To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt
My recruitment in 1969 came three years after the great social barrier-breaking event in college basketball: the 1966 National Championship game in which the underdog Texas Western squad and their all-black starting five beat the powerhouse University of Kentucky team, with head coach Adolph Rupp and their all-white starting five (including Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat). So by the time I was being courted by colleges to play basketball, all schools were recruiting players regardless of their color—even Kentucky offered me a scholarship.
All of us in the Brown family knew we were going to college. It seemed so normal at the time, though, to us that our parents, who did not attend college themselves, would have very firm expectations that we would attend college. They were committed to making sure that their children were educated to their fullest.
As colleges started showing interest in me, Coach Wootten took me aside. Having guided hundreds of players through the recruiting process and in securing college scholarships, he wanted to make certain that I clearly understood all the aspects of the process, which was another world altogether from anything normal. As the first to go to college in my family, his advice was necessary and greatly appreciated.
“When you visit a school,” he told me, “they’re going to show you the best of everything. They set you up, by design, in the perfect honeymoon situation. Therefore, you cannot commit when you are on campus. Leave the school and come home. If you still feel the same way after twenty-four hours, then commit.”
Coach wasn’t kidding. I was wined and dined with every visit. Nice accommodations, lobster (which I love), and other fancy meals, none of which were an issue back when I was eighteen and six-five and two hundred and ten pounds. I have to be a little more careful with the drawn butter these days.
During one of those visits, I decided to call Coach from Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina. I had just finished a great visit with Coach Dean Smith, and loved the school, the players I had met and everything I knew about their program. I also admired Coach Smith—not only for the success that he had and the way he treated his players—but how well all of his ex-players were doing in various professions. He also was exemplary for his approach to civil rights. Although it was still a tumultuous time for race relations in our country, Coach Smith had already done a great deal to further the rights for all races in North Carolina, using his particular platform as head basketball coach at a university as respected as was the University of North Carolina. I told Coach Wootten that I wasn’t going to commit on campus, but UNC was where I wanted to attend school. And I told him why. We agreed that I should tell Coach Smith that I was ninety-nine percent sure that I would attend, but needed to go home and speak with my family.
When I got home, I found out that a letter from Harvard University had arrived, and was sitting on Coach Wootten’s desk. For my mom, dad, and myself, once that letter had been placed in our hands, any dilemma for the Brown family concerning which college I would attend had effectively and decisively ended. I had admired Bill Bradley, the Princeton great, who was then playing for the Knicks. The impact he had on me, being an excellent student and athlete, was tremendous. Who knows—if the Princeton letter had come first, maybe I would have narrowed it down between UNC and Princeton. As it was, Harvard was immediately elevated to a position on a par with Carolina. But, I knew in my heart Harvard would be my choice. I felt that if I could qualify for admission and enjoyed athletic success, not only would I be fulfilling my parents’ dream of getting an excellent education, but maybe it would encourage other African-American athletes to do the same. Mom was very clear—even if it meant that they had to take on additional jobs, or second and third mortgages on the house, which it turns out they did, as my siblings went to school—they would do whatever it took for me to be able to attend Harvard.
Shortly thereafter, Harvard did what most schools do in wooing talent: roll out a high profile alumnus. Harvard had one that Carolina couldn’t match—Ted Kennedy. The senator contacted Coach Wootten and arranged for us to go to Capitol Hill to meet him. We visited with Senator Kennedy in his office, watched him cast a couple of votes in the Senate, and before the day was out, I promised him that I would visit Harvard before deciding.
Red Auerbach, the legendary Boston Celtics coach and front office executive, was a great friend of DeMatha High and Coach Wootten. Even he weighed in on my college choice. Well, kind of. He grinned at me and told me, “James, remember this: there is only one Harvard.” He didn’t tell me where to go, but he did leave it at that. I got the message. From my mom to respected politicians to basketball executives—everything was beginning to look Crimson. My family remembers Ted Kennedy coming by the house and the impression it made on them. But as impressive as the Senator was, the two alumni who had the most influence on me were Clifford Alexander and Barrett Linde. Cliff was the former Secretary of the Army in the Jimmy Carter Administration and Linde, a wealthy Washington, DC, builder, really connected with me.
It was still a tough decision because of how much I liked Chapel Hill, Coach Smith, and realizing that the University of North Carolina was an excellent school as well.
In the meantime, Coach Wootten called me into his office. “James, how many schools do you plan on enrolling at next year?” I looked at him, confusion on my face. “That is the fifth call I’ve gotten from a coach—North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan—who tells me that you’re ‘99 percent sure’ that you’re coming to his school.”
I grimaced.
“James, you’re going to learn, at some point in your life, to tell somebody no.”
Weeks later I was still wrestling with the decision. I lost track of who had contacted me and what I had said to whom because of the magnitude of the overall numbers, but my siblings have said that I was being recruited by upward of two hundred schools. Letters were coming in every day from all parts of the country, and I was still unable to decide.
Mom and Dad never pressured me, repeatedly saying the decision was mine. Mom and Dad just couldn’t get past Harvard, though. None of us could. Coach Auerbach was right—there is only one Harvard. And Mom was very concerned with what college offered the most for my future. She taught me over the years about the value of education. “What if you break your leg and can’t play basketball again? If you go to Harvard, you’ll always have a great education as your foundation.” She was often fond of saying that “whatever you put between your ears, no one can ever take away.”
In fact, Mom had a classic encounter with Coach Wootten one day during my tenth grade year. I was playing both junior varsity and varsity at the time, which I explained to Mom was quite an honor. “If it cuts into your homework time here at the kitchen table, it will be over,” she responded.
One fateful day, it did.
I didn’t return home from school when the streetlights came on, which had always been my appointed time to be home and seated at the kitchen table, doing homework. Mom called DeMatha, and reached an assistant basketball coach, who politely explained that Coach Wootten and I weren’t available, as practice had continued later than usual, and we were on the floor.
Mom clarified the point. “You’re telling me that I can’t speak with my son because practice is going on, and further that he’s not home doing homework because of that practice? Please let Coach Wootten know that I’m sorry that he’s unavailable, but that James won’t be a part of the basketball program at DeMatha any further because of the conflict between practice and him getting his studies in.”
After a moment’s pause, Coach Wootten came on the line. His assistant had re-examined the situation. “Mrs. Brown, I apologize. I agree with you—academics must always come first. James is on his way home, and this will not happen again.” To his credit, it was a rarity for this to have happened in the first place, and it did not happen again.
She also helped me to understand the distinction among the scholarships that were offered. Because what Harvard was offering me was need based, all I had to do was to maintain good grades, and I would stay on scholarship there. The criteria for continuing in school depended not on my continuing to play basketball, but on the quality of my grades. If, however, I accepted an athletic scholarship at another school, and sustained a career-ending injury while in school, what my mother and father highlighted was the possibility that the scholarship could be revoked. They were wise to focus on that possibility, regardless of how unlikely it might have seemed to me. I was also still intrigued by the chance to do what Bill Bradley had done (at Princeton), an accomplishment I admired. He had graduated from Princeton in 1965, after a career in which he had been selected as a three-time All-American and had led Princeton to a number three final national ranking following the 1965 NCAA Tournament. He was named the top amateur athlete in the United States in 1965 and it was readily apparent, from Bradley’s college career and NBA career which followed with the New York Knicks, that it was certainly possible for another player to be no less successful on the court coming out of an Ivy League school.
I wanted to be an inspiration. I suppose we all do in a way. In addition to every other reason my family had for me to attend Harvard—except for the possible exception of my brother Terence who thought it would be so cool to have a brother who was a Tarheel and therefore was still pulling for UNC and Dean Smith to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on the recruiting trail—I wanted to be a role model to others, especially those younger kids who had followed my high school career. As a young man growing up in a very modest area of DC, who certainly was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, I wanted to be a role model for kids from similar backgrounds by showing them that they, too, could rise above their circumstances. Given that it was still the late 1960s, and the country was still wrestling with the aftereffects of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s tragic death, and the continuing civil rights movement, as well as the ongoing struggle in Vietnam, I thought that maybe there might be kids who saw my going to Harvard as something they could do, too. That the ticket to success was not just in having athletic talent.
By no means am I a charter member of Mensa, and I didn’t perform particularly well on standardized tests. What I did, however, was work assiduously at my studies. Where it might take another student thirty minutes to grasp the material, it might take me a little longer. I wasn’t fazed, however, by that. I was willing to spend as much time as it took, and knew that I would eventually master whatever material was assigned. And when I ever had a momentary lapse in commitment, I just reflected on how hard my mom and dad were working to make this all possible for me.
After an agonizing and long period of introspection and analysis, the process finally resulted in my selection of Harvard. They offered me early admission, because of my grades and the situation I was in with my recruitment elsewhere, to allow me to effectively end the continuing recruitment process and put it all behind me. I accepted and said that I would attend.
That’s when the letter arrived that threw our house into chaos. Any thoughts of being a role model in Cambridge were put on hold when I held in my hands the envelope with “UCLA” written on its face in deep sky blue and sun gold.
“Mom, this is from UCLA. I have to go. I have to at least visit. Pauley Pavilion. John Wooden. It’s U-C-L-A.” I said it slowly, carefully enunciating each letter, as if she were having trouble with my spelling. “It’s the mecca of college basketball. They dominate college basketball—they’ve won two straight National Championships and four of the last five!”
My mother was unmoved. My father, too, was completely unmoved. They sat me down. “James, you have given your word to Harvard. Your word means more than anything, son. You shook hands and said that you were coming—you cannot change your mind now. You’re going to Harvard.” That was that.
I told UCLA that I was headed to Harvard, and went up to Cambridge to play for Bob Harrison. Coach Harrison was an NBA All-Star, and had played for the old Minneapolis Lakers, the Milwaukee Hawks, St. Louis Hawks, and Syracuse Nationals. He had come to Harvard a year earlier from Kenyon College, a program that he had turned around, and arrived with great expectations of doing for the basketball program at Harvard what had been done at Princeton and Columbia. My class came in with great expectations at Harvard, with the thought that we were going to put Harvard basketball on the same path to national prominence those other Ivy League schools had traveled. We were ranked the second-best incoming freshman class in 1969 (freshman couldn’t play varsity in those days), and a number eleven had our highest preseason ranking in school history the next year, when we were finally eligible to play. Instead, we were mediocre. My sophomore year, when we finished 11-3 in the Ivy League and had K.C. Jones, the Celtics great, as an assistant coach, was our best season. Coach Harrison was a wonderful person, knew the game well, and was a strict disciplinarian, but for whatever reason, athletic success didn’t work out for him, nor us, at Harvard. A number of people pointed the finger at him for our lack of success, but that was unfair. We had as much to do with the lack of success as he did. It was, after all, a team effort.
These were politically and socially challenging times—the Vietnam War, the happenings at Kent State and other campuses, the Black Panthers—and I’m of the impression that we didn’t handle that transition as well as we might have under different circumstances.
Basketball wasn’t a complete loss as a member of the Harvard Crimson. There were some good memories, mixed in among the general feelings of unfulfilled potential. My sophomore year I was surprised by a visit from our neighbors the Washingtons who drove from DC over to Annapolis to see us beat the Naval Academy. It was a special treat for a neighborhood family to show up. They were awfully kind to show up, time after time, whether in high school or college, to support me.
I remember two games from my junior year that stand out in particular. One was a game we played at Boston University a few miles away from our campus in Cambridge. BU had a couple of players who were also from the Washington, DC, area, so it had somewhat of a hometown rivalry feel for me. That was probably my best individual game, as I was in a zone all night, scoring thirty-six points in a 104–77 win for the Crimson. At that time, I was not a great, consistent outside scorer, but I was shooting and scoring from all over the court. It was one of those nights when it seemed that I could take three or four steps across midcourt and shoot—and it would go in. I say “one of those nights,” but come to think of it, that was probably the only night of my life like that! Long arching jumpers from all over, and nothing but the bottom of the net. And those thirty-six points came at a time when college basketball didn’t have the current three-point line, either.
Of course, with the outfit I chose to wear for the trip to Boston University that day, I had no choice but to play well. We went over to BU’s gymnasium and walked around campus for a while. You couldn’t miss me. The movie Super Fly had just been released that year, and I showed up on BU’s campus wearing a white leather full-length coat as if I had stepped right out of the movie. However, to make the coat truly classy, I had selected one with gray faux fur around the hem and the collar. It looked like something Clyde Frazier, the New York Knicks point guard would wear, only he’d have real fur, of course. And, naturally, a hat to match. Did I mention the red, zip-up boots, and gray bell-bottom pants? If you’re going to do it, do it up right, from head to toe. It really made a statement. I’m not sure what the statement was that I was trying to make. And I shuddered later wondering just what that statement was that I was making to the Harvard alumni who traveled across the river to see the game.
It was certainly a different take on the fur coats usually being worn at Harvard games.
The other notable game from my junior year was the one when Oral Roberts came to play at our home court, which was located on the fourth floor of the Indoor Athletic Building (the IAB, we called it, out of sheer Harvard creativity). A capacity crowd of 1,600 was in attendance, and we played a game for the ages. Unfortunately, it ended up with a 100–99 Oral Roberts victory.
My Harvard experience was outstanding and memorable; our lack of success on the court was my only regret—it still pains me to think of our struggles, after the promise with which we entered. We entered with a couple of high school All-Americans and several All-State players, but we could never put it together to turn the program around. I wish I had displayed the same work ethic that I applied both before and after college. Later, after I moved into broadcasting, I had the opportunity to speak with Hubie Brown and Chuck Daly, who were coaches at Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, during the time I attended Harvard. Each of them later went on to great success as coaches at the NBA level. They told me how they would get their teams ready to play us, telling their players that we were a team full of radicals. They exhorted their players not only to win for Duke or Penn, but for the entire establishment of the United States and all that it stood for, as we—Harvard—stood on the side of chaos and anarchy. Whatever works, I suppose. I asked Coach Brown and Coach Daly if they realized they were talking about Harvard (sure, it was a chaotic time) but it was Harvard. The administration at Harvard was hardly going to let anarchy reign. Hubie and Chuck both smiled and shrugged, indicating agreement, but a shrug that also said they would say and do whatever it took to motivate their teams to beat us, which they did.
My time at Harvard was significant for another reason, though. A reason that would continue from then to now to impact my journey toward the person God wanted me to be. At the time, in addition to fielding all of the challenges of adjusting to college sports and struggling with the off-court challenges on campus which continually seemed to infiltrate from those affecting our society, I was searching spiritually as well. We were good, solid kids, great neighbors, in a good household. My parents’ example of how they lived their lives was my yardstick—and as I found out through the years that would follow my childhood—was a good example to emulate. But I found myself inwardly searching for meaning to my life when I was off at college. It was at once an uncomfortable feeling, yet one I knew was causing me to head in a better direction. I remember in Cambridge being drawn to a particular church near campus. I was attracted to the building, I think, more than whatever was going on inside. I felt a lure, and would attend occasionally, but like a map without a legend, I never fully grasped and applied what was being conveyed. I felt a pull and tug on my soul, but I didn’t really respond. But the tug continued. Francis Thompson wrote a poem, later edited into a song by Michael Card, called “Hound of Heaven,” portraying God as always following us, always after our hearts, always wanting to have a personal relationship with us. He was doing that with me at Harvard. But I was still running—searching, I thought. I had not fully surrendered in every aspect, or in every area of my life. But I was heading in the right direction, and even though I wasn’t sure what was happening—I felt comfort in where I was going.
I had arrived at Harvard with so many accolades and didn’t have the really strong figure that Coach Wootten had been to harness me and my complacency, and I think I succumbed to all the adulation that came from being an athlete on campus. Even though I had felt I wanted to be a role model to the kids in the neighborhood, I never fully understood that the position I had been given as a college athlete was a platform to influence everyone around me—not just those neighborhood kids—for good or otherwise. I hadn’t yet come to a full realization of what it meant to follow Christ and put others first, so I wandered spiritually without a clear direction for an uncomfortably long period. I hadn’t yet realized that the platform I had been given was from Him, to use for His purposes, to influence and positively impact others.
Between the times of unrest on campuses and the struggles we all had trying to find athletic success, we simply never fulfilled our full potential as a team. I realized again the burden of potential and the reality of its being as much of a curse as a blessing. At the end of the day, however, the ultimate responsibility lay with me. I knew from high school what it took to be successful. Players are made in the off-season, but when guys from other schools were working all summer getting better, we weren’t. We had plenty of excuses available, including those who wanted to argue that the academic course load made it impossible to enjoy sustained basketball excellence at Harvard, but I disagree. We were the problem. Even with all of this I was still hopeful for a career in professional basketball.
A good memory from those times was getting to see my family. My brother, John, attended Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. The way my sister tells it, Mom told Alicia that she could go to any school she wanted to—as long as it was in Massachusetts. She chose Emerson College in Boston, which meant that by my senior year, three of us were in school in Massachusetts. What was important to my Mom was that my brother and I could watch over our younger sister. For my youngest brother, Everett, however, who was still at home, this meant a significant number of eight-hour drives with Mom and Dad from DC to Boston to visit us and to see our basketball games. Although he enjoyed being in the locker room and going to the games, Everett said that he had had enough of Boston by the time the three of us finished our Massachusetts educations. I’m not sure it was really anything about Boston as much as the numerous long trips—which he wouldn’t miss—that led to Everett’s feelings about the area. (Terence, who also was still at home with Mom and Dad and Everett, was so involved in high school athletics and other activities that he often wasn’t able to come.) I have always enjoyed having my family nearby, even if it took two of them attending schools near mine, and numerous trips for the others to make it happen. I always felt a bit incomplete when they weren’t nearby, but that’s the way I have always felt about family and still do to this day.
It made being so far from home much more tolerable. As it was, those four years marked the only time I would live outside of the DC area.
But those times in Cambridge were also times of transition for me. Times of both failing to live up to expectations and learning again why that happened and how not to let that happen again, and they were times of the beginnings of a deeper search for the person God had created me to be. Significant times for many reasons.
And at the end of it all, one other memorable moment occurred. I got my degree—from Harvard University. My parents would have settled for nothing less.