Iowa star Barnes emerging as top prep player

AMES, Iowa – So you’re Harrison Barnes. A 6’7 basketball player headed into your senior season and pegged by many as the top prep prospect in the country.

Do you watch Game 2 of the NBA finals? Nah.

Do you spend your summer playing nothing but basketball? Nope. You pick up golf, figuring a strong short game might come in handy in the business world someday.

Do you march to the beat of your own drummer? Definitely.

“It’s Harrison. That’s all I can say. It’s just Harrison,” says his mother, Shirley Barnes.

What Harrison is, according to those who know him best, is a driven and remarkably mature 17-year-old.

Barnes carries a GPA over 3.0 and he’s halfway through the best-selling book, “The Millionaire Mind,” with a book about investing genius Warren Buffett next up on his summer reading list. Whatever school he attends – his long list includes Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Stanford, UCLA, Kentucky, Texas Christian, Iowa State, Minnesota and Florida – needs to have a business program as good as its basketball team.

“It’s important because I need a school with a lot of connections in economics, to set me up with internships and job opportunities after college,” Barnes said.

That might sound like lip service from a kid with a half-dozen Facebook fan pages set up in his honor. After all, Barnes’ first job after college is likely to be in the NBA.

Ames High School basketball coach Vance Downs insists that Barnes is sincere.

“He’s a very thoughtful, articulate young man and education is a priority,” Downs said. “We all say it, but how many kids live that way? He lives that way. Education is a high priority, his faith is very important to him and basketball is very important to him. But I think he has all his priorities set the way they should be.”

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