2023 Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame - Round 1

Demetrius Harris

TV Show/Movie Appeared: Playmakers (2003)
Actor/Actress: Omar Gooding
Position Portrayed: Running Back
Played For:: The Cougars
Why you should vote:: There isn’t a fictitious athlete who carried more swagger than Harris.
Why you should not vote:: We are not kidding…he really does look like he needs to take a serious dump.
The character of rookie Running Back, Demetrius Harris may not have had much of a moral compass, but that was probably the point of the character on the ESPN original show, Playmakers. The show only lasted one season, though not because of ratings; which were actually very high. The NFL basically threatened ESPN that they would remove the game from the network due to the graphic portrayal of the game, even though they never said it was the NFL, nor did they ever say where the Cougars actually played.

Most of their concerns, we suspect were the depiction of Harris who throughout the season was shown constantly with drugs (including stealing pain medication from a child in a hospital), in strip clubs, and was associated with a murder. Regardless of the unlikability of the character, we did love watching the brashness of Demetrius Harris….even though the actor who portrayed him, Omar Gooding (who is Cuba Gooding Jr.’s brother), kind of looked like a constipated version of Rod Tidwell throughout the series.