Ole Miss accused of pulling Brett Harris' scholarship over cancer diagnosis concerns

Brett Harris had been committed to play college baseball at Ole Miss for four years.

On June 28, after graduating high school, Harris got a call that told him his scholarship had been rescinded.

It'd be a tough story regardless of circumstance, but Harris has pushed through more adversity than most to reach this point.

Harris, from Western Dubuque High School in Iowa, was diagnosed with a brain tumor during his freshman year of high school, according to USA Today. He has undergone radiation treatments since October of 2023.

He eventually had to give up football, but he didn't miss a game of high school baseball, wrote USA Today's Ehsan Kassim.

Harris had a great role model in the game -- his older brother Calvin won a national title playing for Ole Miss and now is in the Chicago White Sox system.

That made Ole Miss a great fit for Harris, a catcher who hit .414 as a senior with 15 doubles and 31 RBI -- so far, as Iowa's high school baseball season actually runs into the summer.

In the USA Today story, Harris' father Scott suggests that Ole Miss may not have simply pulled the scholarship for roster crunch reasons.

"It wasn't about his ability, because he's played really well," Scott said. "It was more the concern if he had to go up to Mayo Clinic and leave Ole Miss... We want to take the high road, but we also want to say our disappointment in letting a kid know a month before a school year is going to start."

Harris himself expressed his disappointment to USA Today, as well.

"It didn't hit me fully, because I was like, 'There's no way,'" the graduating catcher said. "A month and a half before (going to college), what's a kid supposed to do? You're not giving a kid much of a chance after four years of being loyal to you... You're not giving him much of a chance to go out and find a new school."

Iowa already had connections to the Harris family, and so the Hawkeyes were able to give him an opportunity instead.

Given all that Harris has been through, no one is doubting that he will make the most of this new path.

MORE: Ohio HS combination features two retired NFL players' sons