SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – A statue of the Virgin Mary stands watch outside a high school sports cathedral full of students on what amounts to Christmas for college football fans.
Signing Day scenes across the country feature prospects revealing their college decisions in front of fans who gather en masse to witness the pageantry of the pen.
At JSerra High, however, the crowd is in Mass.
The low-key signing ceremony happens a little later Wednesday, after the uniform-clad students cross the bridge back to their classrooms. A gathering of 50 or so sets up in the otherwise-deserted bleachers, and the athletes take their seats in front of red, gold and black balloons.
A simple spread of sandwiches and cookies awaits the camera-wielding families and friends, finalizing the feat of making Signing Day in the spectacular gym quintessentially quaint.
Of course, Harvard-bound D.J. Bailey has a lot to do with that.
On a day when top recruits line up decision announcements on national sports networks and social media is abuzz with where Snoop’s son will play, Bailey is a refreshing throwback.
He actually believes the college part of college football comes first.
“I have every confidence that he could have played at a bigger football school,” JSerra coach and athletic director Jim Hartigan says. “Pac-12 schools were offering him on the spot after seeing him practice once.
“They don’t give those scholarships away to just anyone.”
The All-County defensive lineman, who starred in one of the toughest leagues in the nation, has the numbers top programs want.
At 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, the former sprinter brings physicality and football smarts that make him a natural for scholarship offers from most of the top conferences.
But check out these numbers: 4.4 and 30.
Those aren’t his 40 time and reps on the bench. Those are his grade-point average and ACT score.
“The academics always mattered most when I was looking at schools,” says Bailey, whose khakis fit the JSerra dress code but whose crimson-and-gray pullover with the Harvard “H” gets a pass this day. “College always has been an important thing in my family, and that didn’t change just because I could play football in school.”
Bailey’s mother is from Ghana and his father is from Jamaica, so it’s easy to assume that his approach has something to do with a lack of football in his formative years. But he says his father fell hard for football when he moved to the U.S.; it’s just that his parents don’t waver in their priorities.
Faith. Family. Academics.
“D.J. knew that he wanted to play football in college, but I did not want him going somewhere he would eat, breathe and sleep football above all else,” his mother, Monica, says on a day when her son doesn’t actually sign – the Ivy League does not offer athletic scholarships or use the National Letter of Intent – but still is celebrated.
“Other things matter more.”
Among the things that matter is taking responsibility for his decisions, something Bailey says was reinforced during the recruiting process.
Hartigan says the Ivy League topped Bailey’s list of schools from the start, followed by some of the Pac-12’s elite academic institutions and other colleges that emphasize brains over brawn.
Yale fits what he was looking for, and Bailey’s July 2014 commitment to the Bulldogs looked like a lock.
Harvard, however, has a way of changing minds and, in this case, Bailey’s commitment after fewer than five months.
This is where today’s players end recruiting relationships with a text or email. They might try it via Snapchat if they could. Anything to avoid the awkward conversation, and Bailey concedes he would have liked an easy out.
“But my parents and my coach said I had to tell Yale’s coach (Tony Reno) face to face,” says Bailey, who received interest into the final week of recruiting from Duke but refused to budge again.
Monica Bailey later walks past Hartigan’s office and gestures.
“It happened right there,” she says. “D.J. had to take responsibility. He told the coach that he was sorry and that he had made a mistake and now he changed his mind.
“I was proud of the way he did that, very maturely and professionally.”
To hear JSerra staff members rave about Bailey, whose imposing frame and handshake are no match for his even bigger smile, that sounds like his norm. Hartigan says he studies for his classes more than he does for upcoming opponents but still is prepared when he reaches the field. And while Bailey is in the second semester of his senior year, he isn’t coasting academically.
He has three Advanced Placement courses – and a stats class – to go with religion and drawing and painting, and his AP macroeconomics class is up next after pictures with his family.
Bailey says the class just started a chapter that deals with “aggregate demand and supply” and soon loses a visitor who long ago gave up balancing a checkbook.
The player who plans to study law eventually obviously isn’t alone as an athlete with intellect. He has teammates who are headed to play at Penn and the University of Chicago, and swimmer Sonia Wang joins Bailey as the school’s first students admitted to Harvard in JSerra’s 12 years.
But when Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski proudly claims he most recently read a book in high school and it was the nonexistent “A Mockingbird To Remember” – Atticus Finch on the Empire State Building? – it’s time to challenge Bailey.
What’s the most recent book you read?
As with everything, he is prepared with an answer, one that involves his love of dystopian novels and could offer the title for the adventure the lifelong Orange County resident soon will embrace in Cambridge, Mass., and the Ivy League.
“Brave New World,” he says.
Of course.
Contact the writer: tharmonson@ocregister.com
