CCC players of the Year Brittany Ellis and Juke Harris

with mothers, Dina Ellis and Ebony Harris. Jacqui Smith Watson photo.

By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Everyone wants to be loved, but Salisbury senior Jayden “Juke” Harris embraced the roles of hero and villain with equal success as a senior.

An icon at home, where he packed the gym with boisterous, swarming fans, he put up 41-point efforts against Cuthbertson and Lexington. On the road, where people came to hiss and watch him miss like he was a WrestleMania bad guy, he scored 45 at East Davidson to equal his career high and he racked up 42 at South Davidson.

There’s not a lot to say about Harris that hasn’t already been said, but the numbers don’t lie. He was the greatest male scorer ever in a county that has churned out outstanding players like they’re rolling off an assembly line. In the three seasons he played for the Hornets, two for previous head coach Bryan Withers and one for Albert Perkins, Harris scored 578, 818 and 981 points. The 578 ranks 18th in county history, the 818 is second, and the 981 is obviously first. He scored 2,377 points for the Hornets.

Officially in the Post’s record book, Harris has 2,601 career points in Rowan County. That includes 142 from his freshman season at West Rowan, prior to his growth spurt to 6-foot-7, plus 82 points from an eighth-grade season of varsity competition at North Hills Christian School.

The numbers are numbing, since 1,000 career points is still such an epic milestone for very good players, but only an eye injury early in the third-round playoff game with Bandys kept Harris from putting up a 1,000-point senior year.

Harris, who averaged 31.6 points per game, was an easy choice for Rowan County Player of the Year by the committee of former players — North grad Tristan Rankin, South grad Reggie Dean McConneaughey Jr. and West grad Darren Ramsey Jr. — that chooses the award. It’s known as the Scooter Sherrill Award for good reason. Sherrill’s 2,549 points in his four varsity seasons at West Rowan stood as the scoring standard in the county for a generation.

It’s the second “Scooter” in a row for Harris to put on the mantel. He also repeated as Central Carolina Conference Player of the Year.

He’s also the District Player of the Year, chosen by coaches as the best from a dozen or so western counties. He’s All-State first team and a four-star Wake Forest recruit who is regarded as at least a top-70 player nationally.

Ask Harris what he’s most proud of from that long list of stats and honors, and he switches the conversation to team accomplishments, which is one reason that Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes was so excited to sign him.

“I’m proudest of the senior year that I had with the guys that I grew up playing with,” Harris said. “It was my last time playing with guys like Mike Geter and Deuce Walker and we won 27 games. We won the Christmas tournament, we won the conference, and I was able to lead my team to the Final Four. That meant more than all the records.”

Salisbury was very good during Harris’  first two seasons wearing the red, black and gold (20-5 and 22-6), but was even more dominant his senior year, scoring 81 points per game, while allowing 53.

Harris suited up 84 times for the Hornets during his career, 69 wins and 15 losses. He scored in double figures 83 times, with the one exception being that injury-shortened Bandys game, in which his teammates wiped out the visitors without him.

Harris scored 20-something points 37 times. He scored in the 30s 29 times. He topped 40 eight times, more than anyone in the county ever has done it.

In truth, there were many CCC games over the past two years when he could’ve scored in the 50s. Perkins normally sat him down for good in blowout wins about a minute into the fourth quarter. There was no point in rubbing it in and no point in risking injury.

“Juke made it easy to coach him because Juke didn’t just want to do well as an individual, it was important for him that the team also do well,” Perkins said. “As talented as Juke is, it would be easy for him to walk around thinking he’s really great and not listening to anything, but he was coachable, and a coachable player with his skills can make a lot of good things happen.”

Harris wasn’t always 6-foot-7. His growth spurt came relatively late, and it was a sudden and powerful one. As a sophomore, he had one college offer, from Western Carolina.

But the growth spurt combined with a breakout AAU summer put him on the radar for dozens of programs by his junior season. Wake Forest, about 35 miles from Salisbury, was his pick from a list of finalists that included Virginia Tech, Miami, Tennessee, LSU and Kansas. Harris liked Wake’s coaching staff, the team’s style of play and the proximity, which will allow his family and friends to easily follow his progress and continue their support at the next level.

“It really turned out to be a great advantage for me to grow late,” Harris said. “I already had my outside shooting down and I had my handle down, so all I had to adjust to was learning to play with more size and strength.”

The story goes that Juke’s nickname was dished out shortly after his birth. His was the easiest birth ever recorded, a one-push birth, his mother, Ebony Harris, says. One move, and he was out.

The name stuck.

The talent apparently has been there almost as long as the nickname, but it’s work ethic that has separated him from hundreds of other talented players.

“After my workout, I’ll get up another 400 shots,” said Harris, who has practically lived in the gym at Salisbury High every fall while he waited patiently for football players such as Walker, Geter, Dashawn Brown and Hank Webb to join him.

Harris’ high school career didn’t end with Salisbury’s hard-fought 76-72 loss to eventual 2A state champ Reidsville in Joel Coliseum in the West Regional final.

It actually concluded with the Carolinas Classic All-Star Game in Wilmington, where he teamed with many future college stars to lead North Carolina to a resounding victory against their South Carolina counterparts. Harris contributed 12 points, five rebounds and three steals.

“The game was good, very competitive, and it was fun to play with my all-star teammates,” Harris said. “But the total experience was much more important to me than the game. We got to visit an elementary school. We got to interact with special-needs kids. Those kids looked up to us. It reminded us that we’ve got a chance to be good role models.”

When Coach Perkins had a chance to watch Harris work out for the first time last August, he predicted he’d play early at Wake Forest and he also predicted he’d eventually play at the top level of basketball — the NBA.

Harris’ own choice of inspirational heroes growing up hasn’t been the NBA legends.

“The guy I’ve always looked up to is my dad (Robert) because I’ve watched him get up early to go to work every morning for a long time,” Harris said. “My goal is to become good enough at basketball that he won’t have to work anymore.”

The sky and the clouds appear to be the only limit for Harris, but he also understands that the ball stops bouncing at some point, and there will still a lot of life after that.

He’s a strong student and hopes to study sports medicine at Wake Forest.