Amaker at Harvard

[timmy c]

Interesting Tommy Amaker read hidden deep in a long post on rush the court.

Amaker, in his short time with the Crimson, has brought the school some of its greatest success they have ever witnessed on the hardwood.

[Verga3]

Interesting Tommy Amaker read hidden deep in a long post on rush the court.

Thanks so much for posting this. Tommy is such a class act and will be a successful mentor and coach for a very long time. Harvard is very fortunate to have him.

[Orange&BlackSheep]

Thanks so much for posting this. Tommy is such a class act and will be a successful mentor and coach for a very long time. Harvard is very fortunate to have him.

Look forward to his departure so Harvard can return to their rightful place as perennial Ivy doormat and I can return to thinking of him as Johnny D's backcourt mate.

Just sayin'

[timmy c]

Look forward to his departure so Harvard can return to their rightful place as perennial Ivy doormat and I can return to thinking of him as Johnny D's backcourt mate.

Are you hoping he gets fired???

Havard is a great fit for Tommy. I'm looking forward to more success for him in the Ivy league.

[Deslok]

Are you hoping he gets fired???

Havard is a great fit for Tommy. I'm looking forward to more success for him in the Ivy league.

Someone with the nick Orange&Black Sheep is(aside from being a Duke supporter), a Princeton fan. And for followers of the Tigers(of which I am somewhat of one, having grown up there), and Harvard success for Tommy is a bit bittersweet. So we'd like to see him get another, better job offer so we can root for him wholeheartedly.

[Kewlswim]

Hi,

I like Tommy a lot. I think it is just jealousy, but some in the Ivy League feel Tommy isn't recruiting "fairly." I dismissed what I've heard/read as total sour grapes, but in the interests of objectivity I figured I should mention it.

GO DUKE!

[sagegrouse]

Hi,

I like Tommy a lot. I think it is just jealousy, but some in the Ivy League feel Tommy isn't recruiting "fairly." I dismissed what I've heard/read as total sour grapes, but in the interests of objectivity I figured I should mention it.

GO DUKE!

Shortly after Tommy arrived and began signing up some really good players for the Crimson, the NY Times did a couple of stories that presented breath-taking findings, except they didn't amount to anything. The first involved some aggressive recruiting by Tommy and his soon-to-be assistant, ex-Dukie, Kenny Blakeney. Tommy has some casual contact with the father of a recruit. Kenny, before he became an assistant but after Tommy had recruited him, played pickup ball with a recruit. Oh, the horror! Harvard and the NCAA investigated and Tommy was exonerated on all charges, which, as you can imagine, received much less coverage.

But that's not all: it turns out that Harvard, perfidious Harvard, had lowered its admission standards for basketball to the Ivy League minimums instead of a previous higher standard. The shocking implication was that Harvard was trying to win a few games. Give me a break, NY Times! I know all the Yale grads went to Wall Street not Times Square, but this is not the route to a Pulitzer prize. (Side note: I am a subscriber and read it daily in both Washington, DC and Steamboat.) And BTW, NY Times there was a story there; Harvard was actually trying to build a winning program, but you got tied up in trying to make it a scandal.

Then, it got worse. A year or two later Tommy got caught doing the unforgivable: he changed his mind. Harvard has a varsity and a JV team, and Tommy planned to hold tryouts for 19 players before selecting the final 14 for the varsity. This, of course, would have occurred after practice started October 15 and while the clock was ticking toward the season's start. But then Tommy came to his senses, picked his top 14, and told players 15 through 19 that they could play their way onto the varsity by excelling on the JV team.

A father of one of the players got on the horn to the authors of the previous travesty and we had another expose. Players 15 through 19 on the the weakest basketball program in all 300+ programs in Division were being denied a chance to play Div I basketball at Harvard and would have to transfer to do so. Oh, really, the reader asks, to where? I believe Williams and Amherst are Div III. Of course, it would have been impolite for the reporters to ask the father the same question. Gawd, the NY Times sports section is journalistically weak, as we saw during the bashing of Duke by Selena Roberts during the lacrosses incident. Anyway, this became another example of Tommy's and Harvard's perfidy.

Anyway, this is my detailed recollection of all the stories surrounding Tommy and Harvard.

sagegrouse

[Orange&BlackSheep]

Shortly after Tommy arrived and began signing up some really good players for the Crimson, the NY Times did a couple of stories that presented breath-taking findings, except they didn't amount to anything. The first involved some aggressive recruiting by Tommy and his soon-to-be assistant, ex-Dukie, Kenny Blakeney. Tommy has some casual contact with the father of a recruit. Kenny, before he became an assistant but after Tommy had recruited him, played pickup ball with a recruit. Oh, the horror! Harvard and the NCAA investigated and Tommy was exonerated on all charges, which, as you can imagine, received much less coverage.

But that's not all: it turns out that Harvard, perfidious Harvard, had lowered its admission standards for basketball to the Ivy League minimums instead of a previous higher standard. The shocking implication was that Harvard was trying to win a few games. Give me a break, NY Times! I know all the Yale grads went to Wall Street not Times Square, but this is not the route to a Pulitzer prize. (Side note: I am a subscriber and read it daily in both Washington, DC and Steamboat.) And BTW, NY Times there was a story there; Harvard was actually trying to build a winning program, but you got tied up in trying to make it a scandal.

Then, it got worse. A year or two later Tommy got caught doing the unforgivable: he changed his mind. Harvard has a varsity and a JV team, and Tommy planned to hold tryouts for 19 players before selecting the final 14 for the varsity. This, of course, would have occurred after practice started October 15 and while the clock was ticking toward the season's start. But then Tommy came to his senses, picked his top 14, and told players 15 through 19 that they could play their way onto the varsity by excelling on the JV team.

A father of one of the players got on the horn to the authors of the previous travesty and we had another expose. Players 15 through 19 on the the weakest basketball program in all 300+ programs in Division were being denied a chance to play Div I basketball at Harvard and would have to transfer to do so. Oh, really, the reader asks, to where? I believe Williams and Amherst are Div III. Of course, it would have been impolite for the reporters to ask the father the same question. Gawd, the NY Times sports section is journalistically weak, as we saw during the bashing of Duke by Selena Roberts during the lacrosses incident. Anyway, this became another example of Tommy's and Harvard's perfidy.

Anyway, this is my detailed recollection of all the stories surrounding Tommy and Harvard.

sagegrouse

The grousing sage has this portrayed correctly as I understood it. The only difference being for me, of course, was the joy that Harvard bashing always brings (facts and truth being irrelevant) mitigated only by the ever present little devil on the shoulder reminding me of my teen idolization of the aforementioned backcourt back when you had to follow the ACC via [gasp] the newspaper if you did not live in God's country.

[CEF1959]

Gawd, the NY Times sports section is journalistically weak.

Amen brother. I don't think the senior editors of the Times give a rat's patooey about sports, because that's not the paper people buy to get sports news or analysis. So they hire crappy journalists, who then produce crappy journalism.

It's too bad, because the NYT has three of only a handful of pulitzers for sports commentary, including one for Red Smith, who was excellent during his years with the Times, though they came at the end of his career and only lasted about 10 years.

Arthur Daley was a great NYT sportswriter back in the day. I think he lasted more than 30 years and was the first sportwriter to win a pulitzer.

Dave Anderson is a legend, but he has been mostly retired since 2007, writing only a few columns a year now. He also won a pulitzer.

Seems like the NYT gave up on sports in the 70s or so. It's a shame, because there is some news in sports fit to print.

[Kewlswim]

Hi,

I am not sure why the Ivy League is so high minded when it comes to sports? For example, I never fully understood how 100% financial aid is any different from 100% sports scholarship. To me it is just semantics, but it really means a lot to some of those folks. That being said, a lot of the Ivy League friends really believe Harvard because Tommy is from Duke is up to nefarious activity. After all, how can it be that Tommy could get Harvard to play well without cheating? I am soooooooo glad I never went to an Ivy League school.

GO DUKE!

[-bdbd]

Shortly after Tommy arrived and began signing up some really good players for the Crimson, the NY Times did a couple of stories that presented breath-taking findings, except they didn't amount to anything. The first involved some aggressive recruiting by Tommy and his soon-to-be assistant, ex-Dukie, Kenny Blakeney. Tommy has some casual contact with the father of a recruit. Kenny, before he became an assistant but after Tommy had recruited him, played pickup ball with a recruit. Oh, the horror! Harvard and the NCAA investigated and Tommy was exonerated on all charges, which, as you can imagine, received much less coverage.

But that's not all: it turns out that Harvard, perfidious Harvard, had lowered its admission standards for basketball to the Ivy League minimums instead of a previous higher standard. The shocking implication was that Harvard was trying to win a few games. Give me a break, NY Times! I know all the Yale grads went to Wall Street not Times Square, but this is not the route to a Pulitzer prize. (Side note: I am a subscriber and read it daily in both Washington, DC and Steamboat.) And BTW, NY Times there was a story there; Harvard was actually trying to build a winning program, but you got tied up in trying to make it a scandal.

Then, it got worse. A year or two later Tommy got caught doing the unforgivable: he changed his mind. Harvard has a varsity and a JV team, and Tommy planned to hold tryouts for 19 players before selecting the final 14 for the varsity. This, of course, would have occurred after practice started October 15 and while the clock was ticking toward the season's start. But then Tommy came to his senses, picked his top 14, and told players 15 through 19 that they could play their way onto the varsity by excelling on the JV team.

A father of one of the players got on the horn to the authors of the previous travesty and we had another expose. Players 15 through 19 on the the weakest basketball program in all 300+ programs in Division were being denied a chance to play Div I basketball at Harvard and would have to transfer to do so. Oh, really, the reader asks, to where? I believe Williams and Amherst are Div III. Of course, it would have been impolite for the reporters to ask the father the same question. Gawd, the NY Times sports section is journalistically weak, as we saw during the bashing of Duke by Selena Roberts during the lacrosses incident. Anyway, this became another example of Tommy's and Harvard's perfidy.

Anyway, this is my detailed recollection of all the stories surrounding Tommy and Harvard.

sagegrouse

Just to add a little to the Grouser of Sage, in the original recruiting "scandal" story, a couple of the primary sources were the prior assistant coaches at Harvard who had been let go when Tommy arrived. There was an apparent attempt to imply that, while the prior staff had done it the "right" way regarding academic and other standards, Amaker was a sellout to lower standards in hopes of more competitive, big-time B-ball (which the prior staff had consistently failed to deliver). I think most serious BB followers just dismissed it as all a bunch of agenda-driven silly stuff.

[Orange&BlackSheep]

Hi,

I am not sure why the Ivy League is so high minded when it comes to sports? For example, I never fully understood how 100% financial aid is any different from 100% sports scholarship. To me it is just semantics, but it really means a lot to some of those folks. That being said, a lot of the Ivy League friends really believe Harvard because Tommy is from Duke is up to nefarious activity. After all, how can it be that Tommy could get Harvard to play well without cheating? I am soooooooo glad I never went to an Ivy League school.

GO DUKE!

If the friends you have who have lowered themselves to associate with a non-Ivy League grad (something I am sure you know is frowned upon), I would surmise their take on things is not quite so simplistic as you make it out to be. What my friends and I thought when all that started happening is that Tommy was bringing "big time program" methods to what is basically a small time program. It is impossible for us to know what is going on behind the recruiting curtain, but we did not like it simply because we want Harvard to suck.

[Kewlswim]

If the friends you have who have lowered themselves to associate with a non-Ivy League grad (something I am sure you know is frowned upon), I would surmise their take on things is not quite so simplistic as you make it out to be. What my friends and I thought when all that started happening is that Tommy was bringing "big time program" methods to what is basically a small time program. It is impossible for us to know what is going on behind the recruiting curtain, but we did not like it simply because we want Harvard to suck.

Hi,

I actually never had anything against Harvard, until I met a few Harvard grads. I like Harvard basketball because of Tommy, but otherwise, bleh.

GO DUKE!

[MCFinARL]

Hi,

I am not sure why the Ivy League is so high minded when it comes to sports? For example, I never fully understood how 100% financial aid is any different from 100% sports scholarship. To me it is just semantics, but it really means a lot to some of those folks.

GO DUKE!

Well, in a lot of cases, it comes out the same--but there is a difference. In order to get 100% financial aid, you need to meet the family income and resources standards for 100% financial aid; in order to get an athletic scholarship, you don't. In recent years, Harvard and many other Ivy schools have worked hard to increase access for middle-class students; at this point a student whose family income is $60,000 or below is not expected to contribute any portion of his/her expenses, and expected contributions go up gradually to approximately 10% of family income for families with incomes of $120,000 to $180,000 annually.

Many basketball recruits would probably qualify for the full free ride, but some wouldn't, and in the past, even more would have been, at least, expected to take out loans to pay for part of their expensive Harvard education.

[davekay1971]

Hi,

I actually never had anything against Harvard, until I met a few Harvard grads. I like Harvard basketball because of Tommy, but otherwise, bleh.

GO DUKE!

My negative opinion of Harvard was formed on my college tour of that exalted university, when the smug pomposity of the admissions office made me want to hurl. The guy from the admissions office basically told the room "We don't need you, you need Harvard...but you're probably not good enough." Not in those exact words, of course, but that was the message. At that point I promptly came to my senses and reorganized my application list along appropriate priorities: first and foremost, it had to be a good ACC basketball school.

Duke, early decision application, here I come!

Harvard, sadly, didn't make my application list

[MCFinARL]

My negative opinion of Harvard was formed on my college tour of that exalted university, when the smug pomposity of the admissions office made me want to hurl. The guy from the admissions office basically told the room "We don't need you, you need Harvard...but you're probably not good enough." Not in those exact words, of course, but that was the message. At that point I promptly came to my senses and reorganized my application list along appropriate priorities: first and foremost, it had to be a good ACC basketball school.

Duke, early decision application, here I come!

Harvard, sadly, didn't make my application list

Funny--that's pretty much what the admissions guy at UNC, of all places, said to a room full of potential applicants when my daughter was visiting colleges a few years back. It was an interesting and instructive contrast with the Duke info session she attended on the same trip--the Duke folks didn't seem to have any compelling need to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their visitors.

[gam7]

Sorry - this thread keeps getting pushed up to the top and was wondering if a moderator might consider fixing the misspelling of "Havard" in the thread title by inserting an "r" or an "h" as the third letter.

[stickdog]

I've always heard that Havard is the Duke of the Noth.

[rasputin]

I've always heard that Havard is the Duke of the Noth.

Funny, I remember the Duke Law admissions director circa 1978 describing Harvard as the "Dyook of the nawth."

[Duvall]

Thank you nameless mod. Thank you thank you thank you.