Quentin Harris '15 Recruiting Profile

It has been a long process, but an exciting one too. I feel very honored by all of the college coaches that have expressed their interest in me as a QB to lead their offense and their football team. I thank all of them for their confidence in me and the time they took to talk to me, evaluate me, and visit with me and my family. I've narrowed my list of college choices, and today I have made my college decision.

I want to publicly thank all of the coaches at the prestigious and amazing colleges and universities that recruited me and/or offered me a scholarship to attend their schools. I am very, very honored to have been so highly thought of by all of those coaches who took the time to welcome me and my family to their campuses and to talk to us about their programs and universities. I especially thank the coaches who took the time and energy to come see me and visit with me at Taft. I really do appreciate the confidence in me to play QB for your programs and to be a leader on your football and baseball teams. I do apologize to those schools that I did not have a chance to visit, or that did not have a chance to visit with me and talk with me about their programs. Thank you for your interest.

 After all was said and done, I had to choose the school that I feel fits me the best and offers me the overall college experience I am looking for academically, athletically, and socially. 

I am honored to announce that I will attend DUKE UNIVERSITY and play football and baseball for the Duke Blue Devils. 

My name is Quentin Harris, and I'm from Wilton, CT. I'm a junior at The Taft School in Watertown, CT, where I am the starting QB of my varsity football team and starting outfielder on the varsity baseball team. I'm also twice-elected Class President. I'm an Honors student at Taft, and I was recently invited to become a member of The National Society of High School Scholars. I became a member July 2013.

I'm honored to have been invited to the Under Armour All-American Combine in St. Petersburg, FL and, for a second straight year, invited to the US Army All-American Combine in San Antonio, TX. It's an honor and a challenge to be recognized as one of the top athletes in the 2015 class.

My Dad, Kevin Harris, played high school football in Florida and was a Blue Chip Recruit in the 1980s. After being recruited by some of the top college football programs in the country, he chose to play college football for Coach Vince Dooley at the University of Georgia. He was later drafted into the NFL by the Detroit Lions. I have a first cousin currently preparing for the upcoming 2014 NFL Draft, who just completed his four years playing college football at the University of Miami (FL) and is scheduled to graduate from college in May 2014.

Although I can successfully run the read-option offense, I'm equally effective running a pro-style offense where I have to throw from the pocket. I consider myself a pro-style, pass-first QB who can also make plays with my legs to move the chains. My primary responsibilities as QB are to be accurate with the football and to make good decisions. I'm a facilitator and a play-maker at the QB position. As a facilitator, my job is to get the ball into the hands of my play-makers and in a position where they can easily catch it, turn up-field and make a play. As a play-maker, my job is to make sure we keep moving the ball and ultimately to score, even if that means I run with the football.

I'd like to play college football and/or college baseball at a college or university with a broad range of strong academic programs, highly competitive football and baseball programs, outstanding coaching, a beautiful campus environment, and an involved student body.  My ideal athletic environment is one where there is real team unity and where teammates are strongly committed in the classroom as well as on the football field. It would be great to play in one of the major conferences, but it's more important to me that I attend a strong academic school with an interesting and diverse student body and great campus environment. Although I see myself as a D-I FBS football/baseball player, I am also seriously considering Ivy League and high academic D-III schools where I can also have the option to play baseball.

I am also being recruited for baseball, and I currently have a D-I college baseball offer.

As a junior, I'm taking two AP courses and two honors courses. My primary academic goal this semester, and every semester, is to achieve High Honors; my athletic goals are to win every play of every game, win another Class A New England Prep School Championship, and to help establish and pass along a great winning tradition for Taft Football.

In college I plan to major in Economics, Aerospace Engineering, or International Business, with a second major or minor in English Literature or the Classics. I was fortunate enough to gain some exposure to corporate finance and parts of the investment banking industry, including the mergers & acquisitions business process through externships and summer business camps. This past summer I had an opportunity to get a firsthand look at the job of a baseball General Manager.

After graduating from college (and if there are no opportunities for me to play professional sports), my goal is to go to law school. I was selected to participate in a career leadership forum at Stanford Law School this summer. The forum presents a great opportunity for me to gain hands-on, practical experience as a trial lawyer while being mentored and instructed by law professors from one of the top law schools in the country.

My dream job is to be General Counsel or General Manager for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Mets, or the Los Angeles Dodgers. As noted above, this summer I had a chance to work with the General Manager of the minor league affiliate of the Detroit Tigers to learn more about the job of a GM. I'm thankful to the GM and his staff for giving me the opportunity to get a first-hand look at the business side of professional baseball.

I have college football scholarship offers from Boston College and Duke. I also have an offer to play college baseball at Duke. I also have two Ivy League school football "offers" (no athletic scholarships offered by the Ivy League) from Yale and Harvard. While I am deeply honored by the offers from these strong academic schools with rich and proud athletic traditions, and they are among the top schools I am considering, I continue to explore all of my college options, which includes looking at all of the Ivy League, Patriot League, and high academic D-III schools I feel would be a great fit for me academically, athletically, and socially.