‘Whatever she wants, she goes after it:’ Meet Emmie Harris, USU’s all-time leader in games played
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the Winter Sports Preview Magazine in December. It has briefly been altered for relevancy.
Last Saturday, Emmie Harris made Utah State history.
During the Aggies 76-66 win over Wyoming, the senior guard played her 127th game in a USU uniform, setting the program record for most games played in a career.
Emmie, who had nine points and eight assists in the effort, has been an integral part of the program for several seasons.
In the preseason, she was chosen a captain by both her teammates and coaches.
“I count on her every day. She’s the same person every day,” head coach Kayla Ard said. “I feel really, really lucky to have her.”
But during her fifth season with the Aggies, Emmie has more on her plate than just basketball.
“My goal is to attend medical school,” Emmie said. “Having the knowledge of that being a really competitive area to go into after undergrad, I need to do anything (I can) so I can have more of a competitive edge.”
The competitiveness USU has seen on the hardwood the last four seasons doesn’t seem to fade after the final buzzer. Emmie has always striven for excellence in the classroom, a trait she said comes in part from her mom.
“My mom always pushed me,” she said. “She’s like ‘if you make Bs, you don’t get to play any sports.'”
Growing up in her mother’s household has undoubtedly paid dividends for Emmie, as she has been named Academic All-Mountain West all four years she’s been in college. To be named an Academic All-Mountain West athlete, a player must have completed at least two terms and maintain a cumulative grade point average above 3.5.
TRUE-BLOODED AGGIE
With today’s start, Emmie Harris holds the record for most games played in program history with 127 (and counting)!#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/zpGPB0QvOJ
— USU Women’s Hoops (@USUWBasketball) January 22, 2022
A cumulative 3.5 GPA is not easy to maintain but is especially difficult for someone who graduated with a degree in human biology. Maintaining a high GPA in classes that combine High-level math, biology, chemistry and physics while also playing Division I basketball isn’t an easy task.
To Emmie, basketball and good grades are connected through a simple personality trait.
“I hate losing,” she said.
While many, if not all, athletes have this in common, most of them don’t apply that to other areas of their lives like Emmie has.
“That kind of fuels me to continue to work inside and outside of the classroom,” she said.
After the coronavirus pandemic granted Emmie another year of eligibility, she decided to remain at USU and further her education. In her fifth academic year, she is currently working on a master’s in business administration.
Having a long-term goal of having her own medical practice, she sees getting an MBA as a crucial step towards that goal. Venturing into a new, unknown area of study that she has not worked on through her undergraduate degree, Emmie described her studies as exciting and fun.
Those are two words not typically used to describe graduate course load.
Her success is impressive for any student, let alone someone also playing Division I basketball.
But it is even more incredible when you consider she is a first-generation college student. Though neither of her parents went to college, they still pushed their two daughters to excel in the classroom in every stage of their learning.
In addition to her mom, Emmie also attributed some of her remarkable academic success to her older sister, Hannah. Four years older than her, Hannah has always been someone she looked up to both athletically and scholastically through their childhood.
Hannah earned academic all-state honors all four years in high school and was named to the ACC Honor Roll and the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll at the University of Louisville while playing soccer.
Anyone who has been around Emmie for more than an hour knows she doesn’t let anything stop her from accomplishing her goals. According to Hannah, this has always been the case.
“Whatever she wants, she goes after,” Hannah said. “Whether it’s with basketball or with school…She just works so hard at everything.”
Emmie certainly makes her drive evident through her numerous athletic and academic accolades.
Hannah also said it is not uncommon for her to get a call from her little sister at 3 a.m. Eastern Time, who is still awake working on schoolwork and has a question.
Emmie repeatedly emphasized how important her family is to her and how they’ve inspired her to be a better person and helped her become a better athlete.
“I was raised really well by my parents,” she said. “They had high expectations for me. Basically, they wanted me to be a good person all around, not just within sports or just within school.”
Emmie said in an attempt to keep her active, her mom would even hide their television remote until she had gotten outside and played basketball or soccer for 30 minutes.
Born and raised in Danville, Kentucky, Emmie is a long way from home here in Logan. To be exact: 1,462 miles. She claims she is never homesick for Kentucky, even though her drive time home is almost 24 hours.
Emmie relies on FaceTime to keep in touch and looks forward to her parents and sister visiting her throughout the winter.
She has enjoyed playing basketball for USU and living in Logan. However, she’s hoping she’ll get an opportunity to move closer to her family in the coming years.
Although Emmie said the decision hasn’t been made yet, her top priority for medical school is the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Beyond that, she prefers somewhere on the East Coast.
“A little bit closer to my family so I can be within travel distance,” she said. “Four to six hours is totally fine with me.”
With family being such an influence in Emmie’s life, why would she elect to come out west to Utah to play basketball? She ended her career at Boyle County High School as the school’s all-time leading scorer and had an illustrious soccer career leading the team to three straight region titles. Her trophy case also contains back-to-back track and field titles for Boyle.
She had numerous Division I offers in all three sports from schools all around the country, including closer to home in Kentucky. Picking one of the offers was not easy, and her robust Christian beliefs played a significant role in the decision.
“My family and I,” Emmie said, “we prayed about it, and we felt this was the right place for me to be.”
She was raised in a Baptist church before becoming a nondenominational Christian in high School.
Before every game, Emmie writes the scripture 1 Corinthians 10:31 on her wrist: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
She said she does this so “I know what I’m doing, know why I’m playing basketball and who I’m playing basketball for. He’s kind of my reason why for everything.”