Ryan Metz
Sports Editor
After the death of her stepfather and birth of her daughter, PUC's returning scoring leader Meme Harris inspires on and off the court
The young girl gets a smile on her face as she puts her number 12 jersey on for her first game. She wears the jersey in honor of her daddy, who wore the jersey number in his playing days. Her daddy was the best basketball player that she'd ever seen and taught her everything she knew about the game.
Fast forward the story seven years. The daddy will be gone and out of the young girl's life, killed from a horrific tragedy.
••••
The young girl is all grown up now. Grown up faster than expected, due to what she described as the worst night of her life.
The phone rang on the night of Feb. 6, 2008 while Jamesha (Meme) Harris was staying at her grandmother's house with her three sisters. Her younger sister picked up the phone to hear a stranger on the other end of the line screaming into the phone, "She's been shot! She's been shot!"
The grandmother, along with her granddaughters raced to the Truck Stop of America on Ripley Street in Gary to find an ambulance being pulled away from the scene. Something had gone terribly wrong.
"We got to the gas station and all you could see was my mother's car all smashed up. It was hit on the back and hit on the side," the 20-year-old Harris said. "I saw an ambulance and I kept trying to see who was in it and the police officer told me it was my mother."
Harris' mother, Urcella Tucker-Jones, was rushed to the hospital after being shot in her car six times by her husband, Neil Jones.
Jones was angry after being told the previous week by Tucker-Jones she was leaving him, ending their 20-year relationship and 10 year marriage. Tucker-Jones' 11-year-old daughter had given her the courage to leave the abusive marriage.
"I knew my daddy. I use to know how violent he was. This wasn't the first time he put his hands on her. They had problems. I think my mother was unhappy for the last ten years, but since I have little sisters she wanted to stay with him so they could be a family," Harris said, calling Jones her father because he had been there for her throughout her childhood.
••••
Tucker-Jones was on her way home from a friend's house in Gary when out of nowhere her husband, driving a Dodge Durango smashed into the back of her car knocking it into a pole on the side of the road.
Frozen by fear, Tucker-Jones screamed and then realized the vehicle behind her was her husband's.
"When I saw who it was, it hit me again. I told myself 'Get it together girl, you better go.' So I took off and then he took off behind me." Tucker-Jones said.
Racing to find help, she sped down Ripley Street to find the nearest gas station, while her husband slammed his Durango into her car in pursuit.
When she arrived at the gas station, she jumped out of the car searching for help when Jones started shooting his .357-caliber Magnum.
She jumped back into her car when Jones ran up and started shooting her while standing in the car doorway.
"I didn't even realize I was shot. I was trying to fight - I was kicking and fighting in the car. I didn't even realize he was shooting until the last bullet shot me in the stomach. Then I just layed back and played like I was dead. When he saw me lay back and close my eyes, he stopped."
Jones paused for a moment taking in the scene, then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head. He then shot himself again in the head and fell to the ground.
Tucker-Jones jumped out of the car with the help of a stranger and ran into the gas station crying for help.
"When I went into the gas station to get help, I told them I needed to be there for my daughters. Who was going to take care of them? They were always on my mind. That's the reason I didn't go into shock, because I was thinking more about them than myself."
Tucker-Jones left the hospital after a week-and-half, recovering from shots to her stomach, hand and calf.
Her husband Jones was pronounced dead Feb. 10, three days after the shooting.
••••
"I think Meme responded the best out of the family. She's the one who kept me going. She was always joking and made me feel better," said her mother, who returned to her job at the Post Office as a mail carrier in September. "She was there when I needed her. She came to sleep with me at the hospital."
Harris stayed at the hospital until 4 a.m. the night of the shooting, leaving after learning her mother would be alright.
The following day she played in her basketball game, with the support of her mother.
"That's someone who loved basketball because she never missed a beat," her mother said, her eyebrows dancing up and down.
"I couldn't let my team down," Harris said. The PUC women's basketball team was already playing shorthanded, suiting up only seven players, due to a rash of injuries at that point in the season.
The freshman point guard willed her team to victory against Trinity Christian the day after the incident, scoring 12 points, pulling down five rebounds and dishing out six assists in the 72-65 win.
"Basketball was my outlet. It was something I could do that would take my mind off of everything that was going on. So for the two hours that I got to spend playing basketball everyday, I didn't think about anything else except it," she said.
Harris credits everyone on the team to being real supportive.
"It was a tragedy," PUC women's coach Tom Megyesi said. "Its made her grow up a lot faster than what she should have to grow up. Meme's been a great inspiration for us."
"She's tough. It's really hard to bring her down. She's so strong in every aspect of life," said PUC teammate Chrissy Lobodinski, whom she played with on the Merrillville High School team.
Blessed with natural ability to fly to the basket while dribbling the ball like a yo-yo with her blazing speed, Harris can change the tempo of a game with her agility and quickness.
She finished the season sixth in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference in scoring at 12.2 points per game as a freshman.
••••
So on the heels of losing one member of the family to death, the family would soon learn of the arrival of another.
"I waited till she had a smile on her face when I told my mother I was pregnant," said the soon to be mother.
Harris kept the secret of her pregnancy away from her mother and basketball coach only letting her sisters and two teammates - Amanda Moes and Lobodinski know of the news.
At the end of the season in February, the 5-foot-4 point guard gained 25 pounds from her regular playing weight of 135 pounds.
With her doctor's permission, she continued playing but had to pace herself on the court.
"I was more lenient towards doing stuff on the court because I didn't want to hurt myself. One game when I was cutting across the lane, this girl elbowed me in the stomach and it was just sharp pain. It just gave me a wake up call. I had to go through the motions but not go extra hard like I would before."
When the season ended and off-season conditioning started, she couldn't attend and had to confess to her coach she was pregnant.
June 29, her daughter Rayonna Richardson was born.
Harris briefly thought of giving up basketball to focus more time towards her daughter, but her family, which includes her mother, sisters, grandparents and her biological father, Patrick Harris, who lives in Hobart have helped out babysitting.
Harris' on-again, off-again relationship with Rayonna's father, Rayshon Richardson hasn't been a detractor either.
"He's a good father. He comes to my basketball games, picks her up and takes care of her."
Her basketball coach credits Harris to keeping her priorities in line.
"Those things happen and we can't change it," said Megyesi, "but she's really stepped up and she's been a great mom. She wants to continue playing basketball and going to college most importantly."
"I'm different. I'm not going to say it's hard or it's easy. It's about balancing out the time," said Harris, who takes classes two days a week with hopes of continuing her basketball career after she graduates or get into the sports medicine field.
Her teammates look up to her with admiration because she balances being a mother and a student-athlete.
"She has so much support with her family and friends and I just know everyone is going to be there for her," Lobodinski said. "Some people might say negative things. Like people last year always asked me 'How's Meme? How is she going to do it?' Every time I had the same response, 'She's going to be fine. She's going to do what she has to do.' I know that she's strong, her family is strong and she can make it through anything."
Published in the PUC Chronicle on Nov. 3, 2008
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