Bryce Harper is not used to being a normal teenager. When you’re the most highly-touted prospect in America, attempting to dive into college baseball two years early and jet-setting around the country to participate in national tournaments, heads are bound to turn.

Should he have happened to walk into a grocery store earlier this month to pick up a Gatorade, Harper would have seen his own face on the front cover of Sports Illustrated with a headline heralding him as not only the next LeBron James, but baseball’s “chosen one.”

“Everyone’s watching,” Harper said. “I have a big target on my back, and I like that.”

However, for the week he was in Cary to participate in the USA Baseball Tournament of Stars, Harper had as normal a home life as any other sixteen-year-old, albeit with a family that is not his own. Harper and teammate Marcus Littlewood spent the week with the Young family, their hosts while they trained at the USA Baseball’s National Training Complex in Cary and participated in the Tournament of Stars in Durham.

“We like to give back to baseball and Cary. The fact that we all love it — it’s worked out,” Charlie Young, the family patriarch, said. “We have something pretty phenomenal in our own backyard.”

During the athletes’ first night in Cary, the younger Youngs challenged their houseguests to a heated battle on their Wii console. The teens shied away from baseball, settling instead for Tiger Woods golf and Wii Sports.

“We got Bryce to hula-hoop, and he beat me,” 17-year-old daughter Tricia said. “I hold the record, but he beat me that one time.”

“He’s a strong competitor, a natural athlete,” son Thomas added, laughing.

This is the third year the Youngs have hosted USA Baseball athletes. Two years ago, the family hosted L.J. Hoes, who was drafted by Baltimore Orioles in 2008, and Preston Tucker, a standout freshman at the University of Florida and a USA National Team under-21 invitee.

Last year, they hosted University of California at Irvine recruit Paul Strong and Anthony Tzamtzis, who will return to the Triangle to suit up for N.C. State in 2010.

“These players are the most elite at their craft, but they are great people,” Charlie said. “USA Baseball does an unbelievable job of selecting players with character.”

Harper, Baseball America’s 2009 High School Player of the Year, has become something of a national celebrity. His batting average reached .650 in high school, according to his father, and he hit a 570-foot home run as a 15-year-old. The baseball prodigy is looking to earn his GED and advance to junior college two years ahead of schedule, making him eligible for the 2010 draft at the ripe old age of 17.

“We talked about it for a year as a family,” Ron Harper, Bryce’s father, said of his son’s decision to graduate early. “It wasn’t like, ‘he’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he’s ready to go to college.’ Bryce is always looking for that next challenge, athletically and academically. He’s going to move on to college and play a lot of older, stronger guys.”

If he continues on this path, Harper could easily go first overall in the MLB draft next year and will see his own face on many more magazine covers. But in the Youngs’ Cary home, Harper and Littlewood would come home from practice, crash on the couch with a slice of cold pizza and watch TV — then clean their own dishes afterward. According to Charlie, it was “just like having a cousin over.”

“It’s a lot of fun, having these guys. You see all the news on them, and then you get to know them and it’s nothing like you think,” Thomas said. “They’re all so polite.”

Requirements for becoming a host family, according to USA baseball’s Web site, include up to three square meals a day, transportation to practice and daily washings of jerseys. According to Becky Young, Charlie’s wife, the extra chores weren’t much of a burden as 15-year-old Thomas plays baseball for the Cary Junior American Legion.

“It’s not a problem because Thomas plays baseball too, so every day I’m washing a practice uniform or something anyway,” Becky said. “I’ve got the industrial-sized Spray and Wash to get the clay out, and we’re good to go.”

Littlewood, another highly-touted 17-year-old prospect from Saint George, Utah, who will attend the University of San Diego, roomed and played with Harper on the American Legion team during the Tournament of Stars.

Littlewood stayed with Charlie Young’s cousin last year while playing in the Tournament of Stars.

“We’re becoming a USA baseball family between the town of Cary and these guys,” Charlie said. “We all know them and track their careers.”

The Youngs say they keep in touch with both of their previous houseguests, trading e-mails, phone calls and Christmas cards. The Youngs saw Harper and Littlewood off to the airport Monday at the conclusion of the tournament, but they could join the mailing list soon — regardless of which pro team they join, or how long it takes them to get there.