TALLAHASSEE — Edwin "Nick" Harris didn't set a goal to be the first black baseball player in Florida State history.
He was a standout player at Camden High School in his native New Jersey. His career led him to the Gibbs campus of St. Petersburg College, where he became a member of the Hall of Fame.
Harris' friend, Lenny Hall, was also a Camden High and St. Petersburg grad. He broke FSU's color barrier on the basketball court in 1966. In 1967, Hall introduced Harris to then-FSU head baseball coach Fred Hatfield, and Edwin let his playing do the talking.
"I wasn't trying to be the first, didn't know I was the first, and really didn't care if I was the first," Harris said via video chat. "You don't think about accolades. All you think about is playing your sport, and that's all I thought about."
That's really all he could think about. Harris, who was one of 21 black students when he arrived on campus, explained that his teammates respected his play, but they didn't go out of their way to be friendly with him.
"I hit a ball over 400 feet. I got back to the bench…none of the players said a thing to me," he recalled. Coach Hatfield gave Harris the chance to earn his spot on the roster, but their relationship was strictly business.
"You know how you sit down and talk to your coach, and the coach talks to you? He never did that," Harris remembered. "On the field, he would just say, 'Harris, go do this. Harris, go do that,' So, as far as me having a relationship with him, I didn't. I was just determined to do what I wanted to do. I was just more interested in playing the sport that I loved."
Harris' baseball career ended abruptly in 1968. The police responded to a call at a Tallahassee club where Harris was standing outside with his friends. The reported disturbance happened inside the business and didn't involve Harris or his friends. Despite explaining that he had never even been inside the establishment, a judge fined Harris and two of his friends and threw them in jail.
"We had to wash police cars and clean the jail for as long as it took for that fine to be paid off," Harris recalled. "In the interim, we finally get somebody around the college to speak for us. So he basically had all of his officers around, of course. Naturally, he called us 'boys.' And he said, 'Boys, the situation is like a house on fire. The damage is done.' My grades, everything suffered," he continued. "You know what your mom says, 'Come on home.' That’s why it didn’t end the way I wanted it to end, but it was a learning experience."
To this day, Harris, 81, said he harbors no anger toward the people who stood in he the way of his success at Florida State.
"If we want to be forgiven, we gotta forgive," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "The thing of it is, I hold no animosity against those people- or even the people that did what they did. Because I don't have the problem. They do."
Edwin shared that name with his father. In order to avoid confusion when she said their name, she called the younger Edwin "Nick." FSU honored Edwin "Nick" Harris during an on-field ceremony before a game versus Miami in 2022. It was a long time coming, but Harris insists he was never in it for himself. He played baseball because he loved the game.
"It was redemption to me. And the only redemption that I thought of was, 'Well, you know what? You could really play the game.'"
Harris has lived to see the progress made on college campuses and athletic fields across the country, but he knows there's still plenty of work to do when it comes to equality.
"We've got a lot of work to do. We are loving and forgiving people. The only one that can change a heart and mind is God above. We've made some progress, but we have a long way to go."
Over the last two months, the ABC Action News I-Team has sent the names and information of nearly 300 people who were stuck in an "adjudication hold" to the Florida Department of Commerce. But now, some people have followed up to let the I-Team know after sharing their stories, they are finally getting the relief they desperately need.
