Harvard Grad Gets a Shot in NBA

Jeremy Lin has landed his dream job, but it wasn’t easy. “Trying to make the NBA is one of the very few areas where a Harvard degree won’t necessarily help,” he tells the Washington Post. The 6-foot-3 guard signed with his hometown Golden State Warriors as an undrafted free agent last week, making him the first Harvard grad to make the NBA since the 1953-'54 season, and the first Asian American since 1947.

In summer league, “that was my name, they just called me ‘Harvard,’” he says. “Anytime I messed up it was, ‘Aw, I thought you went to Harvard.” The Warriors see his background as a marketing plus, and are already planning a campaign around him. But Lin says he’s not interested in the labels. “Me being a basketball player, me being Christian, is more important to me than just being simply Asian American,” he says. (More Jeremy Lin stories.)