LIN-AMENT. LIN FIRST HARVARD GRAD TO PLAY FOR NY KNICKS SINCE 1953-54

Jeremy Lin doing his thing for Hahvahd Hoops 2006-2010

Jeremy Lin is only the 3d player from Harvard to play in the NBA.

He was a terrific player not only at Harvard, but in the Ivies.  He established a line of records unmatched in Ivy League history, and along the way, the Harvard basketball team, which had never amounted to a bucket of warm spit until Lin and Coach Amaker arrived, found its way to the Ivy League title and the NCAA tournament.

My sons and I watched these guys, led by Lin, play a ferocious contest in the Palestra against their arch-rivals Penn in 2010, which was a double overtime contest, and as Harvard finally won, largely due to the intensity and refusal to lose of Lin, who kept penetrating, dishing off, shooting jumpers, and doing whatever it took to win, it seemed like a passing of the guard.

The Daily Pennsylvanian made pun of Lin's name back in 2009 at Penn, showing once again Philly was three years ahead of NYC media.

So it’s no secret why Lin is the 2d best player on the knicks in win shares per 48 minutes at .187 after Tyson Chandler’s .248; or why his PER approaching 25 leads the team.  Lin plays defense, doesn’t turnover the ball, and is efficient both on offense and defense.  Also, he hustles.  In the Ivy League, he led across a large number of categories, including points, steals, rebounds, assists, assist to turnover ration, etc. and established benchmarks for a guard across many such categories–in fact, all time records for a guard to have such all-around abilities.

What we saw, watching him two years ago, was a guy who refused to lose.  He could penetrate and score; penetrate and dish out to the three line; penetrate and dish to the man beside him after drawing the double-team;  penetrate and dish to the open man; had amazing peripheral vision; could drop the three or the jumper if left unattended; always could run the ball and locate the open man on the run; could play defense; could steal the ball; could rebound and start the break the other way; in short, he was a complete player.

And Lin never stopped to breath.  He was always in continuous motion.  Harvard had a lot of talented players, but they looked kind of confused unless Lin got them the ball and he was coordinating the offense.  He was, in short, a terrific and talented point guard who had game.

A lot of Penn players have played in the NBA, but not so much Harvard.  Hockey has always been the winter sport at Harvard, along with playing the stock market and inventing new financial instruments the SEC can’t regulate.

Three players including Lin played in the NBA:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/colleges.cgi?college=harvard#stats::none

first was

Saul Mariaschin

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mariasa01.html

who was a 5 foot 11 inch player on the 1947-48 Boston Celtics.  The Celtics were in a predecessor league to the NBA, but who cares?

Here were Saul Mariaschin’s teammates on the Boston Celtics of 1947-48:

riebe, spector, sadowski, garfinkel with Saul Mariaschin Harvard Grad on 1948 Boston Celtics

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1948.html

Here’s another of his teammates from that legendary Celts team:

CHUCK CONNORS.  Yes, the guy who later played the RIFLEMAN on TV.  Lucas McCain himself.  And a 6’5″ grad of Seton Hall, which in 1947-48 would have made him a giant player.  And he was a CELTIC.  You can look it up.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/connoch01.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Connors

Chuck Connors was a Celtic and played with Harvard Grad Saul Mariaschin in 1947-48

Chuck Connors also played baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers!

And he was a TV Star!

Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain the Rifleman

Chuck Connors was a Boston Celtic and and Brooklyn Dodger

The second player that went to Harvard and played in the NBA was

Ed Smith

Edward Bernard Smith (Ed)

Ed Smith was a New York Knick in 1953-54.  On that Knicks team, Ed played with Vince “Moose” Boryla, Nate “Sweetwater” Clifton, Al McGuire and Dick McGuire, and the famous Ernie Vandeweghe, and others well-noted.

That 1953-54 Knicks team finished 1st in the Eastern Division, going 44-28 under the helm of the legendary Joe Lapchick.  And they played in the old Madison Square Garden, which many hold in as high esteem as the old Boston Garden.

Nate "Nat" "Sweetwater" Clifton of the 1953-54 NY Knicks played with Harvard's Ed Smith

and here’s ernie vandewege v bob cousy:

Bob Cousy and Ernie Vandeweghe Reaching For Ball

Of course, Ernie has some bloodlines. Kiki Vanderweghe was a great NBA player, and now his granddaughter is a professional tennis player:

CoCo Vandeweghe professional tennis player and granddaugher of Ernie Vandeweghe who played on the NY Knicks with Ed Smith in 1953-54. Ed was the last Harvard alum to play for the NY Knicks, nearly fifty years ago

AVARITIA BONA EST PART II – AIRPLANE NOISE AND NOT BUILDING A SHOPPING CENTER AS PROMISED

Continuing the post from previously published Avaritia bona est, published may 15, 2009 at http://pedrofeliz3b.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/avaritia-bona-est-%E2%80%93-the-new-philadelphia-soccer-franchise-tries-to-speak-latin%E2%80%94and-gets-it-wrong-of-course%E2%80%A6/, we’d to report several more disturbing items about the new soccer stadium and new soccer team;

1) the new soccer stadium is to be built over the direct line of philadelphia airport planes taking off and landing, in an area of almost impossible to bear decibel noise;

2) neither the team management nor the construction group responsible for the stadium has commented on the airport/airplane noise issue, nor has either of them joined the efforts of Delaware County Council legally to restrict the Philadelphia Airport’s growth plans which have resulted in the additional noise levels over Chester, PA; the noise levels being primarly the result of much lower flight paths in and out of the airport directly over chester, pa.

3) the stadium will be located in a crime-ridden area of chester pa which will result in danger to people attending the game, as well as to their cars; no one has stated what the security plans will be to deal with this. Special precautions such as those taken by the Liacouras Center both for the events and the parking will need to be taken by security in order to safeguard both persons attending and also automobiles parked for events, including gated and secured parking areas and constantly patrolling security guards. this will add substantially to the cost of the project.

4) the builders of the stadium promised to build a shopping center for chester, pa, which current currently has no (zero, none) grocery stores or supermarkets for food. this was a requirement of the grants and funding from the states and other sources of funding for the stadium. This issue has been quite publicized by local media, the builders have not even broken ground on the supermarket and now are seemingly trying to avoid building same.

5) the supermarket issue goes to the heart of the soccer stadium. it’s alleged this project will “revitalize chester,” yet the builders of the stadium won’t build the key component of the project, which is a supermarket where chester residents can buy their food. The supermarket was earmarked for development and construction by the various grants the builders received, but the builders used that money for the stadium alone instead. Local Chester politicians and activists are NOT happy about this situation.

6) these three additional issues are very relevant, and only scratch the surface of a project that is far from going right.

7) i want to point out, i strongly support soccer and the revitalization of chester, pa. but so far the signs are that we are not getting a grade A stadium, nor are we getting revitalization in chester.

8) this is no way to bring soccer to philly. this is a first class sports town. even the arena football team won the league championship. the town knows the difference between a fresh hoagie roll and one that’s a day old and a dollar short. they want quality!

9) i say, let the Philadelphia Union lease time and speace in the eagles’ stadium until the issues of the chester stadium are fully worked out completely and fully.

10) since i broke the story of “no j in latin” and debunked the slogan “jungite et perite” back in may of 2009, it’s significant that the Union has completely dropped the latin slogan from its team logo on facebook, http://www.facebook.com/philadelphiaunion, and on

11) to settle the issue of whether there is a “j” in latin, i suggest that we have a soccer match, 11 on 11, of 22 of the finest latin professors in the world, at halftime of the first or second Union game. the match will be between the “J” team and the “IU” team–the winner gets to write the grammar rule and the slogan–

“Jungite et Perite” if the Js win–or

“Iungite et Perite” if the IUs win.

Of course, the losers get an IOU.

–art kyriazis
philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies