Come back every Tuesday for Recruiting Horror Stories™, athletes' first-hand stories on what can go wrong during the recruiting process.
Micaiah Harris is a track and field athlete at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a school record-holder, a 5-time BIG 12 champion, and 7-time NCAA All American. He graduated in the fall of 2021 and will be completing his final season of eligibility in the spring of 2022. Harris was a highly-recruited athlete coming into college and like many highly-recruited athletes, has a recruiting horror story.
Being one of the fastest athletes in the country, Harris had no shortage of opportunities coming out of high school. He had offers from many Power 5 universities and had a recruiting experience that one could only dream of. However, even an athlete of his caliber had negative recruiting experiences.
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Home Visits
Harris had many coaches make home-visits in order to sway him and his family towards their university. However, one particular home-visit stood out above the rest. A coach from The University of Tennessee came to his home with a projector and portable projector screen and pitched his school like no other. Tennessee went from a school that was low on his radar to a strong potential destination for him. During the home-visit however, the coach said the university only offered scholarships after official visits, so the family would have to wait for the offer. Although this was odd for Harris to hear as other universities offered him during the home-visits, the pitch was so convincing that the family decided that they must move forward with the process.
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Official Visit During Dead Period
The plan was set. However, a week before the visit, the coach called and said he accidentally scheduled the first day of the visit during a dead period. The coach said the Harris family would have to Uber from the airport to the hotel and that Micaiah would not be able to meet the coaches until the next day. Now that he's a current NCAA athlete that regularly hosts recruits, he says he doesn't understand how this happened at all.
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Deciding to Cancel the Visit
Ultimately, Harris decided to then not take this visit, and at the end of the day, he landed at a different UT: The University of Texas, where he's had an illustrious career as a sprinter. Looking back, he views the fact that he wasn't offered as a red flag that meant the school did not allocate enough money for him and he would be getting a partial scholarship. Therefore, he has no regrets about not taking the visit, as he would not have taken less than a full scholarship.
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* Originally published on March 15, 2022, by Paramveer Chohan