There are few stories of the local kid making good than that of Reed Harper.
He came to Austin Peay from nearby Clarksville High School, walked onto the baseball team, secured a starting spot from the first game of his freshman season and never relinquished it through four of the most successful seasons in program history.
They say the best ability is availability so let's start there. Harper played 237 games, a program record and Ohio Valley Conference record. He also saw his name in the starting lineup all 237 times, serving as Austin Peay's Cal Ripken Jr., its Lou Gehrig. Lofty praise, perhaps, except that once he was on the diamond, he backed it up with absolutely sterling play from Game One against Illinois State all the way through No. 237 against Indiana in the 2013 NCAA Regional round.
Harper was raised on Austin Peay—his dad Ralph manned second base for the Govs from 1978-81 and older brother Ryne pitched for Austin Peay from 2008-11. Given the opportunity to play for the hometown team and continue what became something of a familial legacy was a dream come true even before he saw his first collegiate at-bat.
And he made a lot of that chance.
If all Harper did was show up every day, grind out some workmanlike at-bats and display decent defense at shortstop, the Govs wouldn't win a trio of league titles during his tenure and he probably wouldn't be going into the Hall of Fame now. But Harper took his talents and became one of if not the best shortstops in program and league history, setting a slew of records while remaining the ultimate glue guy.
Harper more than earned his stripes as a freshman, but his 2011 sophomore season was the breakout campaign. Hitting .329 for the season and .393 in league play, he was a no-brainer All-OVC pick who possessed a 29-game hitting streak spanning from early April until the final day of the regular season. But instead of slumping after his achievement, he picked up where he left off in the NCAA Tournament at the Georgia Tech Regional site, hitting .273 and earning All-Tournament honors.
That his sophomore breakout coincided with the start of conference play was no great surprise, as Harper's career was defined by breaking the spirit of OVC pitching. In 99 games across four seasons, he drove in 91 runs—or put another way, he picked up 55 percent of his career RBI in 42 percent of his appearances. He hit .361, slugged .547 and got on base at a .413 clip in league play, all numbers that fell between 30 and 100 percentage points higher than his career averages. And a plurality of definitive Harper games—his six-RBI outing in 2011, a pair of three-hit, four-RBI games in 2012 and dueling five-hit appearances as a senior—seemed to always come against a league opponent.
If 2011 was the breakout, 2012 certified Harper as an Austin Peay icon. He was on the Brooks Wallace Shortstop of the Year Watchlist. He was a CoSIDA Academic All-American. He recorded his 200th hit, becoming just the second player in program history to reach that milestone before his senior season. His numbers were outstanding (.327, 17 doubles, 36 RBI) and his average bumped up to .378 in league play, but he was robbed (robbed, I tell you) of a well-deserved All-OVC nod that season.
So instead he settled for an OVC All-Tournament honor, his second dogpile and his second conference title ring in as many seasons after hitting .300 with six hits and four walks during an errorless stay in Jackson. He and the Govs were then off to the Eugene Regional in 2012, where Harper collected a hit in every game and helped put the Govs in position for an upset, had a few calls perhaps turned out in their favor. I'm not bitter a decade later whatsoever.
So in our story, that takes us up to his senior season, where he could not possibly hope to attain loftier accolades or solidify himself further as a bonafide Austin Peay great… right?
Wrong. In his final campaign Harper, somehow, found another level. Hset career-highs in batting average (.346), home runs (7), RBI (59), slugging (.502), on-base percentage (.419), stolen bases (14) and fielding percentage (.951). It is exceedingly rare that a player saves their best for last and has it be just that—good luck in both general and in health are required, and sometimes that simply is not in the cards. But Harper, established as Austin Peay's Ironman, was not going out in any capacity except on his proverbial shield.
He saved his best for his final turn in Jackson as the Govs competed for a third straight OVC title. Harper hit .462 to earn Tournament MVP honors and drove in seven runs, delivering multiple men to the plate each game to help the Govs punch their NCAA Tournament ticket for a third straight season.
That was kind of the Reed Harper Experience in a nutshell. You could always count on him when it mattered, not only to rise to the occasion but to transcend it when the Govs needed him. He finished his career as the program leader in hits (286) and at-bats (904), but the raw numbers only serve to back up what he meant to the program overall. Having Reed Harper around meant winning, and the Govs have never done more winning than when Harper roamed Raymond C. Hand Park.
