It was my first time covering Harvard men’s basketball. I didn’t dress up. I took sloppy notes. And I sat next to the legendary Bob Ryan, who wasn’t impressed with the Crimson at all.
Accordingly, I had no appreciation for my reporting duties. Why trudge over to the far side of campus simply to see this, I thought.
My other early memory of sportswriting was the first weekly media session I attended. Amaker, in fact, asked me the opening question: “Where are you from?” It turns out that college basketball recruiting helps one develop an extensive knowledge of U.S. geography.
In the years since, I’ve had the chance to speak with Amaker outside the confines of the press credential, with the tape recorder shut off, on a number of occasions. It was in these moments of rare candor that Harvard basketball’s transformation became wholly unsurprising to me.
Outsiders may take issue with the man and his methods, but it is difficult to remain a cynic when he looks you in the eye and describes his long-term vision for the program, all the while cultivating a unique atmosphere of mutual respect for even a newbie reporter.
Six semesters after we first met, I saw Mr. Ryan in Albuquerque, where we both were donning those treasured blue pieces of plastic. Though it hit a bump in that second-round matchup, Harvard’s rise is nowhere near over. As I have tracked for the past four years, the stud recruits have come, and I expect them to keep coming—as long as you-know-who is at the helm.
*****
The Parting Shot usually consists of a rumination on Harvard sports and life. For the folks on The Crimson’s Sports board, the two are commonly one and the same—a philosophy of which my post-graduate plans may be the purest expression.
Along with two of my classmates, I have founded the African Sports and Scholastic Initiative for Students in Townships, a project combining the growing sport of basketball with academic mentoring and support to empower the youth of Alexandra, a Johannesburg slum.
After a foray into sportswriting—and one failed cameo at an Amaker coaching clinic—I’ll now be the one carrying clipboards and blowing whistles. My pupils may not have the vertical leap of a Kyle Casey or the quick hands of a Brandyn Curry, but they will match them in heart—and then some.
Something tells me that I’m not finished asking, “What would Tommy Amaker do?”
—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@post.harvard.edu.