St. Joe’s Prep’s Jett Harrison was ‘born into pressure.’ Now, he’s relishing the spotlight.

Jett Harrison looked up sheepishly as the cameras panned on him. Harrison was a skinny, wide-eyed 7-year-old sitting in the front row next to his older brother Marvin, both clapping in the August heat of Canton, Ohio, in 2016 during their father, Marvin Harrison Sr.’s Hall of Fame induction speech.

Although it really did not fully sink in until three years later, when Jett was age 10, tucked in the passenger seat while his father was driving through North Philly on a summer day, the windows down, Marvin Sr.’s left arm hanging out the car door and hearing “Hall of Fame” bellowed down the street.

Jett knew then what that induction day meant.

The dilemma was that Jett first picked up a basketball before a football. He dreamed more about being LeBron James before he had any inkling about being Justin Jefferson, or his brother, Marvin Harrison Jr., receiver for the Houston Texans and Jett’s idol.

Jett knew his destiny. He was shaped to do this. He was the shadow who never felt the shadows cast on him, always pestering his brother Marvin, who is six years older, to work out, or doing summer cone drills for 30 to 90 minutes with his dad when he was 12 in the heat, rain, and into the early tinge of fall. There were times, Jett admitted, he did not want to do the drills, but his father instilled a mental toughness and work ethos in him.

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It’s never left.

Committed to Ohio State on July 1, following his older brother’s path from St. Joe’s Prep to the Buckeyes, the 6-foot-3, 192-pound Hawks’ junior wide receiver is better than both his dad and his brother when they were high school juniors. Jett is rated the country’s No. 5 player for 2028 by ESPN and he has been the scourge of every defense he has faced these last two years.

Jett and St. Joe’s Prep will face another monumental task when the Hawks take on Roman Catholic, his father’s alma mater, for the Catholic League championship Sunday at noon at Penn’s Franklin Field, where the Cahillites beat St. Joe’s Prep, 21-17, on Oct. 31. Jett’s two touchdown receptions that day broke Marvin Jr.’s all-time Catholic League receiving touchdown record with 38.

Over nine games this season, facing double- and triple-teams on defenses solely designed to stop him, Jett has 39 catches for 626 yards and eight touchdowns. In the first game against Roman, Jett, 17, caught five passes for a game-high 144 yards and two touchdowns. He has also produced those numbers after the Hawks lost three starting quarterbacks — Syracuse-bound Charlie Foulke and Kobe Towns, who both transferred out — and Max Rogers to an injury for five weeks, replaced by junior Nickee Holden for five games that were all Hawks victories.

What often goes unnoticed about Jett, however, came in the last minute of the Roman game with the Prep down by four and driving for the winning score.

Jett got popped coming over the middle for an incomplete pass at midfield. It took him a minute to get up, and the trainers came out. When he stood, Jett wanted to return to the huddle. High school rules state that if a player is down or considered injury, they must sit out at least one play. Jett did not want to hear it. He argued with his coaches to let him back in, but Jett was held out for a play.

“I deal with pressure every game, my dad tells me that I’m everyone’s Super Bowl, and I like it,” said Jett, who carries a 3.5 GPA. “You can say I was born into pressure. I have my dad’s name, a Hall of Famer. You have that shadow. I’m following my brother, who broke all kinds of records and was an All-American [at Ohio State]. But I never ran from that. I like it. I never felt like I was in anyone’s shadow. I was their shadow, always bugging them. I never want to come off the field. … That attitude comes from both my dad and my brother.

“I was raised around football. I would say around seventh or eighth grade that I began to see a bigger picture with football. Basketball was my first love. I first had a basketball in my hands before I had a football. But I knew my future would be in football.”

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He said he was around 4 years old when he first picked up a basketball, and it was the first organized sport he played when he was 6. His father and Marvin Jr. were also good basketball players. Marvin Jr. stopped playing basketball his sophomore year of high school. Marvin Sr. stopped once he arrived at Syracuse. Jett, who began playing flag football at age 8, made the difficult choice to drop basketball in eighth grade.

By all accounts, he may have been a better basketball player than he was a football player.

But he was also a ball boy for Marvin Jr.’s St. Joe’s Prep teams. He was constantly around Marvin Jr. and football. Marvin Jr. was a major influence on Jett. He studied everything Marvin Jr. did, from his vertical moves, to his cuts, to the way he separated from defenders.

“I knew in high school I couldn’t commit the right time to both sports, and my dad told me to make a choice,” Jett said. “It wasn’t easy. I was ready to play both in high school. I was upset about it. It got a little testy with my dad. Marvin was an influence, too. I [was] always competing against him. Yeah, you can say he was my measuring stick. He never took it easy on me. … We would play tackle football in my parent’s room and he would play on his knees and tackle me. He never let me win. They were some good times. Things like that make you competitive.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”

St. Joe’s Prep coach Tim Roken quite literally watched Jett grow up, going back to when Jett was a ball boy at St. Joe’s Prep.

“Jett watched Marvin Jr. go through it when he played here at Prep, so that helped him deal with expectations,” Roken said. “Jett and Marvin have a great relationship, and they still stay in touch. Marvin and Jett have a lot of similarities. What Jett learned from his brother was being a great teammate and being a great student. The family has all this knowledge when it comes to being a wide receiver. Jett’s greatest compliment is the amount of attention he gets from opponents. They have to know where he is on the football field — and Jett has earned that attention from his production.”

What makes Jett special is how he handles it, Roken stressed. Jett is a true student of the game, absorbed in film, drills, anything that will make him better. He is never content.

He shows up every day with a smile on his face, Roken said, and carries an edge. He never takes plays off. With teams shifting their defense to his side of the field, it opens other areas of the field.

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“You always have to know where Jett is,” Roman coach Rick Prete said. “We’ll have the same problem on Sunday. First off, Prep is very good to begin with. Jett is as good as it gets. He can affect the game with everything he does. He has great speed, great ball skills, his pedigree is second to none, and someone we game plan for, and he still goes out and makes his plays.”

The other thing coaches love about Jett is that he wants the ball every play. It’s why his route running is precise.

“Jett’s sophomore year when we played Prep at Conwell-Egan, I remember walking off the field after 22 years of coaching thinking for the first time, ‘This kid is going to be a first-round draft choice someday,’” Cardinal O’Hara coach Mike Ewing said. “That’s the first time that ever happened with me. Jett is 6-3 and twitchy, he can run every route, and every route looks like a vertical, until he makes a cut. He’s incredible. Every defense he plays against rolls to him to some capacity. I’ve seen [La Salle’s] Joey O’Brien [now at Notre Dame] and Jett as sophomores, and Jett in my opinion was better than Joey was as a sophomore. Believe me, I would love to have them both on my team.”

La Salle head coach Brett Gordon coached O’Brien, who is getting playing time at safety as a true freshman at Notre Dame, and knows high-level talent. There is a careful balance how a talented players like Jett and O’Brien impact games at wide receiver. The Explorers did a decent job against Jett this season, holding Jett to four catches in two games for 29 yards.

“You know someone like Jett will be getting the ball regardless of what the defense is doing,” Gordon said. “It’s easier said than done for a wideout. Prep tries to force him the ball, when everyone knows Jett will be getting the ball. I know every time the ball is in his hands as someone on the other sideline, your stomach is in your throat hoping he gets tackled.”

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For years, Jett was followed by speculation that he would transfer to IMG Academy, or any of a number of big-time national football prep schools. But St. Joe’s Prep is where his game was nurtured and grew. It is where he always dreamed about playing, and where his brother played. In an age where college and high school athletes are bouncing from school to school like ping-pong balls, Jett made sure his message is heard.

“I hear it [about transferring],” Jett said. “I stayed here at Prep. Something has to be said about loyalty, and Prep is where I always wanted to be. People forget that, because they see all these players bouncing from school-to-school. My father taught me about loyalty. My brother played here, and you can say I grew up here. I’m where I’m supposed to be.”