It's certainly no secret that OU safety Javon Harris did not play well last Saturday night against Baylor. He was ripped up one side and down the other on national television and equally as so by just about every OU message board/blog that exists (including this one). Monday, after practice, is one of the few opportunities the media has to meet with the players because of Bob Stoops' gestapo like control over media access. So it would have been incredibly easy for either the coaches or Harris himself to not be available to the media and avoid their scrutiny and difficult questions.
But Javon Harris is obviously a stand up individual with a considerable amount of character because there he was Monday after practice in the OU media room ready to face the heat. He owned up to his mistakes, answered all the questions he was asked with honest and forthright answers.
I've always found it interesting since my participation with this site started two years ago what I find to be incredibly interesting, share it here, and it receives very little to no response. This may very well be another one of those things, but I don't really care because I can't tell you how much respect I gained for Harris after learning of this. Like I said before, it would have been so easy for him to avoid doing this and never really have to answer to the media. They, meaning the media, probably wouldn't have been happy about it but at the same time would have understood because at the end of the day he's still just a 20 something year old student athlete. I mean for all the criticism he has received and is still probably receiving, it's not like he was trying to fail. Now obviously that doesn't excuse away his play, but he was man enough to own up to it in a situation where he didn't have to.
And I'm just not sure how you couldn't respect the heck out of that.