The anticipation leading up to any high school football player’s final prep campaign can be tough to harness, but for nearly unanimous No. 1 overall Class of 2017 football recruit Najee Harris, the buildup has reached downright epic proportions entering Antioch (Calif.) High’s season opener.
On the day Harris begins his encore performance to a junior season that saw 2,744 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns, the San Francisco Chronicle followed the 6-foot-3, 226-pound running back for a feature that framed a wild picture of what it’s like to be the nation’s top football recruit.
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Here are seven revealing tidbits from a feature worth reading on the University of Alabama commit who arrived to a recent workout in a USC T-shirt, per the San Francisco Chronicle:
• He receives fan mail, the majority of which is from folks wanting autographed pictures.
• Random people, as in grown adults, knock on his family’s apartment door hoping to meet him.
“People know where I live, so they just come to my house and knock on the door,” Harris told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Random people … I don’t care if it’s little kids, but adults? That’s kind of crazy. I’m like, ‘What the hell?’”
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• I present the following nugget about Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh without comment:
On one of his two visits this year to Antioch High, the former 49ers coach sat in Principal Louie Rocha’s office, his feet propped on Rocha’s desk and his cap pushed back from his forehead as he chewed on licorice.
When Harris walked into the office, Harbaugh animatedly declared, “You’re a beautiful young man!” The room burst into laughter. He subsequently told Harris he should pursue a career in movies.
For the record, Harris said of Harbaugh in the article, “I like him a lot. He’s a funny dude.”
• When the NCAA cleared college coaches to text recruits this past April, more than 100 came into Harris’ phone within an hour, according to the Chronicle.
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• Despite Harris’ commitment to Alabama, Antioch head coach John Lucido told the Chronicle he’s asked every day where his star player is going next season, including once by a Chili’s waitress who rushed over to ask the question when Harris got up to go to the bathroom.
• His Antioch classmates come up to him “simply to shake his hand.”
• Even his math tutor has preconceived notions about the personality of a star high school football recruit. “I thought you were going to be an —hole,” she told him, according to the Chronicle.