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'The sky is the limit, Big Al' High school star Harrington anxiously waited for Pacers to call his name
Posted: Thursday June 25, 1998 01:10 AM
NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) -- As the first round of the NBA draft reached its final stages, the tension on the faces of the 70 people attending Al Harrington's coming out party became more pronounced and fear seemed to be setting in. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Harrington, the St. Patrick's star who was voted the Gatorade High School player of the year, has been confident some NBA team would take a chance on him and select him in the first round. It was the reason he decided to bypass the hundreds of college scholarship offers and turn professional. Yet each time NBA commissioner David Stern walked to the microphone in Vancouver to announce the next pick, it was someone else's name. Realistically, Harrington had expected to be taken somewhere between Nos. 10-20 and there were rumors that Charlotte liked him at No. 21. But when the Hornets chose Ricky Davis with that pick, many of Harrington's family, friends and teammates at Niecy's restaurant in South Orange got worried. Maybe Harrington wasn't going to hear his name in the first round. Picks by the Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs added to the worry and even Harrington showed concern. His little sister, Tiffany, noticed her brother was troubled during that time and walked over and gave him a hug. "I said: `Al, you're going to be big, just keep your head up, keep us close and you'll be lucky,'" Tiffany said. The next time Stern walked to the microphone, his words jump-started Harrington's party. "With the 25th pick, the Indiana Pacers take Al Harrington..." Harrington jumped, raised his arms in the air and then walked into a corner and cried. Friends screamed and shouted and there were hugs and laughter. The tension was gone. "It was a real tough wait, but I finally got picked," Harrington said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I still have a lot to prove." The idea of playing for Larry Bird appealed to Harrington. Bird loved to work and Harrington is a gym rat, too. "I think I'll go work out tonight," Harrington said. Harrington plans to be on a plane for Indiana on Thursday. Ironically, he didn't work out for the Pacers prior to the draft. "They made it to the semifinals this year and hopefully in a year or two I can help this team get to the finals and win a championship," Harrington said. "I'm not planning on being a five-year project." Moments later, the owners of the southern restaurant wheeled out a cake with the inscription: "The sky is the limit, Big Al." The 6-foot-9 Harrington, considered the most fundamentally sound of the high schoolers in the draft, scored 1,307 points in his career at the tiny school in Elizabeth, close to Newark International Airport. He set a school record with 1,104 rebounds in three years and scored 17 points in the McDonald's High-School All-American game and 18 in the Magic Johnson Roundball Classic. "I think Indiana is a very, very good situation for him," said Eric Fleisher, Harrington's agent. "It's an opportunity to learn from a great, great player and coach with a veteran team. I think there is a need there in terms of his position and it could not have been better." Sylvester Clay, Harrington's business manager, said Harrington would have been able to deal with not being drafted on the opening round. "Al is a kid who has a great heart," Clay said. "We were willing to take whatever happened."
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