Every Day Guys Exclusive | Harmon Takes Long Road to Illinois in Final Year of Eligibility

Justin Harmon is used to taking the stairs. It’s no secret. An under-recruited kid without a single offer heading into his senior year of high school, Harmon has worked extremely hard for every opportunity that has come his way.

Fueled by the doubt and criticism, he has not taken the simple, easy route to Illinois. But, in his final year of college basketball, Harmon is eager to prove he belongs on the biggest stage, under the brightest lights, and among the best of the best.

“I never would have thought that I would be at the University of Illinois because of where I came from,” Justin Harmon said. “This has been a fun experience for my family and I. It's actually crazy. I still can't explain it.”

Growing up in Chicago, it seemed inevitable that Harmon would, at some point during his athletic career, play basketball. He began that journey in kindergarten and was inspired by his father, Lorenzo, who competed at the junior college level. His parents emphasized the importance of being multi-sport athletes, and he immediately embraced and thrived in every activity he took part in.

Alongside basketball, Harmon played baseball and bowling, sometimes traveling across state lines to partake in regional and national tournaments in both sports. It seemed inevitable that Harmon would bowl, as he was the third generation in his family to bowl competitively; both his grandfather and his father bowled, the latter of whom has three perfect games under his belt.

Traveling as far as Kentucky and Ohio to represent his local bowling league, Harmon routinely exceeded the 100-point mark, even at a young age. The sport instilled a sense of drive and competitiveness that has carried over into his basketball career. Though he no longer takes bowling as seriously as he did growing up, Harmon still tries to get to the bowling alley every once in a while to continue playing the sport he took part in through middle school.

“Our family is a family of bowlers,” Lorenzo Harmon said. “We're a bowling family. It was natural for him to be at the bowling alley on Saturday mornings bowling with a younger team. Now, he bowls for fun, but he still has a competitive spirit when he goes bowling.”

While bowling came through family tradition, Harmon played baseball starting at the age of 5, immediately excelling and growing interest in the sport. Competing on a travel team, he found his role as his squad’s closer, coming in to pitch and striking out opponents whenever called upon.

While Harmon’s love for the sport grew, the weather often did not cooperate with that ambition and appreciation. Following an especially rainy spring that saw a large number of games canceled, the Harmon family came to the unfortunate decision that it would be better use of energy – and, more importantly, money – to end Justin’s baseball career and instead focusing entirely on basketball, an indoor sport that would not be impacted by the ever-changing Midwest weather.

“Multi-sport athletes develop camaraderie across the line,” Lorenzo Harmon said. “It was very important that my kids understood the camaraderie that goes along with being dependent on the guy who's next to you. I instilled that in both of my boys as they were up and coming throughout their younger years because all of those things were very important to me.”

Though he started playing basketball in kindergarten, it was not until fifth grade that Justin Harmon truly recognized his potential. His love for the game was apparent well before then, though, as his parents would occasionally walk into his bedroom and see their son silently hugging a basketball.

The sport slowly started taking over his life, as Harmon would find every opportunity to play basketball, dribbling a ball and working on his handles anywhere he possibly could. With the city of Chicago providing a plethora of public parks to play at, Harmon credits his hometown for fueling his love and passion for the game of basketball.

“Chicago is a basketball city. Everybody played basketball growing up,” Justin Harmon said. “Chicago really made me tough. Playing at parks and stuff, I played everywhere the ball bounced. I just wanted to play. Everybody was good. There was good competition everywhere. Chicago is a really good city to grow up in if you want to play basketball.”

Attending Curie Metro High School on the city’s southwest side, Harmon played basketball all four years of high school, a career that culminated in his senior campaign, when he led the Condors to their greatest season in program history.

The top-ranked team in the city for a majority of the 2018-19 slate, Curie went unbeaten against Chicago Public Schools teams and lost only once in the regular season. Heading into the city playoffs as the top-seeded program, the Condors defeated Morgan Park in the championship game, 65-60, and Harmon scored a crucial and-1 layup with 40.8 seconds to play to seal the last-minute victory.

Earning the right to a No. 1 seed in the IHSA state playoffs, Harmon and the Condors won four straight games to advance to the semifinals, where their incredible season came to an end, coincidentally at the hands of Illini football player Keith Randolph Jr. and Belleville West. Curie ended their historic campaign with a 35-2 record, and they came within a game of competing for the school’s first-ever state championship.

“2019 was an amazing year of basketball for him,” Lorenzo Harmon said. “The more they tried to doubt us, the more we kept on having great victories. For us to come from out of nowhere, compete, and actually win, it was a beautiful thing. The people who were rooting us on, they were just so surprised that we were in the position we were in and so happy that they were able to be affiliated with someone who was from the neighborhood who was able to give them a glimmer of hope.”

Despite playing on the best team in Chicago, Harmon did not initially receive any interest from college scouts until halfway through his senior season. That interest was not even meant for him either, at least not at first.

A junior college coach from Kansas was at one of Justin’s games with the intention of scouting a player on an opposing team. Instead, the coach became interested in Harmon, and the rest was history.

“In the process of us winning the game, he said to Justin, ‘Where are you going next year?’ He said, ‘Coach, I don't have an offer yet. What I'm doing is trying to get an offer. I'm the hardest working, but I'm the most underrated. I don't have an offer for next year,’” Lorenzo Harmon said. “He watched him from that day in December up until he graduated. He stayed in our corner, and we ended up signing with him.”

Always having the goal of playing basketball in college, Harmon fulfilled that dream by committing to Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas, where he spent two seasons. Adjusting from life in the Windy City to a city in the middle of nowhere with a population of less than 15,000 proved difficult, especially with the significantly reduced number of dining options.

“The biggest adjustment I had to make was what I was eating. There weren't really any restaurants out there that I was used to every day,” Justin Harmon said. “In the city, there are a number of restaurants you could eat at, but in Kansas, there were probably six restaurants in my whole city, and two of them were Pizza Huts.”

Despite the limited restaurant selection, Harmon would not change a thing about his decision to attend Barton, where he made 43 starts, averaged 25.3 minutes with 13.1 points, and shot 49.2% from the field.

Competing at the JUCO level put a chip on Harmon’s shoulder, and he ultimately jumped up to the Division-I level and went to Utah Valley after completing his two years at Barton. Living over 1,000 miles away from home, Harmon still saw his family regularly, as they made an effort to watch about a dozen of his games in person.

Justin Harmon excelled at the D1 level immediately, finishing his first season with the Wolverines as the team’s second-leading scorer with 10.9 points per game. In his second year in Utah, he took another big step forward, starting all but one game and leading the squad with 14.0 points per game.

He played a big role in guiding the Wolverines to the NIT semifinals, the program’s second-ever appearance in the event and deepest run in the tournament Justin Harmon hit double figures in each of his four postseason appearances, including a career-high 32-point effort in the team’s opening-round matchup against New Mexico.

The opportunity to compete at the Division-I level was not something Harmon took for granted, especially after going unrecruited for a majority of his high-school career. Looking to take an even bigger step in his final year of eligibility, Harmon took a leap of faith and entered the transfer portal.

Unlike his previous recruitment cycles, Justin Harmon received interest from a wide range of schools, including multiple teams at the Power-5 level. But, once he got an offer from his home-state school, he knew Illinois was exactly where he wanted to spend his last year of college.

“I'm pretty happy with the place I'm at right now,” Justin Harmon said. “ There were some bumps in the road that I had to overcome, but it wasn't anything I hadn't handled before. I worked hard, and I'm at the position that I'm in right now.”

Harmon’s family has made it a goal, barring any unexpected setbacks during the predictably unpredictable Midwest winters, to make it to every single Illinois game this season, both home and away. Harmon’s parents made the trip to the East Coast to see the Illini beat Rutgers in Piscataway, New Jersey, and Florida Atlantic at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Seeing his son go from no offers in high school, to dominating at Barton and Utah Valley, to representing the Fighting Illini has been “like a dream come true” for Lorenzo Harmon, whose own college basketball journey featured time at a JUCO in Minnesota. With Justin competing in his final season at the college level, there is nowhere else the Chicago native would have wanted to write the final chapter of his collegiate basketball career.

“When you turn around and you work as hard as this kid has worked and you see that someone is actually acknowledging or even appreciating the body of work that you put together, it gives you a little pat on the back to say that the hard work does pay off, even though nobody acknowledged it at first,” Lorenzo Harmon said. “This is not only a good fit for Illinois because of where he comes from, but he's a good fit for Illinois because of the fact he's qualified.

“He went through the high-school ranks and did well. He went through the JUCO ranks and did well. He went through the Division-I ranks at a mid-major and did well. Now, let's bring him up to the upper echelon, let's bring him up to those ranks and see how you can do it. Everybody knows he's going to do well.”