SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Major Harris, Hall of Famer.

It has a nice ring to it.

And with it.

But how did we all arrive at this gala evening at the Century Center, a nationally televised final phase of the year-long induction ceremony that elevated the one-time West Virginia quarterback to immortality?

See, it always seemed that Major Harris was on the verge of immortality, but was the man who always came up short.

There was a certain irony in the ceremony being just blocks from the Notre Dame campus, for Notre Dame kept him from what he treasured most, a national championship.

As a sophomore, he had led West Virginia to an unmatched, unbeaten regular season and into the Fiesta Bowl, where the Mountaineers would play the Fighting Irish with the title at stake. With Tim Brown gone from Notre Dame, again ironically a member of this Hall of Fame class, Harris figured to be the dominant player in the game.

Three plays in it was over. Harris had injured his shoulder and could only play like a mortal.

“We had built our game plan around Major,” Nehlen, himself a Hall of Famer, would say later. “We couldn’t change.”

This is what Harris told Sports Illustrated the week before the game:

“We have to open it up to have a chance to beat Notre Dame,” he says. “We have to throw. They aren’t going to let us option them to death. We can’t win if I’m held back.”

Nehlen and Harris both believe they could have beaten Notre Dame with one hand tied behind their back, just not Major’s, and the big one had slipped away.

That year and the next Harris became a finalist for the Heisman Award, so close, yet it always slipped away, losing to Oklahoma State running back Barry Sanders in 1988 and Houston quarterback Andre Ware in 1989.

He figured to be a shoo-in his senior season, but that never came for he was twisted and turned and misinformed, entering the NFL early and not being drafted until the 12th round. Here was this tremendous talent, caught up in a situation that was out of control.

The Los Angeles Raiders drafted him and sent him to Canada to play for a year before they could get a handle on how to use him.

He never saw an NFL field after that.

Close, but always the ultimate success eluded him.

That was why, perhaps, he was so surprised when Don Nehlen called him a year ago.

“I thought he was calling to tell me some NFL team wanted to sign me as a free agent,” Harris said, only half joking. “I heard a few years ago that I was up for (the Hall of Fame), but I thought maybe you were up for it once and that was it. It’s funny because when your playing days are over, you really don’t think about getting awards or honors. I’m definitely honored by this.”

He should be.

There are those who today would argue whether Harris is still the best quarterback ever to play at West Virginia. Certainly Marc Bulger could outpass him and Pat White could outrun him, but neither will ever go into the Hall of Fame because the No. 1 rule is that you must have been a first team on a major All-American list.

But when you think about it, without Major Harris there might never have been a Pat White, Michael Vick or Vince Young, for at the time he came along there were doubts that a black man could win as a quarterback. This is a country that sometimes fails to understand the really important things.

They doubted, too, that a quarterback with dancing feet could lead a team to a title, but they hadn’t seen Major Harris.

Nehlen had. So had the people up in Pittsburgh, where he was a City League legend, a kid who at 16 threw a 70-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the game as Brashear High beat Indiana (Pa.) High, 22-21.

Foge Fazio recruited him at Pitt, envisioned him as the next Dan Marino, but left the job before Harris could sign on the dotted line. His replacement, Mike Gottfried, saw Harris as a defensive back.

Nehlen said he would play quarterback.

“I knew Major would be a great quarterback at this level,” Nehlen told people back in the day. “I just didn’t know when.”

And so he came to West Virginia and changed football forever. Mobile and strong, owning a powerful arm, a runner and a passer ... Major Harris was changing the position itself.

The quarterbacks who preceded him as Heisman Trophy winners were — save for tiny Doug Flutie at Boston College — mostly statuesque. They were Vinny Testaverde, Pat Sullivan, Jim Plunkett.

Harris, though, had this thing you can call “it.” He could make things happen that weren’t supposed to happen.

To this day, 22 years later, they still talk about “The Play.” West Virginia was playing against Penn State, a team they had not beaten since Joe Paterno was in knee pants, but this was the magical year of 1988 and anything could happen.

Harris thought he had called 37 in the huddle, which went around right end, when in truth he had called 36, which went around left end. Film, with Jack Fleming’s call, is available on YouTube and clearly shows that Harris goes the wrong way.

He is alone against Penn State, making five tacklers miss. He goes into the end zone, standing up, from 26 yards out, without so much as a block being thrown for him.

“My fault, coach,” Harris said apologetically as he approached Nehlen on the sideline.

“I can live with it,” the coach said.

While that was the play everyone talked about as symbolizing Harris’ career, he preferred to talk about a different play, one that came in the second half of a game in Giants’ stadium against Rutgers later in that 1988 season. It was described in Sports Illustrated by Ralph Wiley this way:

“Standing in the pocket just short of midfield, Harris set himself to throw as a Rutgers defender was about to smash him from the right — his blind side. At the last possible instant, Harris sensed the pass rusher’s presence and reacted, looking like a man falling off a tightrope while hurling a dart. The ball whistled 50 yards down the middle, not more than 12 feet off the ground, and knocked wideout Reggie Rembert in for a touchdown. West Virginia went on to win the game 35-25.”

And then in that article Harris let on just how different he was than the normal player.

“The feel, I can’t explain,” Harris said. “I hear a voice in my head. Sometimes it says, ‘Move, Major.’ I know to listen to the voice.”

That voice only misled him once, when it told him to leave West Virginia early, but now at 41 years old, here he sits in the Century Center along with the rest of his Hall of Fame class that includes the aforementioned Tim Brown, Pervis Atkins of New Mexico State, Emerson Boozer of Maryland Eastern Shore, Troy Brown of Marshall, Chuck Cecil of Arizona, Ed Dyas of Auburn, Gordon Hudson of Brigham Young, Brian Kelley of Cal Lutheran, William Lewis of Amherst and Harvard, Woodrow Lowe of Alabama, Ken Margerum of Stanford, Steve McMichael of Texas, Milt Morin of UMass, Chris Spielman of Ohio State, Larry Station of Iowa, Pat Swilling of Georgia Tech, Gino Torretta of Miami, Fla., Curt Warner of Penn State, Grant Wilstrom of Nebraska and coaches Willie Jeffries, Ted Kessinger, Dick MacPherson and John Robinson.

He did so proudly, having finally earned his place in college football history.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.