Luke Harpring committed to Georgia Tech on June 19. After all, why would the budding football prospect have chosen anywhere else?
“I never try to instill anything like that in my kids,” Matt Harping said about steering any of his children toward attending his alma mater. “They need to be their own person and who they are. I went to Georgia Tech, and that was right for me. That doesn’t make it right for my son or right for my daughter or right for anyone. I would just say to him, ‘Think about it, pray about it, figure out what’s in your gut and go with your gut.’
“That’s what I had to do. My recruiting story was way different, but I went with my gut. And if I didn’t go with my gut my career wouldn’t have happened the way it happened. I just know that if I’ve learned anything it’s you can’t listen to your dad, you can’t listen to your mom. ‘Listen to yourself, listen to what you want to do, where it feels right and then let’s go for it.’”
Luke Harpring plays wide receiver and defensive end at Marist, where he will be a senior for the War Eagles this season. He’s also a sharpshooter on the Marist basketball team, much like his dad was for Tech in the late 1990s.
Matt Harpring, who graduated from Marist nearly 30 years ago, is a member of the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame and had his No. 15 jersey retired by Tech. After becoming an All-American as a senior in 1998 he went on to play 11 seasons in the NBA.
Fast forward to earlier this month when his eldest son made his college plans public with a social media post declaring his intentions to play football for the Yellow Jackets in 2024. Luke Harpring is a 6-foot-3, 220-pound prospect who reportedly holds scholarship offers from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Charlotte and Georgia Southern, among others.
Harping, while unrated by most recruiting services, was a first team all-region 4-6A selection as a defensive end as a junior thanks to 70 tackles and 14 sacks. He projects to play on the offense, likely at tight end, for the Jackets and is part of a Tech recruiting class that ranks in the top 20 nationally of the 247Sports Composite.
“What I’ve learned with myself that I’ve tried to pass on to my kids and how they go about it is be true to yourself,” Matt Harpring said of Luke’s decision to play for coach Brent Key and Tech. “You don’t need Twitter and social media. You just can’t go there. It just doesn’t do you any good to compare or contrast or to want and desire. You have a goal and you go after it. It’s kind of an old-school way of doing it, but it worked for me.
“In the end if it doesn’t work out and you put your grind in and you did everything you can, you can always look at yourself and be proud of what you went through. My dad told me that good things happen to good people and people that work the hardest. I try to pass that down to my kids.”
Matt Harpring said, selfishly, he’s elated his son chose to play college football close to home so the entire Harpring family can come support Luke starting with the ‘24 season. Matt added that Luke being afforded the ability to drop by the house from time to time with college friends and teammates was something Matt loved during his own time at Tech.
Until Luke officially becomes a Jacket, however, there is work to be done, both for Marist this fall and the following summer before the son steps on the same campus his father once roamed not too long ago. That’s work Tech’s next Harpring knows how to do.
“He has really earned this whole process. He has worked incredibly hard, not even over this last year but the last four to five years,” Matt Harpring said. “It has been a constant willingness and want to get better and better. I have to give him credit. He just worked.
“And as a father that’s all you can ask for, in a son or a daughter, and to do it the right way. That’s what I am most proud of, he did it the right way.”
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