Word: playfulness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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While Amaker described Lin’s play as tremendous—he finished with 17 points, eight rebounds, seven steals (a career high), and five assists—the team’s leader was quick to defer praise to his teammates...
...with pro-level talent? Yes, that's one reason Lin is a novelty. But let's face it: Lin's ethnicity might be a bigger surprise. Fewer than 0.5% of men's Division 1 basketball players are Asian-American. Sure, the occasional giant from China, like Yao Ming, has played in the NBA. But in the U.S., basketball stars are African Americans first, Caucasians second, and Asians ... somewhere far down the line. (One historical footnote: Wat Misaka, a Japanese American, became in 1947 the first nonwhite person to play in the NBA.) (See the classic sports photography of Walter Iooss...
...time Jeremy was 5, Gie-Ming was taking him to the local YMCA in Palo Alto, Calif., to play ball in a kids' league. For Jeremy, it wasn't exactly love at first sight. "He stood at half-court sucking his thumb for the entirety of about half his games that season," says Jeremy's older brother Josh, 24. "It came to the point where my mom stopped going to watch his games." Then Jeremy asked his mother Shirley to start coming to the Y again. Before Shirley would commit, however, she wanted to know if he'd actually...
Throughout Jeremy's childhood, Gie-Ming would take him to the YMCA after he finished his homework. They would practice and play in pickup games. "Many Asian families focus so much on academics," says Gie-Ming. "But it felt so good to play with my kids. I enjoyed it so much." Jeremy won a state championship as a senior in high school, but he received no Division 1 scholarship offers (Ivy League schools cannot give athletic scholarships). Yes, he was scrawny, but don't doubt that a little racial profiling, intentional or otherwise, contributed to his underrecruitment...
...career, however, Lin has some on-court business to attend to. Harvard has racked up some impressive wins early in the season. The team upset Boston College in early December and knocked off a 9-2 George Washington team on Dec. 30, 66-53. The Crimson, who play next at Seattle University on Jan. 2, should challenge two-time defending champion Cornell for the Ivy title; a league championship would give Harvard that elusive trip to the NCAA tournament. And Lin wants to give pro basketball a shot - most likely overseas or, who knows, maybe...