Inside Anthony Lucas's rise into becoming a blue-chip recruit

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Anthony Lucas has continued to develop into a terrific baseball player. He picked up football along the way and has blossomed into one of the best prospects in America, tabbed by the Top247 as the nation’s No. 6 defensive lineman and No. 27 prospect overall. He has been selected to play in the All-American Bowl following his senior season.

“He never really played football till high school,” the elder Lucas said. Her husband Jacques works in cyber security and a job opportunity saw the Lucas family move to Arizona in 2015 where Anthony has since settled in at Scottsdale (Ariz.) Chaparral High. “When we went to sign him up for classes some of the parents saw him and asked if he was here to play football and I said no he’s here to play baseball (catcher, third base and first base). They said ‘are you kidding, he needs to be on the team’ and they gave my number and had coach call me. He said ‘bring Anthony to practice tomorrow and we’ll talk to him about being on the team.’ It was almost August. I met the coach after practice and he’s like ‘why don’t you have him playing football.’ I said my husband is afraid he’s going to get hurt. He said ‘you mean he’s afraid to hurt the other kids.’ Oh my gosh I had to beg my husband to let him play. I finally convinced him to let him play and the rest is history.”

Aspiring to major in business or sports media and broadcasting, the Lucas family had a terrific time taking all those trips in June but to make a final decision they’ll get back on the road and do one more swing.

“Anthony wants to go catch a game at some of the schools,” she said. “We’re going to do that during the season and some time in November or December we should be able to make a decision to know where he’s going. The visits made it even more confusing because they’re all such good programs and everything. I loved all of them. Really everyone of them had something special about them. It was nice to visit Miami because my husband went there. To him it was like being home. I also really liked Notre Dame and Oregon and Texas A&M, all of them really. I know (for games) we definitely want to take one to Texas A&M, it’s close by and we definitely want to go to Notre Dame. A game at Alabama and Miami, LSU, we want to go take in a game and we’re probably going to visit five or six schools for games.”

Lucas plans to enroll early at the school of his choosing.

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