“That’s very important, especially with the younger players,” says Raftery. “When a big play happens to any player on the secondary, you’ve got to keep them focused and confident.”

Raftery’s rise to prominence in the Harvard secondary was an unlikely one. Starring at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, he was All-King County at running back from his sophomore through senior years.

During his senior season, Raftery captained his team to the Washington state championship game, where Sammamish was downed by Prosser High School on a touchdown with 17 seconds left, 42-38.

The result was not a complete disappointment for Raftery. The Sammamish captain rushed for five touchdowns in the game, which remains a Washington state championship game record.

“It was a nice way to go out that way as a running back,” says Raftery. “When I played as a kid, I played running back. When I played high school, I was a running back...Even here I was recruited as a running back.”

Though Harvard head coach Tim Murphy acknowledges that he recruited Raftery as a tailback out of high school—“He was an outstanding high school running back,” he says—he also maintains that it is a prerogative of many college coaches to focus on top offensive players when recruiting for defense.

“When the ball’s in his hands all the time it’s a lot easier to judge a potential defensive athlete than it is with someone who’s just playing defense,” Murphy says. “Certainly we recruited him as a tailback, but like every secondary in America, most of them are ex-tailbacks. You recruit as many good tailbacks as you can and try to get them on the field.”

Altogether, such unorthodoxy fits Chris Raftery like a glove. The wannabe-lawyer from Washington State with a surfer dude haircut is all about breaking molds.