As Harry Hamilton reflected on this journey from football stardom at Greater Nanticoke Area to playing a pivotal role on the 1982 Penn State National Championship team en route to eight seasons under the bright lights of the NFL, the now 52-year-old attorney described his road to success as being “bittersweet,” recalling times of adversity marked by episodes of “hatred, dislike, envy [and] jealousy.”

Hamilton, a 1980 graduate of GNA, was a dedicated student and a star athlete who competed in both track and football during his Trojan tenure. And while Hamilton, who played safely, battled against opposing offenses on the field, his sentimentals suggested that some of the toughest foes he faced were present off of it.  “Given the climate of our times, you can’t open up an Internet page or newspaper and not read about what is happening to young black and women across America. The same hostility that exists in America today, I was experiencing in Nanticoke,” said Hamilton, who is African-American, referring to what he called “hatred, envy, and jealousy. That toughened me to the insensitivities that I would experience through life.”

When asked about his fondest memory of his time at Nanticoke, Hamilton described an incident in which he had a conversation with a teammate who apologized to him for “racist thoughts, ways and mentality. He said he was simply raised to be that way. This is my fondest memory because I still remember it to this day. I always contended that the first step toward healing is admitting the problem,” Hamilton said.

The former NFL player who played for the New York Jets and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during his eight-year playing career said his advice for students would be to “look within ourselves and think about how our students would be to and inactions affect others, we would make incredible differences. When I think about the bullying problem, or the cyber bullying, if we could just reflect on what we do and what could be, then your inaction is affecting somebody,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton also talks about his fond memories of being a part of the Penn State team that won the National Championship in 1982. “Whenever you work hard at something to achieve greatness or to achieve champion status, individually or collectively you reach that plateau, it tends to be something you carry with you to this day even with an ineffective memory,” he said “I can remember the calm before the storm if you will…the silence…the anticipation in the locker room before taking the field, and then the exuberance after even if I forget the plays in between .” And of his time in the NFL, Hamilton said it was “‘bittersweet,’ unlike my college experience. I entered into more of a business world. Unfortunately you are treated in an unnecessary business fashion, it has been described as feeling like a piece of meat, able to be discarded, based in the bottom line dollar. That changes things quite a bit, which would also cause me to pause when I say that I love the game.”

Hamilton may have retired from the football field, but he is still putting his skills to work, serving as a federal government attorney for 20 years “literally [in] every area you could think of.” He said he began to pursue law while playing in the NFL, saying he entered law school three years into his pro career. “I took a leave of absence from my way through five-and-half years to graduate from law school” Hamilton said “being able to positively affect the lives of other people,” is his greatest accomplishment. Despite some of the issues he has dealt with in the past, it made him who he is today.

“To change anything might not make me the man I am today or the person I am today. I might have worked harder to change attitudes, dispositions, and thoughts.”

You have accomplished many extraordinary thing during your time in High School, College, and the NFL and now as a lawyer. What would you say is the accomplishment you are most proud of?

Being able to positively affect the lives of other people even if only in a small way, I would like to think the things I have done, and things I have said, have had some positive effect along the way. I believe that some of the accomplishments along the way have placed me in positions to make an impact on the lives of others. I might not have been able to do that if I had not reached some of those other plateaus, and all of the this traces back to whatever happened with that teammate I spoke about earlier, it was no compelling reason for us to have that conversation. I like to think it was something I did, or something I said that caused a change of heart for him. If each one reaches one, and each one teaches one, we can make a world of difference.

Did you win any Senior Superlatives? If so which one?

I had a nickname for being very serious because the smiles that you see today were not always on my face, and it wasn’t because I was unhappy or angry, it was because i didn’t smile very much. I was known as “Serious Harry” in college.

What are some of your high school accomplishments?

With standing and winning and by winning I mean achieving, but achieving respecting others, respecting their rights, their feelings and their thoughts. While always trying to have mine heard and seen.

Who was your favorite teacher in high school and what was your favorite class?

The Late Coach Distasio played me in the starting role as a sophomore in high school. That was a brave and commendable act. Math and Sciences- Stayed away from some courses because I sensed some presuppositions. I wanted to be a lawyer; who needed math and law anyway?