Former coach forgiven, but can’t forget Stu Nixon regrets decision that prevented Andrew Harris from winning high school title By: Joshua Frey-Sam Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 Last Modified: 9:48 PM CST Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 Updates

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Among the three alumni from Oak Park High School competing in Sunday’s 109th Grey Cup, Andrew Harris is the odd man out in one respect.

While the Argos running back will be donning double-blue instead of Blue and Gold at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, Harris will also take the field as the only Winnipeg-born player in the trio without a high school title to his name.

While Bombers receiver Nic Demski (who attended Oak Park from 2008-2011) and running back Brady Oliveira (2011-2014) won a Winnipeg High School Football League triple-A varsity championship with the perennial powerhouse in 2010 and 2014, respectively, Harris fell short at the finish line in 2004, in a title game head coach Stu Nixon still has nightmares about.

The Raiders had cruised to the Winnipeg High School Football League title game and were looking to put a championship stamp on an undefeated season in Harris’s only year at Oak Park. As Nixon maintains, the team was “basically on auto-pilot.” For reference, the team’s lowest margin of victory was 20 points in a game against Churchill High School.

As luck would have it, the Raiders would face Churchill again in the finals, this time without one of their top running backs, Justin Kasak, who sustained a season-ending injury in the third quarter of the semifinal.

Nixon’s offence primarily operated out of the once-vaunted power-I formation, which had a fullback, wingback (Kasak) and tailback (Harris) lineup in the shape of a wishbone. With Kasak out of the lineup, however, the coach needed to reconfigure his lineup.

Nixon opted to put defensive back Andrew James at tailback — because it was the only position in the backfield he understood — and Harris at wingback, because he was the only player on the roster who knew how to play there. The only problem with this configuration was that the wingback received about 20 per cent of the carries, relegating the best player in high school football to little more than a decoy in the biggest game of the year.

Oak Park lost that game. Nixon, who headed the Raiders football program for 15 years, still hasn’t forgiven himself for the blunder. He’s been constantly reminded of his mistake over the years, as Harris has gone on to produce a Canadian Football League Hall of Fame career.

“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” said Nixon, who will be in attendance on Sunday. “How do you take a back like that and move him to a wingback and give him fewer carries than he normally gets?

“(We should’ve) just really dummied down our playbook and given Andrew Harris the ball 40 times and you’re gonna win the game, right? What a stupid thing to do.”

Nixon said he’s since explained his wayward thinking and apologized profusely to Harris, who has been “very forgiving.”

“He’s like, ‘Don’t worry about it. Who cares?’ But he should have had a high school championship. If I hadn’t been so stupid, he would’ve had one,” he said.

To commemorate Sunday’s big game, Oak Park held a pep rally Friday. Students and staff alike wore shades of blue, gold and silver, creating a photo montage of a “W,” which was later sent to Oliveira and Demski.

There was a palpable buzz in the hallways all week, with lunch-hour conversations centring around the Oak Park alums’ three-season run being “almost too good to be true,” even if Harris plays for another team now.

“It’s kind of funny whenever I’m sitting in the locker room, and I’m thinking, ‘At one point in time, Andrew Harris was sitting in here, Demski was in here, Brady was sitting here,’” said quarterback Ryan Wirtzfeld, who will play for Oak Park’s varsity program next year.

“So it kind of puts into perspective that we may be on different stages right now but we’re so closely connected through the school and it definitely gives me a lot of motivation, especially going into next season.”

Head coach Chris Ollson, who took over for Nixon in 2017, said Harris, Demski and Oliveira have been “unbelievable human beings” and role models to the school’s students since their departure.

“I think it’s invaluable,” Ollson said. “Not just for our school, but in our league. When they can see players come through the high school ranks… they’re just great examples of what homegrown hardware can look like and what it can lead to.

“Nic and Brady, if you call them, they’re answering the call and they’re coming down to help support the football program whenever they can. I can’t say enough about those two guys.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam

Joshua Frey-Sam
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Joshua Frey-Sam happily welcomes a spirited sports debate any day of the week.

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