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BOYS BASKETBALL: Despite declaring football his future, GR Christian two-sport superstar Harris won’t stop inflicting pain on the hardwood
GRAND RAPIDS – While being besieged by a bevy of top-tier Division I college football recruiters, Grand Rapids Christian Drake Harris has taken the time to keep killing the competition on the basketball court.
After leading GR Christian to a state title on the gridiron back in the fall, establishing himself as the No. 1 wide receiver in the nation’s Class of 2014, according to some scouting services, Harris has his school’s hoop squad in the Class A final four.
In the regional championship game last week, he busted loose for a career-high 37 points in a 78-70 defeat of Holt. Then in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, he dropped a 25-spot on Muskegon in a 64-61 win that punched the team’s ticket into the state semifinals for the first time since 1967.
A sleek 6-foot-4, 210-pounds, Harris is just as electrifying with a basketball in his hands running the point then he is with the pigskin getting thrown his way down field.
If you know his history, it’s not surprising.
You see, up until a few months back Harris was intending on playing basketball, his first-love, at the college level. He was a heady, blazing-fast floor general first, football was a hobby. Something he did in the offseason to stay in shape.
Then, he realized maybe it should become more. The overwhelming natural talent he displayed on the gridiron was undeniable. People he trusted told him his brightest future was now almost-certainly at his “secondary sport.”
The statistics didn’t lie. And they tell the most prolific of stories.
His 2,016 yards receiving last fall was an MHSAA record. It was only the 12th time in U.S. history a prepster eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark in a single season. He wowed everyone in attendance at Ford Field in the state finals, catching eight balls for 243 yards and a touchdown, in a drama-filled 40-37 overtime win against Orchard Lake St. Mary’s.
Earlier this month, Harris de-committed from Michigan State, where he had originally been recruited as a cager and re-opened his recruiting process. Currently, he holds more than two dozen premiere scholartship offers spanning elite programs coast-to-coast.
Those close to him say he will make a decision before the start of his senior year.
But first, he has some further business to take care of on the hardwood.
Harris and his hoops teammates – many of whom were also on the school’s state-title football team in the fall – lock horns with Romulus Friday in the semis at the Breslin Center, a berth for the program’s first-ever trip to the state finals at stake.
GR Christian is 20-6 on the basketball floor so far this season.
