From the Pub League to the Palestra

Xavier Harris wasn’t alive in 1980, and Constitution High School didn’t even exist.

But thirty years after Penn lured shooting guard Willie Oliphant out of Northeast High School on to campus, Harris has become Penn’s first recruit from a Philadelphia public school in over three decades.

The 6-foot-5 forward, who is averaging 17 points per game, committed to the Quakers in late January, but his enrollment is contingent upon a 30-point increase in his SAT score.

His high school coach, Robert Moore, said Harris recently took the test again, and scores would be in by early February, though Penn cannot comment about specific recruits or their admissions status.

Not surprisingly, Penn’s academic standards are always a factor with recruits. This becomes even more evident in the process of recruiting Philadelphia public school players.

“I know [former Penn head coach] Fran Dunphy definitely looked at kids,” said Speedy Morris, former head coach at LaSalle in the ’80s and the current coach at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia. “A lot of cases you just can’t get them in. You’re wasting your time if you’ve got a great public league player that can’t do the work at Penn. Why would you recruit him?”

Moore agrees, saying recruiting is “just a law of numbers,” and Ivy League coaches will allocate their time where the pay-off is guaranteed — namely private college-preparatory schools.

The Constitution coach also noted that the academic underachievement which prevents many from attending a top university — regardless of basketball — can stem from some of the city’s shortcomings in early education.

Academics aside, the financial factor plays an obvious role. High school prospects must weigh the opportunity cost of an Ivy League playing career ­and education versus a potential scholarship elsewhere.

Though the Ivy League provides no athletic scholarships, financial assistance is available in many cases.

“Families may think that the tuition is so high at Ivy League schools that it’s not possible,” said Constitution High Principal Thomas Davidson. “But the fact of the matter is, I know it is [possible] because of Penn and other Ivy League schools’ ability to provide assistance based on need.”

Maybe more indirectly, money is the main reason why Penn has gone so long without a Philadelphia “Pubber,” as they’re often called.

“In my mind there are still [private school players] who at some level are products of Philadelphia public schools,” Moore said. “A lot of those kids get targeted earlier … and [an elite private school] is going to snatch them up.”

With certain private high schools offering financial aid, talented basketball players who otherwise can’t afford such a high tuition rate can sometimes find a way out of the public school system.

“It’s out of control now, to be honest,” Morris said. “A lot of schools are going in and raiding public schools for kids if they show some academic promise.”

Episcopal Academy is just one example of a local school offering financial aid. The prestigious Philadelphia institution has produced the likes of NBA players Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson Jr., as well as Penn coach Jerome Allen and assistant coach Dan Leibovitz.

Legendary Philadelphia coach Dan Dougherty — who retired from Episcopal last year — coached all the aforementioned Episcopal players, as well as Dunphy.

Offering a different perspective, Dougherty noted that private schools lose talented players to all different kinds of high school institutions, from the public system to private boarding schools.

Either way, the combination of talent on the court and in the classroom can be easier to spot at a well-known prep school.

And those students are moving to private schools before college recruiting even takes off.

“We rarely got a transfer who had already entered high school — Jerome Allen himself started Episcopal as a ninth grader,” Dougherty said.

But Harris’ path has been quite different, moving from a charter school to North Catholic and finally ending up at Constitution High.

The institution, whose educational program centers around history, sits in the smallest division of Philadelphia public school athletics.

The division is just five years old, with an even younger basketball program — the school doesn’t even have its own gym. Players use local elementary schools or recreation centers for practice and games, often taking the subway and bus to get there.

“Creativity is the key. We’re basically nomads,” Davidson explained.

Even for a nomad, Harris may settle in close to home. Coach Moore sent out Harris’ transcript to each of the Ancient Eight schools. And even though Harris initially received attention from Dartmouth, the appeal of playing in Philly gave the Quakers an edge.

“Once [Penn] started to pursue, it was kind of a no-brainer for Xavier,” Moore said. “I told coach Leibovitz, ‘If you’re serious about Xavier, get him to school on a good weekend, get him an official visit, and he’ll come to Penn.’”

That weekend happened to be the Red and Blue’s first win over a Big Five school in four years, a 73-61 victory over St. Joseph’s at the Palestra.

“I told Xavier that him going to Penn … is a bigger accomplishment for me as a coach than us winning a state championship,” Moore said. “Basketball is just secondary in this whole thing. This is a life-changer right here.”

Assuming Harris raises his scores, it appears that this set of unusual circumstances has him on his way to becoming a Quaker.

“I just hope it’s not another 30 years before another kid winds up [at Penn] from the public league,” Moore said.

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