Jeremy Lin, pre-game intros, family.
NOTE: This is Part 4 of a four-part series of blogposts. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 were published in the three days prior. I re-titled this post because I felt it was the most interesting of the four.
From deity to defeated
After Friday night’s win over Columbia, there were hundreds of fans lined up to meet Jeremy Lin, to get autographs and take pictures. He was very accommodating. He was a hero. I could only shake my head and smile in astonishment.
Even the Santa Clara post-game hadn’t been that frenzied, at least from my vantage point, although I did overhear his teammate mentioning autograph-seekers outside the team bus. I think the fans were not found in droves on the Leavey Center floor after the Santa Clara game primarily because of the long post-game press conference. The scene at Leavey ended up being picture-taking sessions mostly with family and extended family, and reconnecting with long-lost former teammates and even former opponents, such as Anthony Goods of Stanford fame, who played against Jeremy in the first home-coming three years prior.
Even as his friend, after the Columbia game it was nearly impossible to navigate the waters just to say hello. At one point, after autographing a sign and some t-shirts, Jeremy was rescued by Coach Tommy Amaker, who called him over from about ten yards away to take pictures with Jeremy’s relatives. Even his flat-mate Cheng Ho (running back for Harvard football team) told Jeremy rather abruptly, “Eh, you’re too popular. I’ll just see you later.”
The intimate setting at Columbia made it quite a sight to see. Here he was, a bonafide celebrity athlete.
By contrast and true to enemy territory form, I saw zero autograph-seekers after the Cornell game.
Jeremy came out of the locker room with a decidedly frustrated look on his face. He had a larger support group on this night. Adding to the Lin “posse” (I’m trying to be facetious!) was his dad, his two brothers and, I presume, a few cousins. The fact that the Columbia game was on a school/work night probably had something to do with their absences the night before.
His mom rushed to him the moment he appeared, inviting a hug to try and take away the agony of the blow-out loss to a crucial opponent. If my personal life is any comparison, and if I remember correctly, nary a mom’s affection was going to change that torturous feeling for a young adult that lasts for about four hours immediately following a loss. As such, Jeremy was predictably stoic.
I could see him pointing at the other end of the court and explaining something to his mom, which I speculate had to do with the exasperation of the two “phantom” (i.e., “ticky-tack”, or for the non-basketball readers: they shouldn’t have been called) fouls called on him in the second half. The 4th foul sent him to the bench, on the brink of disqualification and unable to help his teammates spark a comeback — not that it would’ve made a difference against the ferocious Cornell team that showed up that night.
Still, perhaps ingrained in the Lin DNA, mom attempted another hug or two (which Jeremy did oblige), seeing that her son was so bothered by the huge disappointment of the loss. Eventually, Jeremy cracked a smile as one of his cousins said something, but then, true to a baller’s heart, the gravity of what just took place on the court re-plagued his mind and the frustration was back on his face not long thereafter.
Back at Santa Clara, his dad had come up to me and said he was very thankful for sharing the perhaps unnoticed qualities that Jeremy brings to a team, both on my blog and as a contributor to GoldenStateOfMind.com. Jeremy’s dad said that I saw things most people don’t see with Jeremy’s game. Then he paid me the ultimate compliment: “I read every word, every word.”
After the Cornell game, I hoped that we could talk shop again and I was grateful when Jeremy’s dad again came by and wanted to know what I thought of the game. I pretty much gave him the condensed version of the recap I wrote in Part 2, and we agreed on a lot of points, giving sort of our first-take analysis, as Silicon Valley engineers do. But I told him that, despite the embarrassing outcome, I was proud of his son, how courageously he played in the second half, fearlessly attacking on offense and meeting 7-footer Jeff Foote at the rim on numerous occasions, against insurmountable odds.
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Jeremy getting taped before the game.
Finally, I said hello and goodbye to Jeremy. I told him to stay strong, that nothing’s really changed, in reference to their quest for the Ivy League title (it’s still, in essence, a 3-game series against Cornell, although Harvard now has to beat Cornell twice in a row: once in the remaining regular season matchup and, if upset losses to any other teams are avoided, one more time in what would be an Ivy League championship one-game playoff).
Then Jeremy said what I knew he would say: “Thanks for coming. Sorry.”
I told him not to be sorry, that he never had to apologize for a loss.
You apologize when, for whatever reason, you didn’t or couldn’t give it your all. Or when you didn’t practice something you should have. You apologize if you got frustrated at a teammate and snapped at him (that’d be me snapping at my teammates, as those of you who know my potentially fiery personality on the court can attest, but not Jeremy). But you don’t have to apologize when you gave everything you had, pulled nearly every trick out of the bag, and you or your team just wasn’t good enough that night.
At that point I caught a glimpse of Jeremy’s mom, who was a little teary-eyed. I think it was because she knew we all cared for Jeremy a great deal, and she appreciated that, and she also knew that losing and being disappointed that the outcome did not happen as we may have envisioned it, was a painful part of competition.
I think there was some element of Jeremy feeling he might have let his fans down. Well, as an eyewitness, I can convey to all of you Jeremy Lin fans, he and Harvard may have lost that night, but the way he played that second half practically one-on-five, with the fifth being seven feet tall, me watching this from just eight rows back, how he took several hits (the hard foul and the slap that wasn’t called by the ref) and kept fighting, as an Asian-American, you can be proud of Jeremy even in a 36-point defeat.
The final score doesn’t show this. The boxscore doesn’t show this. The play-by-play transcript probably doesn’t even reveal it. I don’t even think the average basketball fan can appreciate it. But as someone who has watched adult men play competitive basketball, up close, for more than 10,000 hours in the last two decades, most of it from the last seven years since Dream League’s inception, as a basketball aficionado, a former player, a coach who has been through it all in countless tournaments, what I saw from Jeremy in the second half against Cornell — and this has nothing to do with being Asian-American — that’s a guy I want on my team.
And I wouldn’t have traded witnessing Jeremy and his mom, for any of Jeremy’s previous wins, dunks, buzzer-beaters, or fabulous plays. I mean, I would trade it, because as a baller I’d rather take the win, of course. But I sure have a greater appreciation of Jeremy’s mom and family and their relationship with him, and this memory will be ingrained with me just as the wins, dunks, buzzer-beaters, and fabulous plays will.
Not that other basketball players’ families aren’t the same. I don’t mean to prop up Jeremy as someone who takes responsibility for a loss more-so than any other elite competitor. Nor his mom as a better mom than other basketball players’ moms.
But some star players don’t necessarily give their heart and soul to the team, or they look to blame someone or something else for a loss. On the other hand, this particular star player carries a loss with him and takes responsibility for the many people, from family to friends to colleagues to nameless supporters, who care about him. And his family respects that and feels the same. With Jeremy, you will never get any drama whatsoever after a loss.
Out of respect for the privacy of the Lin family, I internally debated whether or not to post what I saw with Jeremy and his mom, but I think it was a tidbit that needed to be told. This may be the wrong metaphor, but Batman wouldn’t be interesting without Bruce Wayne. When the warehouse blew up and took Rachel Dawes with it, it was Wayne’s anguish and feeling of responsibility, to not just certain individuals but also people in general, that made Batman more human. (To the inevitable detractors lurking out there: I know, I know, a comparison to the Dark Knight is a bit much, but you get my drift. Geez, let a man make a point.)
This past weekend, I got to see the hero vanquish his opponents and achieve the status of a deity, and the next day I witnessed him defeated and dealing with a major emotional setback at the hands of an archrival.
And yet, in both instances, he was considerate of someone else.
Throughout my travels watching adults play basketball, be it the NBA, the NCAA, or at any level of any of my amateur leagues — and I say this even if, in a myopic way, only relative to the other players on any given court — I’d have to think real hard to remember someone as young as him who possessed such skill, stamina, determination, leadership, and MATURITY.
Tonight, Harvard picks itself up after the knockout punch by Cornell, to face Princeton at home. Tomorrow, they face Penn. They will have a rematch against Cornell on Fri 2/19.
