How well do we really know the distant Harrison?

When the news hit last week that Indianapolis Colts receiver Marvin Harrison might -- and let me stress might here -- be involved in a shooting near his North Philadelphia business, one of the first things that people had to say was this:

That doesn't sound like the Marvin Harrison we know.

Marvin Harrison usually sits alone instead of with his teammates. (Getty Images)

What does that mean? We don't know Marvin Harrison at all. Few people do. He is as distant a player as there is in the NFL. Few of his teammates even know him all that well. The media certainly doesn't, and the fans have no idea what to think of him, other than he's one of the league's all-time leading receivers.

Yet as news spread that Harrison might be involved in something that could put him in jail if he is indeed officially linked to it, the reaction by most was that they must have the wrong NFL player. It can't be Marvin Harrison. He can't be doing the Mike Vick thing.

The truth is we don't know as much about our athletes as we think we do. The reality is we don't know as much about anyone as we think we do.

How do you know your co-worker doesn't play naked Twister every Thursday with his neighbors? Do you, Freeman? How do you know one of your neighbors isn't fighting mental illness, only he's hiding it? How do you know your old high school buddy doesn't beat his kids?

We really don't know people like we think we do. When Ted Bundy was doing volunteer work, did anybody have any idea he was a serial killer?

I'm not comparing Harrison to a serial killer. From people who know him -- and I don't -- they say he's a far better person than that. So don't go getting nutty on me and imply I'm comparing him to Bundy. What I am saying is that Harrison is just the latest athlete, or person, to show faults, human faults, that we sometimes are shocked to see or hear about. But we really have no idea what's inside a person's head, do we?

What most see in Harrison is a quiet, private person who happens to be a special football player, one of the all-time leading receivers, and a player who could actually challenge Jerry Rice's receiving records if he could stay healthy for the next few years.

What they don't see is a player who openly pouts when he doesn't get the football, although Harrison does indeed do that. Watch him during a game. Harrison sits by himself when the offense isn't on the field, away from his offensive teammates, and his body language seems to worsen when the passes aren't coming his way. I've seen it with my own eyes. Yet his reputation is that of a stand-up guy, not one of those look-at-me receivers.

See, we don't know him.

Harrison is just like the other players at his position. He wants the ball and when he doesn't get it, he's not happy about it. Harrison just doesn't go to the media to complain about not getting the football. In fact, he avoids the media for the most part, which leads to the mystery of the man.

That type of demeanor may have helped him in this situation. Can you imagine the media circus had the receiver at the core of this been named Randy Moss, Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson? The circus would have resembled the paparazzi feeding frenzy that surrounds Britney Spears' every move. TMZ would have eaten it up.

There has been none of that here. The paparazzi stalk Tom Brady more when he takes walks with Gisele. Harrison hasn't been seen, nor has he said a word. The Colts haven't said much, either.

The latest report is that Harrison isn't a suspect in the shooting for now, according to a police spokesman, although the bullets recovered from the scene reportedly came from a gun registered to him. That doesn't mean he did the shooting. He owns a bar. Bar owners keep guns. If there was a disturbance with an over-zealous patron, the gun could have come out, with someone other than Harrison doing the shooting.

If so, the shooter did his friend or employer or relative or whoever Harrison is to that person a big disservice by putting him in the middle of it all.

The first report indicated Harrison actually had a fistfight with the 23-year-old gunshot victim, beating the snot out of him, before the shooting took place. On some message boards, that's viewed as a shock. They see a rail-thin NFL player and wonder if the reports could be true. Is Harrison a ninja?

Again, what people don't know is Harrison is a product of the tough streets of North Philly. He still has a lot of that in him. Beating the daylights out of somebody shouldn't be a shock. Some say Harrison still has too much street in him, that he is too loyal to the older neighborhood.

He does return to Philadelphia most Sundays after games and doesn't come back to Indianapolis until late Tuesday. He also spends most of his offseason in Philly.

It's home. It's where he grew up. That's understandable. He has family there. Plus, he's giving back to the neighborhood, helping put businesses in an area that probably needs them.

Having said all that, Harrison needs to be careful about staying too true to the fellas. That's how problems happen. Just ask Vick. His boys helped land him in Leavenworth Penitentiary.

Loyalty is not worth spending a few years staring at cell bars rather than facemask bars, and loyalty is a word that those who know him say is a big part of who Harrison is as a person. He's far too loyal to the old friends. Once he allows you into his inner circle, those who know him say he can be trusting and warm. Until then, he is aloof and standoffish, which creates the Marvin Mystique.

He isn't one to hang out with his Colts teammates, although there are a few who are his friends. Harrison is closer, sources say, with some of the team personnel, like a trainer or an equipment man, which says something about him as a person. He doesn't care about titles or status or paychecks, which is a nice side.

What we know for sure about the incident is Harrison was one of several people questioned about a shooting that resulted with the victim being shot in the hand. There was a report that police sources said the six bullet casings found at the scene were from Harrison's gun.

Somebody he knows, whether it's the guy staring back at him in the mirror or not, did the shooting. Could it be Harrison? Of course it can. It's his gun. It might not be him, either.

But let's stop this talk about how none if it sounds like Harrison should be involved, that this isn't the Marvin Harrison we know. How well do we really know him? How well do we really know any of our athletes? How well do we know anybody?