Harvard is known as the school for the top-notch students and getting into the university is highly competitive in many aspects.

It was a really proud moment when senior Kale Catchings, not only got offered to play basketball for Harvard, but also got into the school with his academics.

With a GPA of of 4.64 and a height of 6-foot-6, it’s hard for Catchings to not catch an eye. In fact, many other schools wanted Catchings to play for them. Division I schools like Princeton, Brown and Missouri State were also very interested.

“I was super excited when I found out that Harvard wanted me,” Catchings said. “I had good sophomore and junior seasons, but I didn’t really get started recruiting heavily until my junior season. I had a couple of schools I was looking at and I don’t know, but once Harvard started talking I got pretty interested and excited to see where basketball and school takes me.”

Harvard has been looking at Catchings since the spring of his junior year and during the summer, head coach Tommy Amaker followed him to different basketball tournaments to see Catchings play against highly competitive teams.

“They started recruiting me towards the end of spring last year, so as a kid always excelling in school it’s always been goal of mine,” Catchings said. “Whenever they started to take interest, I jumped at it for sure and it’s always been at the top of my list. Eventually in September, I went up there and I loved it so I went ahead and committed.”

Coach Sodemann has notices Catchings’ dedication and tries to coach certain qualities to make him better.

“Coaching a competitive player is fun and has its challenges,” Sodeman said. “It’s fun because when you have to coach effort and coach guys playing hard and coach guys caring, it can be kind of a long season. With Kale, you don’t have to coach those qualities, but at the same time it’s been a challenge to get other guys to play with him and around him. It’s been a challenge because at times I think Kale gets frustrated because other teams guard him so hard and spend a lot of attention and a lot of focus on him and part of what he needs to learn is how to play with them and let the game come to him and sometimes that’s tough to teach. But I think he’s done a pretty good job this far.”

Catchings puts in about 2-3 hours a day just dedicated to basketball and is always trying to improve himself. Not only is he the first Liberty basketball player to go Division I, but he is also the first men’s player to continue his basketball career into college.

Basketball comes very naturally to Catchings and he has been playing since he was about 4 or 5. He’s had a very competitive drive since he was young and has played on travel teams like Bradley Beal Elite, St. Louis Eagles and St. Louis Prospects.

“Kale’s biggest strength is his competitive nature,” Sodeman said. “He’s got the hard work, he works really hard and he’s a good teammate. But I think the thing that sets him apart from other players around the area is he plays to win, all the time.”

Catchings hasn’t always attended Liberty. He actually transferred here this year from CBC, which is how Harvard head coach Amaker got into contact with him.

“Coach Amaker heard from my high school coach at CBC that I was I was a good student, so he just came to a game, last spring and throughout the summer I was traveling to Vegas and Georgia and all those places and actually got to see me play. So we’ve been in contact ever since then,” Catchings said.  

Amaker wasn’t the only coach impressed by Catchings. Coach Sodemann was excited to have him join the Liberty team.  

“I was excited to have him. He’s a very high level player and has had a lot of success,” he said. “He was an all-state player last year at CBC, so having a guy with that talent makes us excited to help us grow our program in the direction that we want it to go.”

Kale’s younger brother, spohomore Jayce, also goes to Liberty, but hasn’t actually played with Kale until this year. The brothers are really close and Jayce looks up to all that Kale has accomplished so far.

“I like what he has accomplished so far and I look up to that,” sophomore Jayce Catchings said. “It was crazy when I found out Kale was going to Harvard. I was pretty surprised.”

Kale is thinking about majoring in economics next year, but doesn’t know for sure. He plans on going with the flow and seeing where life takes him next.