Syracuse senior Kenzie Harris finds her newest passion away from lacrosse
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (BVM) – Kenzie Harris, a member of the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team has been playing lacrosse for as long as she can remember. Harris recalls one particular memory dating back to first grade that made her fall in love with the game from the very beginning. She was asked to play up with the fourth and fifth graders as a first grader because they were short on players.
“I remember vividly getting the ball at midfield and running down and scoring a behind the back shot and everyone just absolutely freaked out,” Harris said. “That feeling of scoring and people being so proud and happy for me, I never wanted [it] to end.”
Feelings like this, draws Harris back to the sport every time. But this isn’t the only thing she has to be proud of. Harris tore her ACL her senior year of high school and was out of lacrosse for three years.
“My knee just never got strong enough to be able to get back on the field,” she said.
Harris worked hard every day to get back on the field and to be able to play at Syracuse. After three hard years, she was able to return for her first game with the Orange at the Carrier Dome. Harris added to her range of emotions, scoring her first collegiate goal in the matchup against Canisius College.
“Going through all the struggles of an injury like that, and being told I wasn’t going to play again, and then scoring in the Dome is a moment I won’t forget,” Harris recalls.
The Syracuse senior remembers that feeling like it was yesterday, being one of her proudest accomplishments. However, that moment came with a lot of struggle. During her difficult time rehabbing, Harris struggled with the build up of mental health issues.
“I completely fell off the deep end after my injury because for so long, lacrosse was my only identity,” Harris said. “Then when I lost it, I had no idea who I was without it. My whole life was lacrosse.”
Battling the injury became one of the hardest moments of her life as Harris faced her newest mental hurdle. Harris feared she would never rebuild from it due to how bad things got, but she was able to find hope in something else.
”Music, entirely,” Harris said of her recently found passion. “When I went through losing lacrosse, that also led to me losing my identity and in that process, I lost myself. I needed to find something else to fill that void and instead of turning to the wrong things, and being around the wrong group of people, music led me to find that other identity.
“I realized that I was a lacrosse player, but I wasn’t just a lacrosse player. I had more to me than just this sport.”
In a life full of unexpected things and playing sports that can increase your risk of injury, music felt like the one consistent thing to her. It always gave her a place to go or turn to.
“I got so involved with it when my life was consistently going downhill and in the wrong direction,” she says. “I needed to find that ‘something else’ to dig myself out of the hole that I got myself in.”
Harris believes that music and lacrosse go hand in hand for her, while also having their own specific differences as well. Now, in her senior year at Syracuse, Harris continues to incorporate her music career into her lacrosse career. She uses good and bad moments that happen on the field to help inspire some of her songs.
“My teammates are a huge part of how, and why, I do what I do,” Harris said. “Their constant support and just the stories that they tell, gives me the inspiration and story lines for a lot of the stuff that I write and create.”
Along with being fully cleared to play and starting her senior season for the Orange, Harris continues to release music. Her first couple of songs have gone out on Spotify, with her song, “Sober” garnering popularity online. She recently did a joint Instagram live with Justin Bieber after catching his attention with a cover she did of one of his songs.
