It has been a drastic climb up the recruiting charts for Jamie Harper this year. Relatively unknown back in February and March, his highlight tape made the rounds and now he’s on plenty of most wanted lists. Not only do the big time football schools want him. So does the ESPN All-American Game. Sunday, Harper was told that he has been selected.
ESPN’s Tom Luginbill called Harper on Sunday and invited the 5-11.5, 215-pound running back with sub 4.4 speed from Jacksonville’s Trinity Christian to play in the game. Harper had already been filling out the information sheet that ESPN sent out to prospective participants when he got the call.
“It is just a blessing from God and a privilege to just be able to go play on TV and go out there and have fun doing what I like to do,” Harper told GatorCountry.com when calling to confirm his participation. “I told him I just have a few things I haven’t filled out. I told him that the only thing that would have held me back and from playing the game is the talent level and from what I am hearing the talent level will be great.
“People like Jeremy Calhoun from Texas and people close like Nigel Carr and Xavier Brewer from Jacksonville. There will be a lot of great players and from what I hear it is going to be a great game.”
Harper already had an idea what would happen during All-American week at the Disney complex, but when he was told the full extent of activities, it was more than he could have imagined. The participants will spend a week in Orlando and along with family members they will be able to visit many of Walt Disney’s theme parks via the association with ESPN.
It was a lot for Harper to soak in and he is ready for the competition.
“I know I am going to spend a week out there and we will go to the theme parks,” he said. “I know there will be competitions for the positions. I know [Luginbill] said that Jeremy Calhoun and I are going to be on separate teams to even out the competition.
For someone that went through a slow spring, suddenly things have really heated up for Harper.
“At Trinity we just really work hard and try and get after it,” he said. “Coach doesn’t want us to go to a lot of camps and combines to make sure we are healthy. I went to a couple of combines and ran real well and from there everything just started to get better. It is just God-given ability that got me to this point.”
Jamie will be one of 80 of the top high school prospects in the country to play in the All-American game on January 5th 2008, in Orlando Florida. Stay tuned as more names are announced.