If Mason Harris gets little else out of his college football experience, the Ridgeland High School senior has learned a very important life lesson during his recruitment.
In choosing to sign Wednesday with South Carolina, the 6-foot-3 defensive end got a lesson in the importance of relationships. Though he picked the Gamecocks over a late offer from Miami, Harris signed his papers feeling he couldn’t have gone wrong either way after making several new friends in the process.
A visit to Miami this past weekend nearly led Harris to change his mind after being committed to the Gamecocks for nearly a year.
“It was pretty serious because of Coach [Michael] Barrow. I like him so much,” Harris said of the Hurricanes’ assistant coach and former NFL linebacker. “We have a connection that a lot of people don’t have, and he told me even when I get to South Carolina that we’ll still be close. Because of him it was tempting, but in the end I decided that South Carolina was just the right place for me.”
Ridgeland coach Mark Mariakis has gone through this process with BCS-school prospects such as Mike Bowman and Nigel Nicholas in recent seasons, and his advice for Harris was simple and something the all-state player definitely followed.