutes left.
ICYMI
As the game played out, I got a notice on my phone about a winter weather advisory back in Virginia, which didn’t make sense, because the temperatures had been in the 60s all week in the Mid-Atlantic.
Turns out, the weather reports were spot on: on the drive back, we hit snow around Lynchburg, and by the time we got back to Nelson County, it was a full-out blizzard.
But back in Greensboro, where it was still a spring day, we had work to do after the final buzzer, getting through the press conference with Tony Bennett, then tracking down UVA players in the jubilant locker room.
Harris was the tournament MVP, so he had responsibilities with the TV folks that kept him from talking with the scribes.
When he finally got back to the locker room to give us a couple of minutes, still in his uniform, the MVP trophy in tow, a media-relations staffer tapped him on the shoulder.
“Joe, we’ve gotta go,” the staffer told Harris, who protested about how he hadn’t even showered yet.
To no avail. The decision was made to try to beat the bad weather home, so Joe had to get on the team bus in his uniform, lugging the MVP trophy on board.
So, there was that moment; of course the 36-point outburst at JPJ in a win over Duke in his junior year.
And then another, on the preseason media day before his senior season, the one that would go on to include ACC regular-season and tournament titles, a #1 NCAA Tournament seed, and the program’s first Sweet Sixteen in 19 years.
Harris had been a first-team All-ACC pick as a junior. Asked about that at the 2014 media day, Harris deferred, telling us media types that it was an honor to be first-team All-ACC, but he wasn’t sure he was even the best player on the team, singling out Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill, two guys who’d had to redshirt in 2012-2013, and led the scout team in numerous spirited battles with the starters during the season.
That, by the way, would qualify as humility, the first on the list of Bennett’s Five Pillars.
Actually, so would him having to get on the bus in his sweaty uniform with his ACC Tournament MVP trophy, to try to beat the snow.
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Chris Graham
