Harris Definitely Made An Impact

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Janet Harris was willing to follow her instincts and head south. It was one of the best decisions the 2015 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inductee ever made.

"I wanted to go somewhere where I knew I could make an impact," Harris said.

A native of Chicago, Harris in 1981 was the No. 1 high school recruit in the country. Big, strong and loaded with skills, the 6-foot-3 Harris could have played at any school she wished. She chose Georgia.

"Nobody could ever understand why I chose Georgia," she said. "'You could go anywhere, why would you choose Georgia?'"

The results speak for themselves: 2,641 career points and 1,398 rebounds. All these years later, both marks remain No. 1 in program history.

Harris went on to become the first player in NCAA women's basketball history to accumulate more than 2,500 points and 1,250 rebounds in her career. She was the 1982 National Freshman of the Year, a four-time All-American, and she helped lead the Lady Bulldogs to their first Final Four appearance in 1983 — 40 years ago this spring — and again in 1985.

When she wasn't wearing the red and black, Harris earned three gold medals with USA Basketball: at the Goodwill Games and World Championships in 1986, and the 1987 Pan American Games. As a professional, she played in Italy, Japan, Spain, Israel, Turkey and Greece.

Along with her induction into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, Harris has been inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, the Illinois High School Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 2002 she received the highest honor a former Bulldog can receive when she was inducted into the Circle of Honor. In 1993, she her number No. 45 jersey was retired.

And none of that would have happened, at least not the way it did, if Harris hadn't bought in to coach Andy Landers' straightforward sales pitch and signed with Georgia on June 2, 1981.

"Janet was our first great player," said Landers, a Women's Basketball Hall of Famer who won 862 games during his 36 seasons at Georgia (1979-2015). "She was the No. 1 player in the country coming out of high school. She had no reason to come to Georgia: she's not from here, she didn't know anybody here.

"My first conversation with her, I said to her just what I said to you: There's no reason to come to Georgia; we're really, really bad. You can go anywhere in the country. But if you come here, we're going to be really, really good. And you're going to be the reason why.

"I don't know what part of that resonated with her. I tend to think it was the honesty."

During her four seasons at Georgia, the Lady Bulldogs — loaded with talent, including fellow Hall of Famers Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain — compiled a record of 107-24. As a freshman, Harris averaged 22.4 points and 12.4 rebounds a game. For her career, she averaged 20.2 points and 10.7 rebounds.

"I was surprised that I averaged that much," she said. "I didn't have a clue; I just wanted to play. I just got out there and played."

So many wins, so many achievements. Just don't ask Harris to pick a favorite moment: "I can't really say because there are so many."

It's not the in-game moments or the wins and losses that get talked about at the reunions — and Georgia's men's and women's 1983 Final Four teams will be back in Athens this weekend — it's the moments from practice or other team activities.

"None of them talk about wins or losses. They talk about that word that (Nick) Saban's made famous," Landers said. "They all talk about the process."

And the process, Harris said with a laugh, was sometimes tough to handle.

"They were hard," she said of Landers' practices. "Oh, my gosh, they were hard. ... We wouldn't change it, but it was tough."

Those tough practices made the players better and brought the team closer, Harris said.

"We stuck together. Regardless of who did what in practice, or who made us run, we stuck together."

Running wasn't something Harris did much of when she was younger. Because of a bad case of asthma, Harris had to limit her activities. But as she got older, she realized that running around made her feel better.

"I noticed my asthma was getting better, and I just turned into a terror," she said. "I was playing any kind of sport that had running it. I'd keep my inhaler in my sock. I'd play softball and volleyball, I was a pretty good volleyball player too, but basketball was just my thing — and I just stuck with it."

Growing up on the basketball courts in the South Side of Chicago at that time, Harris spent plenty of time around some other hoops legends in Isiah Thomas and Mark Aguirre.

"I saw Mark all of the time, and I was like, I want to be like him," she said of Aguirre, who starred at DePaul before a long NBA career. "He could handle the ball, he could go get rebounds, so I just came to play."

Before Harris' freshman season began, Landers told her that there were going to be days at practice when he got on her. He said that "there were going to be days that were not Janet Harris days. I said they're going to be painful." Landers said he didn't want anyone on the team to think that the star freshman was getting special treatment, which could cause problems for them both.

"She handled that like a champ, never once complained," Landers said with admiration.

In her first game at Georgia, Harris scored 36 points. That's not a bad debut.

"Nah, we did a good job of getting her ready," Landers said with a huge laugh.

When asked to compare Harris to some of the other star forwards and post players that Landers coached over the years, he said "there's not a fair comparison" to be made.

"Janet was Janet. Her game was different. ... She was the strongest player that I ever coached," he said.

The two most important players that Landers ever coached, he said, were Bernadette Locke and Harris. Locke was a good player who followed Landers to Georgia from Roane State after Landers, then just 26 years old, was hired as head coach on April 24, 1979.

"And because of her, we were able to avoid a losing season (in his first year at Georgia)," Landers said. "And then, of course, Janet. Once I signed Janet Harris, it didn't matter anymore that we didn't have tradition. All the other great players in the country had to look at it like, 'If Janet Harris went there, I've got to at least listen to this guy.' ...

"You have to have that great player. Once you have that, you can attract other great ones."

After Harris came Edwards, McClain, Saudia Roundtree, the Miller twins, Tasha Humphrey and so many more. Harris set the standard that Lady Bulldogs have been chasing ever since.

"She carried Georgia basketball when no one knew what Georgia basketball was," Edwards said after Harris was voted into the Hall of Fame. "When other players like me and 'Tree' (McClain) got there, it was Janet's house. We just added to it, trust me."

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.

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