EN 101
Xuduo shao
Pro marianne.szlyk
23 February 2015

Behind the Linsanity
One day morning, I woke up late, and was brushing my teeth when my cellphone buzzed with a text message from my friend who was my college classmate and whose only common point we had was our craze for NBA games. Only four words in this text “google Jeremy Lin now”.
Like most sports fans, I have been caught up in Jeremy Lin or we should say “Linsanity” at that time. This word is used by his fans for his stunning breakout performance. For those who noticed him, Lin stood out from the Knicks’ bench to dominate several games, including a 38 points, 7 assists performance against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. By the leading of Lin’s performance, the Knicks are on a five-game winning streak headed into Tuesday night’s game.(Huang) However, people can easily watch his crazy performance in those special times, and then ignore to find the other reasons that why these things will happengfn.
So what makes Jeremy Lin unusual? A Harvard graduate? So many graduate from Harvard every year. An American of Taiwanese descent? There are also many Asian Americans working in America. Perseverance is the key point that makes his story different.
The beginning of Jeremy Lin’s NBA basketball career is full of rough stretches and obstacles; perhaps, people can say Jeremy Lin’s whole basketball experience is full of challenges. When he was a high school student, he had already showed his talent to his audience. However, Lin still cannot obtain even one scholarship offer from Division I collegiate basketball programs from any college, despite he was one of the best basketball players in California. Finally, he chose to go to Harvard, which is known for its academics, where he was guaranteed a start on the school basketball team. “I am not saying top 5 (basketball player in) state automatically gets you offers, but I do think (my ethnicity) did affect the way coaches recruited me,” Lin said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2008. “I think if I were a different race, I would've been treated differently.” (Meyer, 2012)
Like most people, Jeremy Lin also had lose and had complain. Nevertheless, what makes Jeremy Lin different from others is his perseverance. When most people face these tough situations, they would quit or give up their basketball dreams. Jeremy Lin chose insisting on his basketball road. According to Brendan Meyer’s article, Lin “started at Harvard, and finished his four-year career with an astonishing 1,483 points, 487 rebounds, 406 assists, and 225 steals.” Jeremy used his amazing performance and hard work to fight for his next step of basketball career.
Yet, even Lin was excelling at Harvard, he did not gain the attention of NBA scouts. He went undrafted in the NBA 2010 draft. However, he didn’t let setbacks stop himself from working hard and waiting for that opportunity. He excelled at every level through his hard work. He played summer league for Dallas and the preseason games for the Golden State Warriors, just for the opportunity to play in the NBA. Finally, he was signed by the Golden State Warriors as a free agent. However, Jeremy Lin only obtain a little time on the court, only have average 2.6 points per game during that season, and this performance cause his release this past December. Then, Lin was picked up by the Houston Rockets after several days, but was released again before the start of the season.
It was the toughest time in his life when he recalled this moment, and he really doubted his choice about playing basketball as his career was right or not because he faced a large amount of pressure from his community especially