Your Chips: Robbie Harman

A sharp ground ball rolls toward second base and takes a bad hop to the face of the shortstop. This may have stopped other shortstops, but Robbie Harman brushed it off, and turned a nice double play on the next batter on a ball that was hit to the same spot.

“It made me mad, more than anything,” said Harman.

Harman is in his fourth season on the CMU baseball team, after an outstanding athletic career at Traverse City Central High School. He has started 17 games this season, picking right up where he left off with the CMU basketball team, where he became one of the more accomplished players in the Chippewa record books.

“I came down here to play basketball, and decided I could fit baseball in,” said Harman. “They were willing to give me a shot and that’s how I started working out with them. Here I am four years later.”

It is not easy for a student to balance two seasons of Division 1 athletics, but for Harman it is all worth it. Despite back-to-back seasons, he does not mind coming out to the diamond once his year on the court is finished.

His statistics certainly show some rust. He is batting .207 with five RBIs in 18 total games, but is confident to back into the regular groove as the spring goes on.

“You can’t really focus on one sport during the other,” Harman said.

Despite playing baseball and basketball in college, they were not his first passion.

“I was actually a football guy up to my senior year in high school, then I turned all basketball,” he said. “It’s what I put all my focus into.”

The Chippewas completed two straight ninth inning comebacks last weekend, needing to score at least three runs in each. Despite being subbed out very late in these games, the feeling sticks with Harman and everybody else.

“It’s easy to build on things like this,” said Harman. “It keeps us up every inning…doing whatever it takes to win.”

Harman is a sports studies major and is CMU’s all-time leader in three-point shots made.