Player Spotlight: Harry Baker

In this 2013 season, junior midfielder Harry Baker has proven to be an important asset to the Mercer men’s lacrosse team. The industrial management major has learned how to manage being an exceptional student athlete by shining in the classroom and on the field. So far this season, he’s scored four goals, making him the third leading scorer for the Bears and is tied for second in assists with two. Baker sits down with The Cluster to discuss more of his lacrosse career.

C: Where are you from?
B: I was born and raised in Atlanta, Ga.
C: When did you start playing lacrosse?
B: Around seventh grade when my neighbor found two sticks in his garage.
C: Did you play any other sports?
B: Yes, soccer and baseball.
C: And when did you stop playing soccer and baseball?
B: When I realized how boring they were. Since seventh grade, the only sport I played was lacrosse, until I joined the water polo team my senior year of high school.
C: Why did you stick with lacrosse?
B: My mom never let me play football because she was a nurse and would get scared seeing football players come into the ER with serious injuries. I always wanted to play a contact sport, and she didn’t know what lacrosse was. In my first game, I got hit and I said, “I’m going to play this for good. This is my sport.”
C: You are playing a lot more this year than you did last year. What did you have to do to get out on the field more and really contribute in games?
B: The new coach has put me in a good position and I worked out and trained a lot over the summer. I really focused on getting better and doing what I needed to do to help the team.
C: So far, what do you think of Coach Hannan?
B: He’s pretty incredible. He knows how to win and he puts us all in the right positions to not only make the team better, but also us as individuals better. I can speak for the whole team when I say that we’re very happy with the coaching change.
C: What do you think about your new facilities?
B: Mercer did a really good job. They’ve clearly put the time and the money into making these new facilities top of the line. Being a part of building this program literally from ground up has been such an amazing experience. It’s really cool to see how far we’ve come just in these two years.
C: What do you plan on coming away with this season?
B: We really want to have over a 500 record. We also want to gain the respect of the lacrosse community. Right now, we’re ranked pretty low and we want to start winning games so that other teams will fear us. Having more of that respect will help us bring in good recruits and higher skilled players so that we can be the dominant force in the south.

The Bears have had a solid start to their season so far. This week, Baker and his teammates will travel up to Philadelphia to face St. Joseph’s, before going further north to New York state for another match against Wagner.