Skipping high school may be good for Bryce Harper...just don't try to follow him
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share thisThere are two types of reactions to anything: The initial reaction, and the thought-out reaction.
In the case of Bryce Harper, the distance between the initial reaction to what he's doing and the thought-out reaction couldn't be more vast.
If you don't know who Bryce Harper is, then you obviously aren't a Sports Illustrated subscriber. In the first week of June, SI relegated the Stanley Cup finals and the NBA championship series to promo status on its cover in favor of a photo of Harper, a high school sophomore from Las Vegas who many scouts think is the most advanced pro prospect for his age that amateur baseball has ever seen. He's 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, he is a prototypical catcher, and when he takes the mound, he's one of the nation's hardest throwers. Alongside his cover shot - in which he is posed with his sweet left-handed stroke already completed, his front leg straight, his back leg bent and his eyes focused hundreds of feet away - these three numbers are printed: 570-foot home runs; 96 mph fastballs; 16 years old.
If you don't know what Bryce Harper did, then you obviously aren't in tune with the latest "What is the sports world coming to?" controversy.
Well, it's coming to this: With the blessing of his father, Harper has announced he will drop out of high school, get his GED and enroll at the College of Southern Nevada, a community college where he will continue his playing career.
Their hope is clear. By ditching high school, the Harpers hope Bryce can become the first-overall pick in the 2010 amateur draft, instead of waiting until he'd have been a senior in 2011. By leaving high school, Harper is trying to leave the slackers who can't match his athleticism or plate discipline, and don't even try. He told the Associated Press that getting out of high school would be important, because opposing pitchers walked him a whopping 42 times last season.
His father, Ron Harper, put it even more bluntly.
"He needs to be pushed," he said.
No, he's not talking about being pushed in fourth-period chemistry.
Now, almost universally, the initial reaction to this story is one of utter horror. Many will call it a disgrace to the educational process. Others will see this as just another troubling example of parents pushing their kids too far, too fast into athletics. Maybe, some will see it as a sign that money is still the master motivator - after all, the benefit of being drafted a year earlier is that it would buy Harper a year of earning power.
And initially, I agreed with all of that. Ideally, kids should be allowed to be kids. Sixteen-year-olds should be worrying about driver's tests, SATs and what bowling alley they're going to meet their buddies at on a Friday night.
Take all that away, and you take away a piece of learning how to be an adult. There are very valuable lessons to be learned from being allowed to be a typical high school kid.
Only one problem: There's a copy of Sports Illustrated on coffee tables and in bathrooms across the nation with his picture on the cover. There's no going back to typical high school kid from there.
So, start thinking a bit deeper into what the Harpers are doing, I start to have fewer and fewer problems with it. In fact, in a nation where more and more high school students are being pushed to specialize in one sport, are playing them year-round and pouring thousands of dollars into personal trainers, dare I suggest that the Harpers are doing what millions of other parents would do if they were in the same situation.
Think about it: Golfers and tennis players are rushed to the professional ranks the moment they show exceptional talent, often before they're teenagers.
Besides, why is it wrong for Bryce Harper to turn pro when he's 17 when there are so many ballplayers being pulled out of Latin America when they're the same age - or younger?
For instance, Jesus Montero - the No. 2 prospect in the New York Yankees' system who has slugged his way to Double-A Trenton as a 19-year-old - was signed out of Venezuela when he was just 16. The Yankees signed Melky Cabrera when he was just 17. Same for the Mets and their best prospect, outfielder Fernando Martinez.
Point is, we can debate all day what this says about the focus on education, the bloated emphasis placed on youth sports by parents as well as kids and the effect big contracts have on the way promising athletes are handled. But what it comes down to with Bryce Harper is whether he's a good enough player to make a controversial decision work.
The initial reaction on that is, we'll see in 20 years.
The tought-out reaction is a hope against the potentially devastating side effect - over-eager parents pushing their clearly less-talented 16-year-olds down the same risky path Harper took.
Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com
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