The Silent Assassin: Harvey Lets Game Speak For Itself

t’s Friday night just off South Pulaski Road in 1997, and if it’s Friday night in mid-January that likely means that the gym at Brother Rice is full.

Friday nights are game nights and this is Chicago—where game nights at high schools mean something, where the local network affiliates and cable outlets (ABC, NBC, CBS, everybody) devote weekly half-hour chunks of air to prep legends and pro prospects, where driving home some nights you’re as likely to hear a high school basketball star make an appearance on sports radio as you are a Chicago Bull, even though Michael Jordan is still playing and looks like he could keep winning championships forever.

This is Chicago and high school ball rules the sports landscape, to the point where the names stay with you if you’re anything close to being a fan of anything. Recent memories of Antoine Walker and Donovan McNabb (yes, that McNabb) on fast breaks while Kevin Garnett flies downcourt to stop the play are still vivid in the minds of Second City hoops junkies, and new legends being born with new names every week, and the whole neighborhood and then some all come out to places like Brother Rice High School on Friday nights to witness each potential birth.

There’s one now—he’s Fenwick’s 6’6 junior prep All-American named Corey Maggette, and right now he and his teammates cling to a two-point lead against their conference rival. Those folks who felt that tonight’s game would have held much more promise had Brother Rice’s Quentin Richardson—another legend in diapers—not transferred out have found the game to be one of the best of the year anyway.

Maggette has been electric, dropping 26 despite constant double teams. But right now Maggette is away from the play as Rice, down two points, desperately searches for a score and the clock flashes past 00:13. The guy with the ball right now is one of nine mere mortals on the court not named Maggette, a quiet 5’10 white kid who hasn’t called for the ball much but has come off screens effectively and gotten open looks for much of the night. Right now, however, he gets the ball and creates for himself, driving down the lane and throwing up a layup that falls to tie the game, 68-68, with six seconds left, and the building explodes.

But the uproar soon hushes—Fenwick doesn’t even call for time and the All-American doesn’t even have to call for the ball. Maggette pushes the ball the length of the floor, a devastating blend of intensity and cool as the clock ticks on, and finally pulls up for a 10-foot jumper from the right baseline that sucks the life right out of a throng that could smell overtime. Fenwick wins, 70-68, and the media hordes descend upon Maggette. (Did we mention that this is Chicago?)

“It was an easy shot,” Maggette tells the Chicago Sun-Times. “Before the game, they were chanting my name—that pumped me up a little. I was ready to play.”

Maggette will go on to say a lot more in newspapers and magazines and eventually commit to Duke. And then he’ll say a few more words Blue Devils fans don’t want to hear when he abandons Mike Krzyzewski for the NBA after one year and a loss in the 1999 NCAA Championship game. And then he’ll eventually grumble to the press when he finds trouble getting consistent playing time under Alvin Gentry as a Los Angeles Clipper in a longjam of wingmen that also includes Quentin Richardson.

But what about that quiet guy? He walks off the court, disappointed about the loss, not saying much like always. What happens to him?

The Quiet Guy

“It’s fun now,” Patrick Harvey says. “Looking at the college game and even the pro games and seeing names you played against.” Harvey shrugs and grins politely, waiting for the next question. He still doesn’t say much.

But Harvey, now a senior guard and the leading scorer for the Harvard Crimson, has seen his overall vocal presence evolve since his days on the Chicago hardwood. It had to. Harvey was a coach’s dream at Brother Rice—non-flashy, unselfish, fundamentally sound—but in at least one respect made his coaches cringe.

“He was one of the quietest kids I’ve ever known,” Pat Richardson says. Richardson went through a lot of kids in over a decade coaching Brother Rice, but few as dazzling and as puzzling as Harvey, who captained the team his senior year.

“It seemed like he’d only talk on two occasions—when he was making some sarcastic remark or when he was mad at himself,” Richardson says. “Whatever he said must’ve been funny. His teammates thought he was hilarious. But he just didn’t talk—hardly called for the ball or anything. He led by example.”

Harvey’s example included setting single-game and school records for both three-pointers and steals, and making the All-Chicago Catholic League team twice. He had a complicated role with the Crusaders—spot shooter, occasional ball-handler and—on a team with no post players taller than 6’2 his senior year—sometimes had to mix it up in the paint as well.

But Harvey thrived, in part because things came easy for him. He was a solid infielder for Rice’s baseball team before dedicating himself to basketball, and distinguished himself on the golf course and in pool halls. (“He could have jumped on a horse and figured that out by the end of the day,” Richardson says.) His ability to adapt to situations within games was evident in even the most minute aspects of his play.

“He had a knack for the ball,” Richardson said. “He was one of those players who never had to dive for loose balls because he always knew where he had to be at any point to just pick them up.”

That kind of talent will forgive a lot annoying silences, but once Harvey got to Cambridge and Division I hoops, he knew that he would have to adapt in a broader way than just knowing where the ball was.

“I remember in high school, Coach would always get on me for not speaking up,” Harvey says. “He would get on me in practice, always try to get me going. It wasn’t until college that I realized how important it was—basically, being the young guy it was kind of like, ‘Alright, if coach wants me to talk, I’d better talk. I’ve got to fit in here somewhere.’”

Not all adaptations are that simple. Harvey had a solid freshman season on the court, gradually earning more playing time and scoring seven points in just five minutes to speak the Crimson’s upset of B.C.

But things weren’t as easy away from Lavietes Pavilion. Harvey found out that he had to take a year off from school, missing the entire 1999-2000 season. And so the demands to adapt kept rolling in—first to adapt to life at Harvard, and now to a life without the sport he had given everything to and the teammates who had become close friends.

“It was difficult being home,” Harvey says. “I would call [my teammates] up, but it was tough because it was the first time being away from basketball my whole life.”

So Harvey didn’t stay away from the game at all. He worked a full-time job at a law firm during his hiatus, but after coming home at 6 p.m. he would eat a quick dinner and retreat to his game. Sometimes it would be alone at Brother Rice, shooting around on the floor he used to own. Other times he would participate in leagues around Chicago. The play was competitive, as the teams were stacked with once-famous or never-famous ex-college players who couldn’t abandon the game.

One of them was Harvey’s brother, Ken, who had been a four-year letterman at Xavier (Ohio). Richardson describes Brother Rice players as being from “good, supportive families,” and Harvey’s support often came from the other side of a pass or a check. Ken was one of two older male Harvey boys who had played high school ball in Chicago, and Pat, four years younger and the youngest of six siblings, had grown up playing with him and watching him. Now he was doing it again.

“He definitely beat me up a lot growing up,” Harvey says. “But he was someone who... I went to all of his games, and he was pretty much my main support playing basketball.”

After a year of briefs by day and ball by night, Harvey returned to Cambridge. Damian Long ’00—who had led the league in three-pointers while Harvey was gone—had graduated, setting the stage for what some may have seen as an obvious role to fill for a guard who had shot at a 40 percent clip from beyond the arc as a freshman.

Harvey, for his part, was mainly glad to be back.

“I improved a lot over that year, which helps me now,” Harvey says. “I’m a little older and wiser.” He shrugs and grins. “Hopefully.”

The Reinvention of Pat Harvey

If “older” and “wiser” head the list of adjectives appropriate for Harvey upon his return, “unleashed” would be a third.

Harvey made an immediate impact at Lavietes Pavilion, stealing an inbounds pass and hitting two free throws in the final seconds of the Crimson’s first Ivy contest against Dartmouth. He established himself as one of the league’s most potent threats—deadly from three-point range, a stickler on defense (second in the Ivies in steals) and with the fundamentals needed to stay on the court.

The Harvey of Chicago and Friday nights past was, in many ways, back.

“Pat Harvey is the best we’ve ever had at moving without the ball,” Richardson recalled. “And when he gets open and takes that shot, every shot looks exactly the same.” Now at Lavietes Pavilion, Harvey found and took that shot time and time again, banging in 56 on the season.

But there were changes, too. Is this not a story about adapting? Harvey found himself with more opportunities to create off the dribble than he’d had in his high school days and took advantage. Having banged in the paint on an undersized team before, he would drive fearlessly down the lane and throw up adventurous floaters, shots that fell with alarming frequency. He gave defenses trouble well-beyond his ability to hit the open shot—he went to the line more than anyone on the team other than all-timer Dan Clemente ’01. Quiet as he may still have been, his moves screamed the very badass hoops culture Harvey had been surrounded but not engulfed by in Chicago—both because of his unassuming personality and because Brother Rice was insulated from it.

Harvey says it was just a matter of different schemes.

“In high school there weren’t a lot of set plays—it was mostly a motion offense,” Harvey says. “Here, I think it’s more of a pro-style set and there are a lot of plays involved, a lot of isolation. I get to take people off the dribble more, that kind of stuff.”

But Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan sees a lot of a player he had while coaching at Bentley, Bill Holden. While several inches taller than Harvey, Holden rewrote the Falcons’ record book in the late 80s with a flourish similar to Harvey’s—similar set of skills, similar flourish on the dribble, similar defensive intensity. And since Holden works with Harvey and the other Crimson guards as a Harvard assistant coach, maybe the similarities aren’t coincidental.

“Coach Holden has done a fabulous job in practice of helping him find different ways to score beyond just catch-and-shoot, which is what he was at first,” Sullivan says. “Those funky ways he has of scoring—the floater and the one-handed shots—have really emerged since he’s come here.”

Holden largely dismisses his role in the evolution of Harvey’s game, deferring to Harvey’s own natural deceptiveness and ability to change speeds. But he and Sullivan definitely agree on one factor that aided Harvey’s development.

“Drew Gellert was someone who pushed Pat to be a better player,” Holden says. “They were both extremely gifted, and were very good friends, but were both very driven.”

Drew Gellert ’02, now an assistant coach at Stonehill College, was one of the great perimeter defenders in Harvard hoops history, a well-rounded gamer who could threaten for a poor man’s quadruple-double (something like seven points, seven steals, seven rebounds and seven assists) every night. Aside from routinely confounding opposing Ivy League point guards, he and Harvey would go at it one-on-one in practice constantly, the type of individual cover that forces creativity and improvement.

And, in a way, it was an individual matchup that made sense for Harvey, since Gellert was almost as quiet and workmanlike about basketball and life as he was. The one-on-one basketball culture in Chicago can be more about ego than improvement, but for Harvey, a quiet competitor like Gellert was the perfect opponent. The two would go at it relentlessly in workouts—one-on-one, mano-a-man-of-few-words—in quiet, epic battles, each trying to keep the other scoreless.

“He used to have fantastic one-on-one competitions with Drew in practice,” Sullivan remembers. “Of course they were the best of friends, but in practice they would take turns trying to stop each other and it was just extremely intense.”

“His style of play, you have to bring your game,” Harvey says. “It’s definitely fun playing against him.” And he smiles a bit.

Making Noise

Harvey still doesn’t talk much, but his game says a lot. A First Team all-Ivy selection last year, Harvey has carried the Crimson to some of the program’s greatest wins, including last year’s upset over NCAA-bound Penn. In that game, Harvey poured in 28 points—including 15 straight for Harvard in the second half—and, as he had done all season, stymied junk defenses deliberately designed to stop him.

“It’s always incredible,” Sullivan says. “He’s able to generate shots. He’s just so hard to guard. He commands special attention, no doubt.”

“Very few basketball players simply amaze me, but Pat is one of those guys,” senior point guard Elliot Prasse-Freeman gushes. “We have a joke that Pat can hit a layup from anywhere on the court.”

And Harvey has adapted in other ways. He’s louder now—if only a little bit. Richardson recalls seeing a tape of his star against Brown and being surprised at how vocal Harvey was on defense.

“He’s always had a terrific sense of humor,” Sullivan says. “And he’s always been his own worst critic—he just sets high standards for himself. But yeah, his verbal skills have come a long way.”

Harvey’s verbal skills might have to go just a bit further. After his final season, Harvey will have to adjust to the situation again, this time in the way that all seniors so—by finding something to do. What lies ahead?

“I’m running through ideas now,” Harvey says. “Maybe play overseas. Nothing’s set in stone. I’ll just see where it takes me.” And he shrugs.

At a banquet at the end of his senior year at Brother Rice, Pat Richardson told Harvey that “He’d have to talk” once he got to Harvard. Maybe he’ll have to get even more vocal if he plays in Europe, or maybe getting loud in practice doesn’t mean as much when the guys on the court with you don’t speak English.

Either way, you’d expect Harvey to adapt somehow.

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.