SMCC's Harris not taking senior season for granted

SANDUSKY — Braylon Harris knows, more than most, not to take his minutes on the high school basketball court for granted. Harris has never had a full hoops season for St. Mary Central Catholic. Heart issues limited him as a freshman and sophomore before a hernia delayed the start to his junior campaign. Now a senior, he missed seven games with a concussion before making his season debut. With just more than a month left in his final Panthers season, Harris plans on savoring every moment. "With all that's happened to me, and me still being able to push through, I feel like that's really good for me as a person," Harris said. "... Seeing it all come to an end all feels surreal. When you look up to the seniors, you're like, 'I'm never gonna be that one day.' I just wanna make the best of it." Harris is a crucial piece to the ceiling of SMCC's (4-10, 4-7) season. Since returning on Dec. 27, he has averaged a team-best 12.9 points per game. "He's been really positive about it all," SMCC coach Kyle Hammond said. "Understanding the role of trying to come back and integrate into the team, it helps that his teammates have been very supportive. They want him to play. All along, he's been a very good teammate in understanding how much his value is to the team." Harris, who attended Sandusky City Schools through eighth grade, started encountering health issues early in his freshman season. It took awhile, including a four-day stay at the Cleveland Clinic children's hospital, for a diagnosis of myocarditis and elevated troponin levels. High troponin, a heart enzyme, is the same indicator that exists after a heart attack. "Still trying to balance school and basketball, it was really tough on me," he said. Figuring out if and when he could get back on the court kept Harris' impact limited as a freshman. And just as he started to get rolling as a sophomore, a blood test showed elevated troponin levels again. "I was back at the hospital again, just in and out," Harris said. Junior year was supposed to be different after various treatments and tests gave Harris a chance at a healthy athletic campaign. Instead, Harris' high school football career ended after one game and one touchdown reception. The morning after the opener, while lifting, he felt pain in his lower abdomen. It wound up being a hernia, knocking him out of the rest of the football season and delaying his basketball preparation yet again. Harris put more time into basketball this past offseason than he ever had, hoping to finally reach his potential as a senior. He stayed healthy in the fall as a soccer player for Sandusky, a header-winning center back. But two days before Thanksgiving, Harris spun and collided with a teammate in basketball practice on the eve of the season. He'd never had a concussion, but tests indicated that's what it was. "I didn't think it was gonna take me out as long as it did," Harris said. "... I would wake up every day with a constant headache and pressure in my head, something that would never leave." As an injury without a straightforward recovery timetable and with his senior season slipping away, this one was especially tough on Harris. "I couldn't concentrate in school at all," Harris said. "I'd look at my assignment for two minutes and get really cloudy and dizzy... When we first made it back on the court, I tried to do a three-man weave, and it was terrible. I didn't even feel like I was on the court." By late December, Harris was cleared, and he got back on the court at Perkins in late December with a minutes restriction. His first two games, that one and the next at Hopewell-Loudon, still didn't feel quite normal. "It was like I was coming back and not the same player at all," Harris said. "It really took a toll on me... I felt like I was just out there running around like I wasn't really set into what we were trying to do. Coach came up to me after the game and told me everything was gonna be OK, it's gonna take time." Finally, back home on Jan. 6, Harris broke out. Off the bench, he put up 23 points as the Panthers routed Lakota. "I started out hot," Harris said. "I really felt like myself again. I really felt like I was in tune with the offense... Once I started hitting shots, I was like, 'OK, we're back.'" In the four games since then, he's put up 19, 12, 17 and 14 points. Harris has made nine 3-pointers in his hot stretch while grabbing 3.7 rebounds and 1.8 steals per contest. "I'm really proud of how he got through it," Hammond said. "It's a difficult thing getting injured, trying to stay positive. When he came back, we talked that he can't expect it to just click overnight. It's a process, and he stuck through the path and is playing really good basketball." Harris, while of course not wanting to miss the time he did, does think he picked up on some things while he was on the sideline. "It was really frustrating for me," Harris said. "I wanted to be on that court. When they started winning a few, and even when we lost, it was like, 'If I was out there, how could that change? Would it be a different game?' That was hard in my mind, and I know it was tough on my teammates. It was all a process, and I believe everything happens for a reason." Hammond and the Panthers have reintegrated Harris into what they do relatively seamlessly, helped by a strong summer together in Hammond's first year in charge. "When you come into a new program, you know you have to make a quick bond and rely a lot on your seniors," Hammond said. "Losing Braylon was a very difficult thing, up in the air wondering if he can even play. We rely on him for so many different things, especially leadership." Whatever happens the rest of the way, Harris will cherish the 3-point attempts and athletic drives to the basket as much as anyone. He knows what it's like to have basketball, the game he's focused on since he was kindergarten, taken away from him. "Maybe that was meant to happen in order for me to come back and be stronger and wiser," Harris said. "... I definitely feel like that time off helped me to know the game more and know how this team was gonna flow together." Harris also learned what he wants to do with his life. A lot of time in hospitals granted him strong perspective. He's not sure where he'll end up in college yet, but he knows what he wants to be: a nurse. "That's why I want to be a nurse, is all the time I was in and out of the hospital," Harris said. "The nurses really took care of me, and I want to eventually take care of people, in a children's hospital, the kids that I was once in their position. Knowing how scary it is, I just want to be there to take care of them and let them know that we're here for you."