Was Jeremy Lin’s storied basketball career almost slam-dunked — because of his race?
Here’s something you may not know about Lin, the new Knick powerhouse and humble human who burns up the court while giving recession-battered New Yorkers, devout Christians, single women (guys, too) and wonky nerds something to shout about:
He’s short.
The point guard stands four inches below the average NBA player, and is fully 15 inches shorter than retired Chinese basketball mountain Yao Ming. Still, at 6-foot-3 in stocking feet, with 5-foot-6 parents, there’s no telling where he came from.
Another thing: Lin, 23, is smart.
The guy who graduated from Harvard with an economics degree maintained a 4.2 grade-point average in his California high school. I didn’t know that was possible. He and Stanford alum and Knick teammate Landry Fields perform a pregame handshake that appears cooked up at a Mensa meeting. It ends with the pair scooping their hands over their eyes, as if squinting like geeks through coke-bottle glasses.
Still, are all these things that sound like bonuses in the real world — Lin’s breeding, stature, his soaring SAT scores — simply code words for his race?
One has to wonder why, until two weeks ago, Lin was completely, astonishingly, overlooked. Did reverse racism play a role?
The Knicks snapped their seven-game Linning streak (sorry) Friday, losing 89-85 to the New Orleans Hornets. But the team rebounded yesterday, crushing the champion Dallas Mavericks, 104-97.
Linsanity — loosely defined as a fugue state in which sensible adults find themselves in the midst of bouts of giddy dancing as they lunge for the remote — almost never happened. For Lin was a bench-warmer who’d been cut from two teams in a year. Then, like a phoenix from the ashes, he emerged from nowhere. A superstar was born.
US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who also played hoops for Harvard, thinks Lin was never given a chance to shine. Asians are seen as bookworms — considered by coaches, execs and even fans as smart, vertically challenged and physically uncoordinated.
“This is classic low expectations and, frankly, stereotyping,” Duncan told USA Today. “He was underappreciated and underrecognized. The fact that he was Asian-American — those two things are absolutely linked.”
Knick super fan Spike Lee agreed. He told a California TV station, “It’s harder to slip through the cracks now, with the tape, with 900 channels.
“No one saw this, so how could someone with his talent just be there and no one saw it?”
But if No. 17 has proven one thing, it’s that talent, brains and perseverance can win, even in the unforgiving world of pro sports.
I have a confession to make.
I’ve caught a wicked case of Linphomania.
How refreshing to see a sports star make a splash not on the police blotter, but on the features page (formerly the ladies’ page). In an age in which celebrity excesses are not just tolerated, but celebrated, what a trip to see a guy who spent a recent night out in Manhattan not with a battalion of babes, but with his parents, nursing a single Bud Lite.
What’s more, Lin love sprang up organically, not as hype manufactured in an agent’s office. Lincredible!
I won’t do that again.
Fans are jazzed by a feeling I can only describe as mass euphoria, as Lin energizes his team, this city. The entire planet.
“The guy mixes his iron will, determination, brains, strength, courage and talent with a splash of smile,” gushed Tish Ferguson, 53.
“ ‘Jersey Shore’ is filmed eight miles from my house, so there’s certainly competition for minds of all kids. I’m hoping my son and daughter will always be inspired by role models of Jeremy’s caliber.”
Zachary Kilroy of Manhattan, 26, is equally smitten.
“He’s not a good guy — a great guy. Great for the game, great for the world. He’s modest, smart and plays honestly and with all his heart.”
Said Laura Osenni, “At least he’s smart enough to handle the money he’ll be making.”
I hope success doesn’t destroy Jeremy Lin, a true American original. Of course, Lin is leaving his brother’s downtown couch and renting a place in sleepy White Plains.
This guy can’t get into trouble if he tries.
Outrage at ‘con’ job by teacher
Queens fifth-grade teacher Melissa Dean has a fetish for a felon once charged with kiddie porn. So the love-sick educator put her 10-year-old students in danger — requiring kids to send handmade Christmas cards to her jailbird boyfriend, John Coccarelli. Some contained the students’ home addresses!
Thankfully, upstate prison officials kept the cards out of the monster’s paws.
Dean’s odious beau is currently doing time for possessing a loaded pistol and violating an order of protection against his ex-wife. When he was arrested, cops found dozens of sexually explicit images of young kids on his laptop. But Coccarelli took a plea deal, and porn charges were dropped.
One has to wonder how sickos like Dean slip through taxpayer-funded cracks. Time to clean house.
Mayor rolls over for prize pooches
His poop don’t stink. Malachy, the prize Pekingese who won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club dog extravaganza, will not be the last pooch to dine at Sardi’s.
After Malachy chowed down on chicken with rice at the fabled eatery, where champion canines have enjoyed kibble for 30 years, Nanny Bloomberg’s grouchy health minions declared that this would be the last four-legged feast served at a people restaurant. Wait!
Turning tail, Mayor Bloomberg decided against punishing elite pets who claw their way into New York’s 1 percent. The Health Department will waive the rules so champion hounds can dine doggy style. Your mutt doesn’t count.
So, will Matilda the Cat once again be allowed to roam The Algonquin hotel? Fair is fair.
Amen to that, judge
Miracles happen. Dozens of churches that held after-hours prayer services in city schools, some for 20 years, were unceremoniously dumped from school property last weekend. But in a rare fit of sanity, a Manhattan federal judge on Thursday granted a religious reprieve.
Judge Loretta Preska issued a temporary restraining order, permitting services to be held at schools for another 10 days, as the legal fight with the city rages.
We have a school system that mandates the teaching of anal and oral sex but forbids weekends with God. Hopefully, the madness is close to an end.
‘Clean’ when it wasn’t cool
Gary Carter was ahead of the curve. In the ’80s, as peers of the Hall of Fame catcher played hard off the field, Carter prayed hard. The squeaky-clean Carter, who helped propel the Mets to a 1986 World Series victory, was dubbed “The Kid’’ by teammates. But in the pre-Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow era, it wasn’t always a compliment. Yet he earned their respect.
Carter died Thursday of brain cancer at age 57. He was a great player. And a good man.