2014 basketball and football standout Drake Harris hopes to play both sports in college. On Wednesday, the rising junior announced that his college future will be at Michigan State. Harris picked State over Michigan and Notre Dame.
The 6’4″ Grand Rapids (MI) prospect is both a shooting guard and a wide receiver, but as of now is more highly-touted as a hoops recruit. Michigan State, probably the only “basketball school” in his final group, is getting a top-50 guard for Tom Izzo and a tall, athletic wideout for Mark Dantonio.
Being a success on both the hardwood and gridiron is a rarity in college athletics, but Harris has the talent to be a star on each team. Harris has said that Izzo is okay with him playing football and actually came to watch him on the field this past season at Grand Rapids Christian.
Harris took an unofficial visit to East Lansing last weekend that sealed the deal for him. He cited the close proximity to home, the family atmosphere and the promise of being able to play both sports as major reasons why he chose Sparty.
Photo credit: AnnArbor.com
If Harris continues to play both sports in college, Tom Izzo will be getting a star basketball player that does not actually count towards his team’s scholarship limits. Per NCAA rules, athletes that play both football and basketball will have a football scholarship and therefore be treated as a walk-on for basketball.
Harris is the first commit in the Michigan State 2014 class. He is ranked #46 overall (4-star) by Rivals.com and is just the fourth member of their Top 50 to make their college choice.
Other schools interested in Harris included Indiana (offer), Florida (offer), Illinois, Ohio State, Purdue, Texas and UCLA. According to Rivals.com, some schools were open to allowing him to play both sports while others were not. We are not sure where any of these schools stood on the issue.
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Two sport athletes are extremely rare as you pointed out. If he finds success in one he’ll likely ditch the other. It’s not like Jeff Samardzjia where he was playing a non-contact sport and football.
Greg Paulus is another guy that comes to mind and he wound up dropping basketball because he couldn’t hang at Duke. We’ll see how Harris turns out. Good article.