For Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, class is always in session
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — When George Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis policeman, Harvard basketball coach Tommy Amaker knew it was time to get to work.
Or, more precisely, back to work.
He lined up guest speakers, many of them Black leaders and veterans of the civil rights movement. A program to place minority interns in college athletic departments was launched. Harvard coaches made sure every player on the team had registered to vote.
None of it was new for Amaker, nor was it a surprise to those who have watched him invigorate the Harvard basketball program even as he made it a model for others only now awakening to social justice causes.
“In Tom’s case, he’s been doing it for years. And it’s been authentic,” said Kentucky coach John Calipari, who partnered with Amaker on the internship program named for John McLendon, one of basketball’s first Black coaches. “You know, it’s not for optics. He’s not doing it now because this all hit. He was doing it for these kids because he knew it would make a difference.”
Floyd’s death this spring sparked an unprecedented outpouring of anger over police violence against Black men and women — a concern that soon spilled into sports.
NBA players walked off the court, refusing to play without the promise of change. The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream took a stand against its own owner, U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, when she belittled the Black Lives Matter movement. Even the long-dismissive NFL painted slogans such as “End Racism” in its end zones (while players such as Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reed remain out of the league).
But in college basketball, where most of the players are Black — and all of them are supposed to be there to study — programs have been presented with the...