It took Mark Harrell attending an invitation-only football camp last summer and a counselor with an NFL background to confirm those thoughts for Hayden to actually believe it.
“It wasn’t until a totally objective third-party, who I felt knew what they were talking about said it that I really believed it,” he said. “Not that I didn’t believe the other parents who had mentioned it, but you just didn’t want to get ahead of yourself.”
It took Mark even longer.
“I knew it wasn’t just going to fall into my lap just because a guy says I might be a Division-I player, I knew I would have to work for it,” he said. “I started hitting the weight room harder and taking workouts a little more seriously.
“The thing that hit home with me most was when I got the offer. I never thought anything like that would ever happen.”
That first offer came from Duke midway through his junior season at Charlotte Catholic High School (Charlotte, N.C.) and as eye-opening of an experience as it was, Mark still had no idea the course his recruitment would take.
Mark was always a bigger kid, which allowed him to keep up with his brother, Dooner, who is two years older.
“He was always a little bit faster than I was,” Mark said of his brother. “We were always about the same size, so it was kind of an even match as far as when we’d fight. It was always a solid, solid fight. He would bring older friends over and I would play with them too. I guess it kind of sparked my interest in competing and playing sports. It made me more competitive in a way because I would be playing with older kids.”
By the time Mark got to middle school, he was a standout football, basketball and baseball player and the projections of him as a college athlete began. Eventually, Mark grew too large to play running back in middle school and had to move to tight end, per league rules.
He played offensive tackle on the Charlotte Catholic junior varsity team as a freshman before accomplishing his goal of starting on the varsity as a sophomore. He attended that Football University camp the summer before his junior season and established earning a college scholarship as his new goal.
Football University offensive line instructor and former Green Bay Packer offensive line coach Larry Beightol told the Harrells that Mark was a future college offensive lineman.
“He felt like he was a tackle, which meant he needed to get bigger,” Hayden said. “As a result, he started really hitting the weights and eating as much as he could.”
The Harrells saw their grocery bill skyrocket as Mark tried to pack on the pounds.
“I was on the six-meals-a-day plan for a really long time, I’m not naturally huge like that,” said Harrell, who bulked up his 6-foot-6 frame to 270 pounds by adding almost 75 pounds between his freshman and junior years.
As Mark worked out and ate like a college lineman, he was told he’d be a high school tight end as a junior in Charlotte Catholic’s wing-t offense.
“When I first heard they were playing him at tight end even though everybody said he’d be a tackle at the next level, I was a little concerned,” Hayden admitted. “But I’m not concerned because he’ll play wherever they tell him to play. I talked to a few people and they said if anything it’s an advantage because he gets to show that he can move.”
Hayden has complete confidence in the Charlotte Catholic coaches.
“The coaching staff at Charlotte Catholic has been great,” he said. “They’ve spent a lot of time with Mark in this process.”
While playing tight end in a wing-t offense allows Mark to display his athleticism, it doesn’t provide every college the opportunity to precisely gauge how he would fit in at the next level, but Mark’s offensive line coach Frank Garcia is getting him ready. Garcia played at the University of Washington before spending nine years in the NFL.
“He truly has been through it,” Hayden said of Garcia. “I think he has helped Mark out a lot, both in teaching him how to block and also in giving him advice in the recruiting process. The other coaches have been involved in the recruiting process as well.”
Mark is trying to adapt Garcia’s personal outlook of overcoming people’s doubts.
“He has that attitude, ‘No one is going to tell me what I can’t do it,’” Mark said of Garcia. “Hopefully, some of that rubs off on me.”
Mark has made sacrifices to accomplish that goal. The Charlotte Catholic tight ends spent Tuesdays in the fall blocking with the offensive line before being rewarded with ‘Fun Day’ on Wednesday, when they caught passes. But not Mark.
“I never got to participate in Fun Day because Coach Garcia would drag me over to the offensive line again to get some extra work,” said Mark.
‘Fun Day’ became ‘Long Day’ for Mark as he stayed after practice with Garcia to work on his pass blocking.
“We never do it in games,” Hayden said of pass blocking. “He works with him individually on that after practice because that’s something that he’s obviously going to have to do a lot of at the next level.”
“He can teach anything,” Mark said of Garcia. “He can teach zone steps, he can teach pass pro. You name it, he’ll be able to teach it because of his knowledge for the game.”
The extra work has paid off.
Mark was pretty happy when his Duke offer was followed by offers from Georgia Tech and North Carolina State. Hayden went to Wake Forest and Mark’s mother went to Maryland and Mark was convinced he’d follow by playing football somewhere in the ACC.
“In October, I thought maybe Duke, NC State and Georgia Tech would be the only offers I was going to get,” he said.
He was wrong.
Despite not being a recruiting service sensation, Mark’s recruitment exploded over the winter. He was caught off-guard as he added offers from Clemson, Virginia, Kentucky, Auburn, Michigan, Stanford and Notre Dame along with several others.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “I never would have expected it. I’m not highly-rated or anything, so it’s just wild that I’m getting all of these offers. I just can’t really understand why.”
While the ACC schools offer a sense of familiarity, the Harrell family has been struck by the tradition of the national schools during unofficial visits.
“It’s different for them going to a big-time school like a Notre Dame or a Michigan and sitting in the head coach’s office,” Mark said of his parents. “Not taking anything from an ACC school at all, but there’s just so much tradition behind a lot of these big-time schools. It’s pretty crazy the contrast between the two. It’s kind of eye-opening.”
“It’s actually been a lot of fun,” Hayden said of the trips. “It’s tiring, but it’s a lot of fun.”
The Harrells have made about a dozen visits around the country, including a pair to South Bend to see Notre Dame - once before Mark got his offer and once after. Hayden was impressed with the size of Notre Dame and its academics and tradition.
“That’s one of the things our family is big on, just tradition in general and Notre Dame has so much of it,” Hayden said. “That’s a big plus.
“I like the size of the school. It’s hard to find a school that’s under 10,000 people that has the football program like that. That’s unique to Notre Dame, I guess.”
Hayden is also learning more about the unique process that is recruiting.
“I had no idea that anybody would care what my kid thought about a particular school or would care that he was visiting a particular school,” he said. “That’s a cottage industry that I didn’t even know existed until a month or two ago.”
He’s also been impressed with the amount of work college assistants put into their jobs.
“It seems like a 24-hour-a-day job,” he said. “They’re coaching, they’re traveling, they’re visiting, they’re talking on the phone, they’re e-mailing. These guys work their rear ends off. That’s the other thing I’ve been impressed with, just how hard those guys have to work.”
As much as the Harrells have enjoyed the recruiting process, it can provide a significant amount of pressure.
“I think as time goes on, it’s going to get more stressful when it’s time to pull the trigger,” Hayden said. “It’s a problem. It’s a good problem, but it’s a problem.”
Mark’s parents have made it clear his college decision will be his, but they will have some input.
“It’s a hard call,” said Hayden. “You don’t want to tell him where to go, but you certainly don’t want to leave it to a 17-year-old to make this decision totally by himself, without any input from the parents. We’ve tried real hard to keep him grounded through this nonsense and to give him advice on what we think is best for him in the long run. There’s obviously a whole lot more that goes into the equation than just football.”
“They bring out that college book, that big old blue book,” Mark said. “My mom’s marked all of the pages. They’re like, ‘It’s your decision, but look at this book and see which one has the best business program and what kind of GPA and SAT scores you’d need to get in without football.’
“At the end of the day, they know it’s my decision and they can’t really control my decision, but they can help influence me to the right direction toward what they think is best for me as far as my future goes.”
Hayden hopes the Christian and academic values they’ve instilled in Mark will help him with the decision.
“If it doesn’t work out in football, or even if it does, when he graduates, he’ll have a degree he can do something with,” he said. “If that’s not the most important item, it’s one of the most important items. We obviously emphasize the degree and the education and just try to point out why he would or would not be a good fit or comfortable at a particular school.”
Mark said his parents have successfully kept him grounded and focused on what will be best for him in the long run. Mark took the ACT last weekend after already taking the SAT. He’ll retake it if it isn’t up to his parents’ standards, which not surprisingly, are higher than the NCAA’s.
“They’re sticklers about academics,” he said. “They really stay on top of me about that kind of stuff. If it’s not good enough in their eyes, I’ll take it again.”
The Harrells will head to Auburn’s spring game this weekend and Mark could cut his list of 16 offers down afterward.
“Hopefully, he’ll narrow it down to four or five and then if he feels the need to revisit any of them then we would do that,” Hayden said. “We definitely do not want to start his senior year with all of this still going on. We’d like and he would like to commit, get it behind him and just focus on football and school as opposed to this juggling act.”
Mark could be ready to make a decision soon, but said he’d probably like to take a couple more return trips.
“If I still really feel like I need some questions answered, I’ll go to four or five of the schools that are on the short list and then make a decision from there,” he said. “It depends, if I cut down to five and am just like, ‘Look, we know none of these schools are as good as a certain school in my mind,’ maybe I’ll make a decision.”
Hayden has been impressed with what his son has accomplished and the way he’s handled the process.
“We’re very, very proud of him of course,” he said. “The opportunities he has are pretty amazing when you think about it and I hope he realizes how fortunate he is to have them. I think he does.”
Not only does Mark realize how fortunate he is to have the opportunities he does, he also realizes how fortunate he is to have the parents he does.
“I know kids who haven’t gone on visits yet even though they’ve got these offers,” he said. “They need someone to pay for it. I’m fortunate and I realize that. My parents have sacrificed a lot in getting me where I need to be and the places I want to see to help me out and make sure I make an educated decision.”
No doubt, he will.
