Jeremy Lin: A Boston Fan’s Broadcast from the Bleachers

2/6/10 UPDATE: Vote for Jeremy for the Bob Cousy Award — he is one of 11 finalists and voting is allowed every 24 hours per email. Let’s show our support and vote each day between now and when the voting ends March 5!

I first heard about Jeremy Lin only recently when my friend Alvin Lin shared his article in Hyphen Magazine summarizing the media coverage on Jeremy’s increasing fame. Since I live in the Boston area and was curious to see how good he really was, I invited friends and members of TAP Boston to go see the game against George Washington the day before New Year’s Eve. It was a gripping game complete with Jeremy getting a bloody nose from a blow to the face and coming back to steal and score a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer for the lead.

Needless to say, after this game and watching his other jaw-dropping plays on YouTube, I became an instant fan. I immediately set out to organize more people for the next home game on  January 9th against Dartmouth — the first of the Ivy conference games.

Armed with home-made signs to cheer on Jeremy, I showed up to the gym with 15 others ready for another great game. Seeing the players warming up on the court, I shouted Jeremy’s name to get his attention and flashed my big sign: “Jeremy Lin 4TW” — he smiled and laughed and returned to his warm up.

Satisfied with getting his attention, I headed to the bleachers without knowing I had unwittingly also caught the attention of news reporters, presumably covering this game due to the popularity of Monday’s game at Santa Clara. Before the game, we had a photographer and a TIME reporter approach us for names and quotes.

Then the game started. But the most exciting part of the rather uneventful 29-point win (aside from Jeremy’s dunk in the second half) was during half-time when we were suddenly bombarded with Taiwanese reporters from World Journal (世界日報), TVBS, and ETTV (東森) curious to know why we wanted to support Jeremy. With cameras and microphones in our faces, we explained how we were really happy to see a Taiwanese and Asian American have a chance at making it big in basketball and wanted to show our support.

After the game, some of us stayed to line up with the kiddies to get autographs from the Harvard team. We stood in line like giddy fans and when it was my turn to meet Jeremy, we started out our conversation like this:

Me: “Hi, I’m Karen…and my last name is also Lin!”
Jeremy: “That’s the best last name to have!”

After autographs, we waited for the line to die down before taking group photos with Jeremy. And unknown to me, I was even captured on video standing next to Jeremy for a China Times news broadcast.

Jeremy Lin gives autographs

It was fun to finally get to meet Jeremy and thanks to him, a bunch of Boston area young professionals had a great excuse to come together and meet each other while cheering him on. Now it’s your turn to check out his games when they are in your neighborhood between now and March 6th, 2010. This may be your last chance to see Jeremy in action, but let’s hope Harvard makes it into the NCAA tournament and that he makes it into the NBA!

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