The Jeremy Lin Story is About Hard Work and Perserverance

It's been an amazing couple of weeks for one Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. Everyone is talking about his Cinderella story, first asian point guard, comparisons to Tebow, etc... In my opinion, the most important angle and the most overlooked aspect of his story is the fact that the reason why Lin was passed over by so many teams even going back to high school is that he had to work his tail off to get to where he is now (A great read by the NY Times if you haven't read it yet). He was passed over by so many schools and teams simply because he wasn't good enough. I followed Lin going back to his Harvard days because as a person of Taiwanese heritage, he was someone that I could relate to. But, I knew he wouldn't get drafted out of college because at the time he was too weak, and his game was too one-dimensional.

The amazing part of Lin's story is therefore one of hard work and perseverance. When you knock on so many doors and are told you aren't good enough, a lot of guys would've taken the easy way out and just given up. Instead, Lin battled on, he got up earlier, worked harder, did everything he could to make himself better. Because when you're not blessed with the talent or athleticism like most of the other NBA players, you HAVE TO make it up with hard work, there's just no other way. Something that hopefully as coaches, the story of Lin can be one of inspiration that hard work does pay off.

Anyways, I hope to be blogging a little more again with the NCAA tournament ramping up, and due to my schedule easing up now that our team's season is over. We had a great season, capped off with a thrilling playoff run at regionals which saw us, a #14 seed, knock off the #3 seed, and come within 2 points of going to the ship. To those of you lucky ones who still get to practice and get ready for state, good luck to you all.

Pat Knight's Rant Was a Staged Publicity Stunt

Pat Knight is taking a lot of flack the last day or so after his post-game rant which publicly called out his players for their lack of effort, saying they were essentially stealing from the university through their full-ride scholarships.

My own opinion on the matter is that is that what I say to my players in the locker room, stays in the locker room. Our conversations are between our team. It's a matter of trust, that the locker room is sacred, that we can be honest with each other in the room and that in that setting I hold no punches.

Having said all that, I'm leaning towards calling the whole thing a big publicity stunt. The things he came up with were just a little too carefully planned to be something that he just thought of at the end of a bad loss. Knight has already said afterwards that he pre-warned the other coaches about what he was going to say that night, I would think that he probably also pre-warned, if not at the very least hinted, that he was going to say what was probably already said many times in private, publicly. His objective, to help motivate the seniors, and to get the team a little bit on the college basketball radar. I think it worked, at least for one night...

Watch it for yourself and let me know what you think...