Thomas Sumter's Harris shines in debut to win Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week

Thomas Sumter's newest quarterback made quite the impression in his first start.

Jamari Harris, who transferred to TSA after starting his high school career at Lugoff-Elgin, showed of a big arm and electric running ability in the Generals' 49-7 win over The King's Academy on Friday. His performance was enough to earn the season's first Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week award. This is the second school year Hines is sponsoring this reader-vote series, which will culminate in a bracket to determine the athlete of the year.

"It feels great," Harris said of earning the recognition. "Coach Brannon Tidwell and the coaching staff made me feel at home since I got here. And the players, I couldn't have done it without my team.

He said it was "hard, but it was fun at the same time with my teammates."

Luckily, Harris had a full offseason with his teammates to get acclimated. He said they spent a lot of time after practice to make sure they were on the same page.

"It took us a minute to get on the same page, but we stayed after practice so many days to get our team chemistry up," Harris said. "Me and Gatlin (Kimbro) became close over here. I know he came from Georgia. We hang out a lot with Matthew (Hawkins). We've got a bunch of classes together. It means a lot because we worked hard, hours and hours over the summer, to prepare for that one game."

That hard work paid off on Friday. Harris only attempted seven passes, but he completed four of them for 167 yards and three touchdowns. He added another 111 yards and two touchdowns on the ground to lead Thomas Sumter to victory.

Tidwell said Harris was able to make an instant impact for the Generals because of his mindset as a signal-caller.

"The thing that stands out to me is how calm he is back there. I think it's a combination of his baseball background, being a running back when he was younger and developing into a really good passer," Tidwell said. "He wants to throw the football. He's told me a few times that he'll take off, but he wants to extend plays and throw the ball down the field. He never loses his composure. He's always focused and moved on to the next play. That's kind of how he is on and off the field."

The Thomas Sumter offense took a big step forward with Harris at the helm, and Tidwell expects that to continue.

"(Having Harris at quarterback) just lifts everybody up. I told our guys a year ago that we have talent on our football team, and we have to develop that talent. What he does is give those guys a little bit of confidence that we're going to be able to throw the ball and run the football," Tidwell said. "Javion (Lammie) and Ayden (Allen) were our running backs last year, but it's a lot easier to stop the run when you can put nine guys in the box and there's no threat of the pass. This year, we have the threat of the pass, so it's really helped our whole team."

Harris said the win was the first step in a great season for the Generals.

"Looking at the scores from last year's games, I know it was rough. That was a big thing coming into this year. Coach Tidwell told me he wanted this to be a new beginning," Harris said. "I knew it was going to be hard to rebuild this, but it's going good so far."