Coaches Descend on Lavietes

Harvard men’s basketball may not carry much weight in the sporting world, but its head coach certainly does. Coach Tommy Amaker held his third annual coaches clinic Sunday, welcoming to Lavietes Pavilion over 100 hoops coaches from across New England.

Clinic participants—each involved with basketball at the high school level and below—were privy to a typical Crimson practice as well as a lecture from former NBA player and coach Doug Collins, who currently works as a broadcaster for TNT.

The day began with Harvard players going through warm-ups and various offensive and defensive drills. After only a week of practice, the team remains a work in progress—a fact made clear by its coach’s repeated shouts of “no silly turnovers!”

Amaker periodically stopped and started the activities to explain his coaching philosophy and answer questions from the audience.

Culminating in a simulated game scenario, the session provided an early look at the Crimson’s roster.

Aggressively attacking the basket, co-captain Jeremy Lin showed everyone in attendance why he was named to the All-Ivy First Team last season. A tense moment came when an airborne Lin was knocked hard to the floor, but the star guard appeared no worse for wear.

The highly-touted freshmen did not disappoint either. Local prep star Kyle Casey displayed flashes of the athleticism that brought him national recognition as a recruit, and fellow rookie Brandyn Curry showed off a nice shooting touch.

Sophomore Keith Wright was strong inside the paint, a performance aided by the absence of a couple of big men—senior Pat Magnarelli and sophomore Andrew Van Nest—who appeared to be nursing minor injuries.

When the players were done, Collins took to the floor to speak about his long and impressive basketball journey.

“I can now say I lectured at Harvard,” he joked.

After representing the United States in the 1972 Olympics, Collins was the top overall pick in the 1973 NBA draft. His career was derailed by injury, but he went on to coach eight seasons in the NBA before moving into commentary. Just last month, he received an award from the Basketball Hall of Fame for his television broadcasting work, most recently at the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Drawing upon his vast knowledge of the game, Collins arranged players all over the court in answering audience members’ questions about defensive tactics.

The difficulty of reviving a losing basketball program was raised by one attendant during the question and answer session. Collins recognized the topic’s relevance to Harvard men’s basketball, pointing out a disparity in championship representation in the rafters of Lavietes.

“All I see up there is Harvard women [banners],” he said.

Past speakers at Amaker’s coaching clinic have included former Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy in 2008, and Doc Rivers, current coach of the Celtics, in 2007.

This year’s lecturer was brought to Cambridge through a long-standing bond with Amaker.

“I’ve known Tommy since he played at Duke, and then our friendship was even more cemented. He recruited my son Chris to play at Duke,” Collins said. “I think Tommy embodies all the wonderful things I think teachers and coaches should have.”

Despite efforts by the Harvard coaching staff to attract students to the clinic, there did not appear to be more than a couple of non-coaches in the audience.

However, the event was well-received by those who did attend.

“Tommy’s a great coach. He broke everything down,” said John Viera, an assistant coach at Platt High School. “If you were a stranger to basketball, if you never even knew the game, you would come out with ten times more than you already knew.”

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu.