For Brown, Carroll opened his eyes to just that. Playing basketball in the Ancient Eight over a power conference like the Pac-12 no longer entailed making sacrifices. Instead, it was just the opposite.
“A place like Harvard you can do it all,” Carroll said. “Big athletic dreams, big social dreams, big academic dreams. I just opened his eyes to what he was looking for.”
Brown wasn’t the first NMH player to hear this advice from Carroll, and, the coach says, he certainly won’t be the last.
“Sometimes they are kids and just need those things pointed out to them, as their focused might have shifted a little bit,” Carroll said. “And with Matt, he was quick to realize that indeed his focus had shifted...he can walk into any office in the world and say he’s a Harvard graduate.”
—Staff writer Andrew Farber can be reached at andrewfarber@college.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Caleb Y. Lee can be reached at caleblee@college.harvard.edu.