Senior rugby player overcomes family tragedy

The evening of March 29, 2008, was supposed to be filled with fun for the members of the Bulls rugby team. The Bulls had finished their game at a tournament in Wayne, Neb., earlier that day and were preparing for a social event that night.

But March 29, 2008, was the day Josh Harris, then a junior on the rugby team, received the phone call from his older brother Jeffery that would turn his world upside turn.

Jeffery wouldn't tell Josh on the phone what happened, but Jeffrey told him he needed to come home to Kansas City immediately.

"He just said, 'You got to come home,'" Josh said. "I said, 'All right, I'll be home after the tournament.' But he just told me I had to get home soon. You knew something bad had happened, but I wasn't exactly sure [what]."

After Josh received hugs and handshakes of support from his teammates, three team members drove Josh home. There, Josh received the tragic news from his mother: Josh's younger brother Jeremy, 20, had been killed in a car accident.

Josh said he was pretty close with Jeremy, who was a year and a half younger than Josh. Jeremy was in his second semester at Northwest Missouri State University at the time of the accident. Josh said his younger brother - a mountain of a man at 6 feet 5 inches and more than 300 pounds - "was a big dude, but he was gentle at the same time." Jeremy wrote poetry, and some of his work is published.

The day of the funeral, the Bulls postponed their game, and the entire team and head coach Bill Sexton were there to support Josh.

Instead of taking time off from classes after his brother's death, Josh - now a senior nearing graduation - instead plunged back into school. Using academics as a coping mechanism, he achieved the first 4.0 of his college career that semester.

"It was obviously hard weeks and months, but I just got back up here and got back to work really," Josh said. "Knowing I had support both here and at home really helped. I just kind of put my head down and went."

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On the rugby field the next fall, Sexton said Josh started playing the best rugby of his college career - so good that Sexton was pushing for Josh to play on the regional all-star team before Josh suffered an ankle injury.

But midway through the fall semester, Josh hit a wall. After surging forward strongly after his brother's death, Josh said the emotional toll eventually caught up with him. With about six weeks left in the semester, Josh pulled out of classes and went home to be with his family.

"Everything started weighing down on me," Josh said. "I had to take a break. I was going like Superman for as long as I could. So I had to take a break, step back and refocus. I just wanted to be with my family for a little while and decide whether or not I was going to come back and finish."

Needing just one more semester to graduate, Josh returned to Truman this spring. He is set to graduate this May with a degree in justice systems and a minor in political science. After graduation, Josh will do a two-year stint in the Teach for America program, teaching secondary math to students in New Orleans. After he completes the program, Josh said he would like to return to school and earn his Ph.D. in criminology so he can teach the subject the college level.

"[Returning to school] was just the drive to not let this define me, don't let this be the thing that derailed me from all my goals because I've always been pretty driven," he said. "Coming back, it was just a realization that I'd come so far so I got to keep going."

Josh also returned to the rugby pitch to cap off his four years with the Bulls. Still battling the ankle injury he suffered in the fall, Josh said he originally planned to sit out rugby this spring. But after several veteran players quit the team between the fall and spring halves of the season, Josh - a three-year cog of the Bulls' backline - realized the team needed another experienced player on the field.

"We had a very young team, and we were real thin in the back," Sexton said. "And I think that some of the experienced players, his teammates, went to him and said, 'How's that ankle? We really need you out here. We do need you back on the field.' To his credit, he came out, and we established a Saturday morning routine, which was for me to tape up his ankle, and he wore a lace-up brace. … I think he was glad to be back."

Josh finished his rugby career on a high note. On April 11, just more than a year after the tragic loss of his brother and with his family on the sidelines watching the game, Josh and the Bulls trounced the University of Missouri 37-10 at home in the final game of the season.

For Josh, the win marked the first time in his career that he was on the victorious side of a match against Mizzou - and it marked just one more challenge that Josh has overcome in his Truman career.

"I really think the world of him," Sexton said. "He's faced down this family adversity and this tragedy, and he's basically asked himself who he is and what he's going to be and how he's going to handle these things. He's handled himself well. I'm proud that he was affiliated with the club."