News Release

Former NFL Player Turned Opera Singer

Visits Tyler ISD Schools

On Tuesday, October 3,  former NFL player turned opera singer, Lawrence Harris, will visit three Tyler ISD schools to talk to students about dignity, respect and his life as an NFL player as well as sing.  He will visit the following schools:

9:00 a.m.         Moore MST Magnet School

                        1200 S. Tipton

11:00 a.m.       Robert E. Lee High School

                        411 ESE Loop 323

Noon                Hubbard Middle School

                        1300 Hubbard Drive

Lawrence Harris, all 6’5” of him, played professional football as an offensive lineman with the Houston Oilers before moving to the opera stage.

“I remember when you were a rookie,” recalls Dan Pastorini, former Houston Oilers quarterback.  “You rookies had to get up and sing something in front of all those veterans. And most everyone else sang, ‘I’m a little tea pot’ or ‘Jesus Loves Me,’, or ‘Do-re-me,’ and I remember you got up and sang that Italian song and everyone’s jaw just dropped. I knew you were going to do something with it at that time, you know.”

How in the world did the switch from football to opera come about?  It’s an odd choice for a kid who grew up in the small rural town of Sherman, Texas, population 36,000.  Situated 60 miles north of Dallas at the crossroads of U.S. 75 and 82, Sherman isn’t exactly the opera capitol of the southwest.  But to Harris, opera was never far away and always on his mind, even when he ventured into a professional football career after college.

“Football was actually my first career,” he noted with irony in an interview with OperaOnline.us in mid-June, “but without a doubt singing has always been my vocation.”

Harris is quickly gaining a reputation as an important new Verdi/Puccini baritone. He has received wide critical acclaim for the rich color and unique beauty in his voice as well as being the consummate singing-actor. The New York Times critic, Bernard Holland, hailed Lawrence Harris as a “major voice” following his New York debut.

            The school visits are sponsored by Opera East Texas.

###