Family, friends celebrate the life of basketball star Harris

Tony Harris was more than just a basketball star.

Though he was a hero to many who followed his career at Washington State University and almost a household name in parts of Brazil, where he played professional basketball, the Seattle native also put his wife and teenage son before anything, says his family.

Nearly 700 people squeezed into a Kent church Friday to memorialize Harris, 36, who was found dead in Brazil last month.

His wife, Lori, and his sister-in-law, Loni Hall, remembered him as a down-to-earth family man who loved the outdoors.

"Tony told me that his two greatest accomplishments were his son and marrying me," said Lori Harris, who is due to deliver the couple's first child this month.

Hall said she idolized Harris' basketball skills and thought he was the finest man she had ever seen when he played at WSU. She said he later became her brother-in-law and her husband's best friend.

"To me, he was our family. We were together through the good times, the bad times," Hall said. "Tone's passion was not basketball, but his whole family."

Harris, a guard who played at Garfield High School, led an unlikely 1994 Cougars team to the NCAA tournament, where WSU lost in the first round to Boston College. He went on to play in Cyprus and South America. He had been a star in Brazil from 2000-05, earning Player of the Year honors and winning a championship before retiring.

He left Seattle on Oct. 31 to play ball again in Brazil to make money after being laid off from a juvenile-detention center. Harris disappeared early last month. When he last spoke with his wife on Nov. 4, he told her that he feared for his life.

Harris' body was found on Nov. 18, on what would have been his 37th birthday. He had a shoelace around his neck.

Brazilian authorities have said suicide is the most likely cause of death, but Harris' family doesn't believe he would have taken his own life.

"Many people will choose to dwell on the cause of Tony's death. I will choose to remember how he lived," Hall said.

Harris' memorial at the River of Life Fellowship Church featured a slide show, songs, remarks by friends and relatives and prayers led by Pastor Sam L. Townsend Sr., of the Greater Glory Church of God in Christ, in South Seattle.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com