Other than a few of his closest friends, nobody at the University of Tennessee knew about Harper Thompson’s full-time job. They didn’t realize he traveled across the country nearly every weekend for events. They didn’t see all the work he was putting in behind the scenes to excel at his craft.
Thompson is a professional disc golf player. The Brentwood, Tennessee native turned pro at age 16 and hasn’t let his career interfere with his academic obligations. He arrived at UT in the fall of 2022 and will be graduating with honors this month with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
“Math was always my strong suit,” Thompson said. “Growing up in high school, I was just drawn towards math, and I knew engineering was very good in terms of employment and salary. I knew mechanical had a lot of applications, so I decided to explore that for college at UT. It’s been a great experience.”
Thompson’s parents introduced him to disc golf when he was three years old. The sport is similar to actual golf, only instead of using clubs, players throw flying discs from a tee area to a metal basket with chains.
Thompson started playing tournaments when he was 10 and has always been one of the top players for his age in the world. As a member of the Professional Disc Golf Association, Thompson has 35 career wins in 194 events, and a player rating of 1022, which is the 74th-highest rating in the country. He has $45,521 in career prize winnings from PDGA tournaments.
“I really do think it’s such an incredible underrated sport,” Thompson said. “To me, it’s better than golf. The number of things you can do with a disc is really fun. You’re going through the woods, so you get insane scenery. And the community is amazing as well. I’ve met so many amazing people throughout playing disc golf.”
Being a student-athlete
Although Thompson isn’t officially a member of any NCAA athletic team on campus, his schedule is nearly as demanding. He practices throughout the week for a few hours each day and then drives multiple hours on the weekends for tournaments.
“It’s obviously a lot of time management and lot of sacrifices,” Thompson said. “I do a ton of schoolwork early in the week, go to all my classes, and then get back late on a Sunday night after every tournament. It definitely requires a lot of compartmentalizing.”
Thompson is sponsored by Prodigy Disc, a disc golf equipment manufacturer. He’s been a member of the team since he was 11.
“They give me a lot of support,” Thompson said. “They essentially pay me and have a lot of other financial incentives for me, like wearing their logo at all times at tournaments, throwing exclusively their discs, and doing a lot of online promotional stuff for them.”
Thompson helped UT launch a club disc golf team this semester. The team competed in a recent tournament, with Thompson winning the singles portion and the Vols placing second overall.
“It’s been really fun to be a part of that starting,” he said. “I did a clinic for them to show some of the guys how to throw the disc better and farther. It’s great to see UT getting more involved in the sport.”
Aiming to reach his potential
Thompson wasn’t sure what type of engineering he wanted to study when he first enrolled in the Tickle College of Engineering. But he’s glad he chose the route he did.
“The more that I got into it, the more that I liked mechanical,” he said. “I learned a lot, and I really enjoyed some my classes where we went into things related to mechanical but that weren’t strictly mechanical. In MATLAB, I learned that I like to code so I started teaching myself to code a little bit outside of school.”
After graduation this month, Thompson plans to begin traveling more internationally for events. He has a tournament in Estonia next year, which will be his first event outside of the United States.
Thompson wants to devote all of his energy to disc golf for the next two years before evaluating where he stands. He’s already made some connections in mechanical engineering through disc golf that may lead to job opportunities in the future.
“If disc golf is going really well, I would continue to pursue that. It’s my dream. It’s the thing I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “But if, after two years, it gets to a point where it’s not financially viable, or maybe I’m not enjoying it so much, my plan would be to pivot and go into mechanical.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey ([email protected])