Santa Monica Back Tries to Make Most of All-Star Appearance

A large shelf filled with trophies lines the wall in Mark Harper’s apartment, a testament to his success on the football field. But the former Santa Monica High tailback must re-establish himself as a gridiron standout after an ankle injury sidelined him during his senior season.

Saturday’s Los Angeles Prep Senior Bowl All-Star Football Classic at Long Beach Veterans Stadium might be his best chance to show he’s recovered from his injury.

In 1988, his first year on the Santa Monica varsity, Harper was an All-CIF Southern Section tailback. He rushed for nearly 1,700 yards and 29 touchdowns. Major colleges like UCLA, USC and Tennessee showed interest in him and he received three shoe boxes full of letters from schools.

“I don’t think there was any question that--based on his junior year performance--he was a legitimate Division I prospect,” Santa Monica Coach Tebb Kusserow said. “But regardless of how you perform as a junior, you need to step on the field as a senior and compete.”

Therein lies Harper’s problem. As a junior, he played basketball for Santa Monica but fractured his left ankle when he landed on another player’s foot. Over the summer, while the left ankle was healing, he fractured his right ankle.

He played with the injured right ankle in the 1989 football season’s first game and scored three touchdowns.

“That’s probably an indication of his toughness,” Kusserow said. “I think he was trying to set a positive example for the younger members of our team.”

By halftime of the next game, the pain was too great and Harper was forced to sit out. Although doctors said the best remedy was to give the ankle some time to heal, Harper resumed practice four weeks later.

“It was my senior year; I wanted to play,” Harper said. “And I felt that I was ready to come back.”

In practice, he took a pitch, made a cut and accelerated, trying to test the strength of his ankle.

“I started to go all out and see how much my ankle could take, and it popped on me,” he said.

The broken ankle finished Harper’s season.

“I couldn’t accept it,” Harper said. “I just wanted to play. I wanted to try and accept it, but I couldn’t take being hurt.”

The major colleges lost interest in him, despite Kusserow’s advice to recruiters.

“When college recruiters came around I always said to them that he could be a real find for them,” Kusserow said.

Nevertheless, Harper did not receive a scholarship from any major university. He plans to attend El Camino College and hopes that a strong performance in the Senior Bowl will entice recruiters to check him out at his community college games.

Pinning his hopes on a game might seem like placing unneeded pressure on himself, but Harper has dealt with pressure before. In his junior year, he was asked to fill the void left by the graduated Glyn Milburn, who set state single-season records for rushing yardage and touchdowns. Benefitting from the offensive line that had blocked for Milburn, Harper produced results that were startling even to himself.

“I was surprised,” he said. “I was expecting to come in and just learn the position. I didn’t know how good my skills were. But after the first game, I did good and my confidence level was up. Every game after that, I thought I could do good. I stepped up and did the job.”

Early results from practice this week indicate Harper is healthy.

“Mark looks super,” said Robert Garrett, the offensive coach of the South-West team. “His cuts are smooth and his acceleration is great. There’s no sign of the injury.”

Harper will share the backfield duties with Crenshaw’s Kevin Hicks, Westchester’s Tim Holliday and St. Monica’s Damone Ewell.

“It all depends on the flow of the game,” Garrett said. “All I know is I’m going to try and get him the ball.”

Harper will certainly know what to do when he gets it.

“He demonstrated as a junior that he has a tremendous ability to find the end zone,” Kusserow said.

Harper is blessed with remarkable physical ability as well. Besides lettering in football and basketball he played on the baseball team as a senior and ran for the sophomore track team.

But his heart belongs to football and his dreams of playing in Division I have not died. Although no college coaches will be at the All-Star Classic--NCAA regulations forbid them from recruiting off-campus during the summer--Harper hopes to show that he is back.

“I feel that I can come in and do the job as long as I’m healthy,” Harper said. “I feel that I’ve still got it.”

Notes

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. game are $6 for adults, $4 for high school students with school ID and $2 for children under 12. . . . The game is being dedicated to Kevin Copeland, a Dorsey High wide receiver who collapsed and later died of heart failure during a game last season. His family will receive recognition in a special ceremony which will include Darian Hagan, a former Locke High player and current Heisman Trophy candidate at Colorado. . . . The South-West team, for which the Westside players will be competing, has lost four of five games.