Harvard University

Meet Jerry Green. The Professor of Hoops. If you have been to Lavietes Pavilion anytime in the past decade, you have probably seen him studying the action. Jerry and his wife, Pam, have been in the stands for all four of the men's basketball team's NCAA Tournament appearances in the Tommy Amaker era, many men’s and women’s Ivy League Tournament games, and countless regular season games. They even postponed a vacation to attend Harvard’s one-game playoff against Princeton in 2011.

Jerry has always been a fan of basketball. Growing up in New York City, basketball was a constant in his life. “Basketball was the sport in our neighborhood. We had eight courts and would play every day as long as there wasn’t snow on the ground. So I always loved the game.” Green was a pretty good player by his own account, but academics were his calling, which is how he came to Harvard. 

After receiving a PhD in Economics from the University of Rochester in 1970, Green took a job as an assistant professor at Harvard, and 52 years later he is still teaching as the John Leverett Professor in the University and David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy. Green also chaired the Economics Department from 1984-87, and was Provost of the University from 1992-94. 

Green’s first venture into the world of Harvard Athletics didn’t have anything to do with basketball. He was initially appointed the Faculty Fellow of the men’s golf team and was subsequently asked to join the Faculty Standing Committee on Athletic Sports. At the time he wasn’t what he would call “an athletics insider,” but he had gone to a few football games and developed friendships with former Directors of Harvard Athletics Bill Cleary and Jack Reardon. In fact, to this point, Green hadn’t yet attended a single Harvard Basketball game.

Green was eventually asked to chair the Faculty Standing Committee in 2007. His appointment, as he says, “wasn’t because of any great skill in athletics, but I like the people. It’s definitely a people business, and I like the people.” It was this focus on the people of Harvard Athletics that led him to become such a Harvard Basketball fan. 

Tommy Amaker took over as head coach of men’s basketball that same year, and he reached out to Green to set up a meeting. This was before Amaker had coached a single game for Harvard, and before the Faculty Standing Committee had a single meeting with Green as its chair. Green said, “I thought it would just be a simple meeting, but we ended up talking for two or three hours. We just hit it off. I really liked him, and I thought, ‘Wow, if this is who they recruited to coach the basketball team, I want to be a part of this.'" He went home that day, told his wife, and they became season ticket holders shortly thereafter.

His relationship with Coach Amaker has only grown since that meeting. “One thing I really like about Tommy is the off-the-court experiences he gives," Green said. "He’s a great coach, but he also makes sure that when they travel it’s not tourism. He turns it into a real educational experience, and I don’t think there are too many coaches who do that. I lived through a lot of these historical events, but if you’re 19-20 years old, it’s ancient history. Tommy has a way of bringing it alive for them and saying, ‘This is our history.’ I think that’s wonderful and I wish there were more people like that.”

At the time of his appointment to chair the Faculty Standing Committee, Green had not met Kathy Delaney-Smith in person, but, he said, “I felt like I knew her even though I didn’t.” Delaney-Smith had coached one of Green’s students in AAU, and he had heard people consistently singing her praises. 

Over the years, as he went to women’s basketball games and as chair of the Faculty Standing Committee, Green got to know Delaney-Smith quite well. The two chat regularly after games and at Athletics Department functions. He has also had the unique opportunity to sit on the bench as an honorary coach for multiple women’s basketball games. Green said of his experience on the bench, “I always feel, not having played at that level myself, that the coach has some magic, but actually it’s always very basic. When it comes from Kathy though, it’s very meaningful. You hear what she says to inspire them. It’s emotional. It’s not like it’s some profound remark, but it really gets to you. If you’re a player and you hear that from Kathy, it will make you play better.”

The aspect of Delaney-Smith’s leadership that Green admires the most is her ability to always continue teaching. “She knows how to handle players at the personal level. She is constantly teaching, that’s what I like about Kathy the most. If something happens in the game, she’ll turn around to the bench and tell them what should’ve happened and what they should do when they go in. She’s not just concerned about what happens on the court, she’s educating the players who are sitting on the bench, and may or may not get in the game. It’s a unique style, not everybody does that.” Coming from an educator as universally lauded as Green, that’s high praise.

While Green has witnessed many memorable Harvard Basketball moments over the years, there is one moment that happened off the court that he feels exemplifies what it means to be a Harvard student-athlete. In 2015, after Green celebrated in Bertucci's, and after Harvard beat Yale in a one-game playoff, he joined the team for the NCAA Tournament game against the University of North Carolina. The Crimson lost to the Tar Heels by just two points, and Green was invited to watch the post-game press conference. 

A member of the press asked Siyani Chambers ’16 who he’d like to thank as Harvard’s season came to an end, and Siyani singled out the player behind him in the depth chart, Alex Nesbitt ’15. Chambers said that he had learned so much from Nesbitt, both in practices over the years and through their friendship. Green recalled this moment as particularly impactful, saying, “He didn’t thank another star on the team. He thanked the player in his position, who he got to practice with. I thought it was so nice, and that’s what being on a Harvard team means to me. These are lifelong friendships, and it’s not the question of who’s the best player, it’s a question of who makes a difference in someone’s life. That’s maybe my single fondest off-the-court memory.”

While he is a life-long basketball fan, Green looks at Harvard Basketball as much more than just on-the-court action. As an educator himself, he admires both Delaney-Smith and Amaker for their abilities to use basketball as a vehicle for continued education and growth. Green is a huge fan of the teams themselves, as exemplified by his outburst in Bertucci’s or his multiple appearances as honorary coach for women’s basketball, but the marriage of education and athletics at Harvard is what his fandom is all about. 

Green summed his fandom and philosophy up when he said, “I love the game of basketball, and I’ve been at Harvard for a long time and love Harvard too, so it’s a perfect match. My people, my friends, students, coaches who I relate to, playing the game that I love. It’s just a good combination of things for me.”