“It was the best thing that could ever have happened,” Wright admits.
With his family closer, Wright’s basketball career seemed to be on the upswing. He took advantage of the accessibility of the weight room and basketball courts, working out at Harvard over the summers.
The Achilles heel injury that plagued him during freshman year healed. What’s more, Tabron says that her son seemed more relaxed after the move. He stopped worrying about off-the-court issues like financial concerns and laundry.
“I think Keith’s biggest challenge was [leaving Virginia],’” Tabron explains. “And I said to him, ‘You need to realize that you are so much bigger than you see right now.’ He didn’t really get it at first, but I think as he goes back to visit friends he sees how he has evolved into a different person and everyone has stayed the same. He doesn’t mind it now because he never does laundry and he never cleans his room.”
“I guess maybe he thought I was going to cramp his style—[even though] he doesn’t even have a style—but it just works for us,” she adds. “I don’t see him every day, but we still talk at least twice a day.”
The rest is history.
Since his family moved to the Boston area, Wright and his teammates have transformed Harvard basketball. The team has increased its season win totals every year since Wright’s freshman campaign in 2008. In a couple of weeks, the team will be playing in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1946.
Tabron has had a first-row view of the Crimson’s rise, and she praises Harvard coach Tommy Amaker for taking what was a talented group of basketball players and transforming them into a cohesive team.
Tabron considers the 79-67 home win against Princeton on March 5, 2011 to be her favorite moment of her son’s Crimson career.
“When they won [a share of] the Ivy League championship and everyone was rushing the floor, it was unbelievable,” Tabron recalls. “Keith left the floor and came into the stands and gave me a big hug and said ‘Thank you mom.’ This woman who sent me a picture...said, ‘What a great moment to know that he loves you so much that he thanked you for sacrificing for him.’”
“He defined himself as wanting to make history, not because he wanted to be a part of it,” she adds. “And at that moment, he did.”
Unfortunately for Harvard fans, Tabron’s time in the stands is coming to end.
She will stay in the Boston area with her two youngest children, ages eight and 11, where she will continue her work as the marketing and outreach director at an assisted living facility.
Although she vows to attend future Harvard-Princeton games, Tabron says she must dedicate a lot of her time to Wright’s siblings.
As his career comes to a close, Wright cannot help but think about how much his mother has done for him.
“I reflect on how my mom has helped me every day,” Wright says. “We’ve gone through a lot together, and I think that this portion of it has been awesome. It really caps off the tremendous relationship we have and the tremendous job she has done raising me and the man that I’ve become.”
But it’s not over.
“When they go to the Dance, am I going?” Tabron asks incredulously. “When they went to the NIT, my son called me and said were playing in Oklahoma. I hung up the phone, purchased a ticket, and beat the team there.”
“Sharon Casey, [the mother of junior forward Kyle Casey], and I have a savings account for when they are selected this year so we can purchase our tickets,” she continues. “So yes, I will be there.”
And it seems fitting that Wright and his mother will end this chapter of Harvard basketball history just as they started it: together.