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      Fairleigh Dickinson Hopes to Be the Next March Madness Fairy Tale

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      It was quiet at the Fairleigh Dickinson University campus in New Jersey the day after its basketball team pulled off a stunning upset in the men’s N.C.A.A. tournament. But it’s often quiet there.TEANECK, N.J. — The jokes of “F.D.— who?” go back more than 30 years, to the last time Fairleigh Dickinson University played Purdue in the N.C.A.A. men’s tournament.Purdue fans held up signs with the slogan when the two teams faced off in 1988.Purdue won.F.D.U. faded back into obscurity.So, for alumni of the New Jersey commuter school who remember the old jab, F.D.U.’s shocking victory against No. 1 Purdue on Friday was especially sweet.On Friday evening, Marc A. Wolfe, who worked for the student newspaper in those days, reposted photos he took from the sidelines of the 1988 game, just before he watched his alma mater topple the Boilermakers, 63-58, in the first round of this year’s tournament.“I’m excited that F.D.U. has done what was not only unexpected, but now people will know more about what’s possible,” Mr. Wolfe said.F.D.U.’s basketball team has the shortest average height in Division I, while Purdue’s roster includes Zach Edey, who is 7 feet 4 inches. F.D.U.’s interim president, Michael J. Avaltroni, said that the David-and-Goliath win lined up with the legacy of the small university.“We have always really been about giving students a chance,” Mr. Alvatroni said, “oftentimes when they didn’t even know whether college was a good fit for them. And kind of transforming them along the way and giving them the opportunity to, in some cases, perform these very miraculous feats.”Anete Adul, who plays for F.D.U.’s golf team, watched the basketball game from the airport on the way back from playing in Florida this week. Andres Kudacki for The New York TimesThe university, which also has campuses in England and Canada, bills itself as a global institution. A few hundred international students are also enrolled at the two New Jersey campuses.But a vast majority of students there are in-state students and attend part time. The university’s Metropolitan Campus sits on the border of Teaneck and Hackensack, middle-class towns across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Seventy percent of the students at Metropolitan Campus commute, Mr. Avaltroni said. The other campus is in Madison, a small suburb further west.Metropolitan Campus’s utilitarian brick buildings include the Rothman Center, a building with a tent-like roof that is home to the school’s men’s basketball team, the Knights. But the morning after the big game, the revelry was muted, with students away on spring break and the campus nearly deserted.A thin banner spanned Teaneck’s main street, Cedar Lane. “Congratulations F.D.U. Men’s Basketball Team. Welcome to the N.C.A.A. March Madness Tournament,” it read.Mia Andrews, an F.D.U. student and a basketball player, celebrated her university’s win on Friday, even though the women’s team season had ended.Andres Kudacki for The New York TimesStudent athletes who stuck around for practices over spring break watched the game together on campus on Friday. Liam Deep, who runs track for F.D.U., watched alongside softball players.Mr. Deep is from Toronto, but “I wasn’t from Toronto last night,” he said.Mr. Avaltroni, the interim president, said both the men’s and women’s basketball teams have done well this year. “There’s been an enthusiasm on campus that I have not seen,” he said, adding, “I’ve been at the university for 20 years.”The women’s team finished its season as regular-season champions, but lost in the first round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament on Friday night to Columbia University. Mia Andrews, a guard on the women’s team, said her team “had mixed emotions because obviously, we had just finished our season.”But after the players found out that the men’s team had won, they broke into chants in the locker room. “It was a fun moment,” she said.Anete Adul was making her way back to Teaneck from Florida with the university’s golf team during the game. “We were in Orlando in the airport, and everyone was watching it, and it was so cool,” she said.Locals hope it could be another good basketball year for New Jersey. Last year, the state became the focal point of March Madness when another obscure institution, St. Peter’s University in Jersey City, made it all the way to the eighth round as a No. 15 seed.Watch parties for F.D.U.’s next game are planned for the Rothman Center as well as Hackensack Brewing Company, a craft brewery near Metropolitan Campus. This week, Princeton University also scored an upset when the Tigers, a No. 15 seed, beat No. 2 Arizona, 59-55. When Mr. Wolfe was a student, after F.D.U. won the N.E.C. championship and made it to the N.C.A.A. tournament, “we got on a bus, us and a bunch of other students and fans, and drove 15 hours to Indiana,” he said. (The game was held on the University of Notre Dame campus.)Mr. Wolfe lived on campus. He said it led to opportunities like working at the student newspaper and cemented his bond to the school.“I figured if you commute to a school, it’s not the same as if you live there,” he said. This year, the F.D.U. fans who had traveled to see the team’s first-round game — which was played at a stadium in Columbus, Ohio — were drowned out by the crowd that had turned out for Purdue. But Purdue’s team was gracious after the loss.Matt Painter, Purdue’s coach, put it simply: “They were fabulous.” More

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      Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown Talks Free Agency, Activism and Kanye West

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      HOUSTON — Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown was around 7 years old when he asked his grandmother Dianne Varnado for a new Xbox. Varnado, a longtime public-school teacher and social worker, made him write a paper about it.“‘If you want something, you’ve got to be able to explain why,’” Brown, 26, recalled her telling him.His wants are different now: to win an N.B.A. championship; for players to share in more of the league’s profits; to see an end to anti-Black racism in policing and school funding.Brown has used his celebrity platform to explain why he is passionate about issues like income inequality. Derek Van Rheenen, one of Brown’s former professors at the University of California, Berkeley, described him as “intellectually curious” and “politically invested, socially conscious.”But Brown’s growing profile has meant more pressure to explain himself: for working with the rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, after he made antisemitic comments, and for a misstep while supporting Kyrie Irving, who faced backlash after promoting an antisemitic film when he played for the Nets.While basketball has been Brown’s primary focus, it has never been the only one. Brown said his family is full of educators, who laid the foundation for his activist focus on education inequality. Varnado, whom he said recently died “peacefully,” also helped him develop his voice by teaching him to argue for what matters to him. (He got the Xbox.)Brown is averaging career highs in points per game (26.8), rebounds per game (6.9) and shooting percentage (49 percent). This is his seventh season.Mitchell Leff/Getty ImagesBrown sat down with The New York Times at a Four Seasons hotel in Houston on Sunday to talk about his career and his life, including the controversies. He had just come off a flight from Atlanta, where the Celtics had won the night before. Brown has firmly established himself as one of the elite guards in the N.B.A. on one of the top teams, averaging career highs in scoring and rebounding in his best season yet.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.Work and Life in BostonHow important is making an All-N.B.A. team to you?You want me to answer honestly?I don’t want you to lie to me.I think it would be deserving. We’ve been pretty dominant all season long.Whether I’m in an All-Star Game, All-N.B.A., or whoever comes up with those decisions, is out of my control. I think I’m one of the best basketball players in the world. And I continue to go out and prove it, especially when it matters the most in the playoffs.You and Jayson Tatum have pretty much played your entire careers together at this point. How would you describe your relationship today?I would say the same as it’s always been. You know, two guys who work really hard, who care about winning. We come out and we are extremely competitive. People still probably don’t think it’ll work out.But, for the most part, it’s been rarefied air.The Celtics drafted Jayson Tatum, left, one year after they drafted Brown. Together, they led Boston to the N.B.A. finals last season but lost to Golden State.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesCeltics center Al Horford recalled that the speed of the N.B.A. game was “really, really fast” for Brown during his rookie season in 2016-17. But now, “he just completely understands the things that he needs to do on the floor,” Horford said.Brown made his second All-Star team this season, and his career-best 26.8 points a game places him among the top guards in scoring. He could be a free agent after next season, but he said he isn’t thinking about that yet. “I’ve been able to make a lot of connections in the city, meet a lot of amazing families who have dedicated their lives to issues about change,” he said.Brown, who is Black, has spoken publicly about racism in Boston, where about half the population is white and about a quarter is Black. In 2015, a jolting study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that the Black households in the Boston area had a median wealth of close to zero, while the figure for white households was $247,500. “The wealth disparity in Boston is ridiculous,” Brown said.What has your experience been like as a Black professional athlete in Boston?There’s multiple experiences: as an athlete, as a basketball player, as a regular civilian, as somebody who’s trying to start a business, as someone who’s trying to do things in the community.There’s not a lot of room for people of color, Black entrepreneurs, to come in and start a business.I think that my experience there has been not as fluid as I thought it would be.What do you mean by that?Even being an athlete, you would think that you’ve got a certain amount of influence to be able to have experiences, to be able to have some things that doors open a little bit easier. But even with me being who I am, trying to start a business, trying to buy a house, trying to do certain things, you run into some adversity.Other athletes have spoken about the negative way that fans have treated Black athletes while playing in Boston. Have you experienced any of that?I have, but I pretty much block it all out. It’s not the whole Celtic fan base, but it is a part of the fan base that exists within the Celtic nation that is problematic. If you have a bad game, they tie it to your personal character.I definitely think there’s a group or an amount within the Celtic nation that is extremely toxic and does not want to see athletes use their platform, or they just want you to play basketball and entertain and go home. And that’s a problem to me.ActivismErik Moore, the founder of the venture capital firm Base Ventures, mentored Brown in college after Brown interned at his company. He said Brown was always focused on social justice. “It’s not new or shocking or weird,” Moore said. “It’s just who he is.”In April 2020, Brown wrote an op-ed for The Guardian decrying societal inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The next month, he donated $1,000 to the political action committee Grassroots Law, which, according to its website, fights “to end oppressive policing, incarceration, and injustice.” Weeks later, Brown drove 15 hours to Atlanta from Boston to protest the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis.Brown spoke about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before a game against the New Orleans Pelicans in January 2022.Adam Glanzman/Getty ImagesDo you think things are better for Black Americans when it comes to dealing with police than they were three years ago when you went down to protest?I have not seen it, to be honest. I think the issue is more systemic. I think what I learned about policing is that it’s not like the N.B.A., where everybody has these kind of rules that they kind of follow. How a police station in Memphis runs their police station is different from how they might run it in the New York Police Department. I don’t want to say it’s like the Wild West, but it’s different, you know?I read an interview where you said “Educational inequality is probably the most potent form of racism on our planet.” What do you mean by that?There’s different forms of bigotry or racism or inequalities. Directly confrontational still happens to this day, where people come up to you and just tell you their distaste for the way you walk, the way you talk, your skin color. And those are all extremely emotionally detrimental.There’s other forms of hegemonic racism that are subliminal, such as the inequalities in the education system: the lack of resources and opportunities through local elections and people voting on how much money or resources should go in this area versus this area.What about those kids who are extremely talented? What about those kids who are gifted who have contributions to make to society? But they’re stumped because of lack of opportunity.I’ll forever fight for those kids because I’m one of them.Ye and IrvingBrown first received widespread attention for his political views in 2018 when he told The Guardian that President Donald J. Trump was “unfit to lead” and that he had “made it a lot more acceptable for racists to speak their minds.” He also said sports were a “mechanism of control.” It was an unusual degree of outspokenness for a young, unestablished player.So Brown raised eyebrows in May 2022 when he became one of the first athletes to join Donda Sports, the new marketing agency of a well-known Trump supporter: Ye.“I think people still are loath to believe that Kanye really is a Trump fan,” said Moore, Brown’s mentor, adding, “So it might be easy to compartmentalize those things for Kanye specifically and say he’s a marketing phenom and he’s an amazing artist and he’s got that side of the world first and be OK with that.”Brown was one of the first athletes to sign with the marketing agency of the rapper Kanye West, who goes by Ye, left. Jed Jacobsohn/NBAE via Getty ImagesAs Ye spiraled with a series of antisemitic comments and social media posts in the fall, Brown initially defended his association with Donda Sports before apologizing in October and cutting ties.Months after your interview in The Guardian in 2018, Kanye goes to the White House and very publicly aligns himself with President Trump. When you decided to sign with Donda, how did you reconcile those two things?You know, just because you think differently from somebody, it doesn’t mean you can’t work with them. I don’t think the same as [the Celtics owners] Steve Pagliuca or Wyc Grousbeck on a lot of different issues. But that doesn’t mean we can’t come together and win a championship.What are the things you aligned with Donda on specifically?One, education. Donda was his mother’s name and she was an educator, similar to my mom. And she was an activist and they had a different approach to how they looked at agency, how they looked at representation through marketing and media.Everybody kind of follows the same script, especially in sports. They hire an agent. And that approach never really absolutely worked for me.Look, I’m a part of the union. I see the statistics every day. Over 40 to 60 percent of our athletes, 10 years after they retire, go broke or lose majority of their wealth. Our athletes silently suffer. Nobody’s helping them manage their money, and [the agents] just get a new client once the oil has run dry. Nobody looks at that model and that approach as an issue.Trying to be an example for the next generation of athletes.You described Kanye as a role model in the past. How do you feel about him now?Go to the next question. I’m not going to answer that.You got in a little bit of hot water in November for sharing a video of the Black Hebrew Israelites [an antisemitic group] outside of Barclays Center in support of Kyrie Irving. You said that you thought it was a fraternity. Did that incident make you rethink how you want to use your platform?At that time, being the vice president of the players association, Kyrie Irving was being exiled, so I thought it was important to use my platform to to show him some love when he was being welcomed back. And people took it with their own perspective and ran with it. That’s out of my control. I’ve always used my platform to talk about certain things, and I will continue to. But the more you make people uncomfortable, the more criticism you’re going to get. And that’s just life.Brown, right, was one of several players who expressed support for Kyrie Irving, left, as he faced strong public backlash for promoting an antisemitic movie. Irving denied that he was antisemitic.Michelle Farsi for The New York TimesBrown is one of seven vice presidents in the N.B.A. players’ union. Chrysa Chin, a union executive, recalled meeting Brown before his rookie year. She said he told her he wanted to be president of the union one day. “I thought it was very unusual,” Chin said.The N.B.A. and the union are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, with the players seeking a “true partnership” that lets them tap into more of the league’s revenue streams that would not exist without their labor, Brown said.“We’d like to see our ethics, morals and values being upheld internationally and globally,” Brown said, “and we would like to have a say-so with the partners and the people that are being involved with the league, because our face, our value, our work ethic, our work, our labor is attached to this league as well.” More

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      J.R. Smith Was Lost After the NBA. Golf Became His Guide.

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      LOS ANGELES — As J.R. Smith eased his golf cart around the fifth hole at El Caballero Country Club, he relayed a story about elementary school.He thought he would grow up to be a writer. His teachers gave him notebooks and, for inspiration, picture cards — say, a boy, a mountain and a scary house — and he’d write stories for hours. He loved it, at least initially.“Then school just wasn’t my thing, and writing and dyslexia — barely could read at times,” Smith said. “It was just like, ‘Yeah, this ain’t for me.’”For a long time, it wasn’t. By his senior year at St. Benedict’s in Newark, he was a basketball star committed to play at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But about a month before the N.B.A. draft in June 2004, he decided to skip college and go straight to the pros. The New Orleans Hornets took him with the 18th overall pick. Making it to the league was a dream.“I just wish I was more mature at the time, opposed to being so young-minded,” Smith said, adding: “I was 18, but I was more — at a mature sense — I was 13.”He spent 16 N.B.A. seasons launching feathery jumpers in New Orleans, Denver, New York, Cleveland and Los Angeles. He had shirtless championship celebrations, and the Cavaliers suspended him for throwing soup at an assistant coach. He won the Sixth Man of the Year Award, and the N.B.A. fined him for “posting inappropriate pictures” on Twitter. His teammate LeBron James once looked at him in disbelief during the N.B.A. finals, and the moment became a meme. Then one day, it was all over.Smith with the Larry O’Brien Trophy after winning 2020 N.B.A. finals with the Lakers.Kim Klement/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIt can be disorienting for players when the N.B.A. carousel stops. Smith was bored and puzzled when no team called to sign him after he won a championship with the Lakers in 2020. He spent hours in his game room, smoking and ruminating. I’m not playing. I should be playing. I want to play.Basketball was all he’d known in his adult life. But soon he had a new thought: Maybe it was time to go back to school.“I always wanted to learn about my heritage, learn where I came from, learn more about Black people,” Smith said. “It really turned into self-love, learning more about myself. That’s really what catapulted me back into therapy, to try to understand, and try to really master myself, and master my mind.”‘Get Away From the Chaos’Smith teed off, his golf ball hissing as it cut through the air. The ball hooked left. He grimaced.“On the court, I know what to rely on,” he said quietly. “Out here, I don’t know what to rely on.”It was a cloudless, brisk day, and he was with a longtime friend, C.J. Paul, the brother of Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul, and a few other people. Smith got into golf after Moses Malone, the Hall of Fame center, encouraged him to pick up a club at a pro-am event in Houston. On his first try, Smith drove the ball around 300 yards, but he could not do it again. The contradiction fascinated him.“It gives me something else to focus on other than my life,” Smith said. “It gives you lessons at the same time. For me, any time I get away from the chaos a little bit, that’s what it’s all about.”“Respect. That’s what I like about it the most,” Smith said of golf. “You’ve got to put the time in. You ain’t just come out here and think you’re Tiger Woods.”Michael Owens for The New York TimesDuring a round of golf a few years ago, Smith confided to C.J. Paul that he was considering attending college. Paul suggested that Smith also play golf at school. He put Smith in touch with Richard Watkins, the men’s and women’s varsity golf coach at North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university in Greensboro. At the time, Smith’s knowledge of H.B.C.U.s consisted of their famed drum lines and a vague recollection of some episodes of “A Different World,” a spinoff of “The Cosby Show” based at a fictional H.B.C.U.In the fall of 2021, at 36 years old, Smith was in North Carolina A&T’s freshman class, becoming one of several Black athletes — including Chris Paul, Deion Sanders, Eddie George and Mo Williams — who turned to H.B.C.U.s later in life for schooling or jobs.“There is something about a space in which you don’t have to grapple with race as the predominant variable of your experience,” said Derrick White, a professor of history and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. “Black colleges, even though they’re multiracial, the history and culture of those institutions provide a space for Black folk to live and learn and experience higher education without having consistent battles about whether you deserve to be here or people saying that you’re undeserving of your spot.”Smith walked onto the men’s golf team, took classes about African American history and hired a tutor, whom he credited with being patient. Beverly C. Grier, who teaches a class about race and social justice that Smith is taking, said it was “very admirable” for him to pursue a degree at his age. Students who return to learning after a hiatus are often more focused and determined, Dr. Grier said, adding that Smith had gone above and beyond on a recent assignment.Smith earned a 4.0 grade-point average and the Aggies’ Academic Athlete of the Year in his first year. He proudly shared his accomplishment on social media.Smith walked onto the golf team at N.C. A&T in 2021.Grant Halverson/Getty Images“Every day, locking in, sitting at the computer, trying to come up with a regimen of how to learn how to think,” Smith said. “Breaking down barriers of anxiety and feeling not able to do certain things, because I’ve always felt like that toward school.”He has also been going to therapy again.Smith said the N.B.A. required him to go to therapy when he played for the Knicks, but he hated it. “It felt like my story, my journey, was so much different than everybody else’s,” he said. “I didn’t feel like it would help at the time.”He said he went on and off for two years.“He was so much of a man-child coming out of high school,” said Jim Cleamons, a New Orleans assistant coach when Smith was a rookie. Cleamons added: “I’ve always thought J.R. could do what he wanted to do. He just needed to find out what he wanted to do and dedicate himself to that purpose.”The N.B.A.’s lifestyle provided a mostly inflexible calendar: shoot-arounds, practices and games packaged around flights and hotel stays. But it had holes, countless empty hours sandwiched into the middle of days and late at night.“I’ve got to continuously move around,” Smith said. “Because once I sit still, that’s when stuff starts spinning for me. I’ve got to stay busy, stay active, continuously creative, continuously doing something. It’s like that old saying, a wandering mind, an idle mind is the devil’s playground, and for me, a lot of the times where I got in my troubles, and stuff like that, it was because I was bored.”In 2009, Smith was sentenced to serve 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to reckless driving in a crash that killed his friend, Andre Bell. In court, he said it was “unbearable to deal with.” By then, he had been traded to the Denver Nuggets. He was solidifying his reputation as a scorer, though one with a curious shot selection that caused conflict with some of his coaches.Smith, shown in the 2005 dunk contest, won two N.B.A. championships and the 2012-13 Sixth Man of the Year Award.Pool photo by Mark J. Terrill“I felt like I was an artist,” Smith said. “And I was sensitive about how I worked at my game and the different shots I took because if anything, I would feel like I was getting something out of it. And if I can’t get what I want out of it, then how can I give you what you want? This is something I love.”An Uncertain FutureIn the N.B.A., Smith searched for an empty gym when he faced turmoil. There he found movement and expression. Golf, Smith discovered, enveloped him the same way.“You’re out there literally by yourself,” he said. “Even if you’re with somebody, it’s still such an individual sport. You can really zone out and, for me anyway, find that same peace and that same energy.”Though Smith plays golf at an H.B.C.U., the sport at large is still overwhelmingly white. Smith said he is conscious of the lingering stares he receives on golf courses that seem to go beyond people recognizing him from his days in the N.B.A.“Certain people’s aura and demeanor like they don’t want you here,” Smith said. “It’s that old money that just ain’t going to change.”He wants to make golf more accessible, especially for women and minorities. “I’ve got four girls who play sports and I’m around a lot of country clubs where it’s not as welcome for women as it is for men in the game of golf,” he said.Smith is spending more time away from the campus this year, taking classes online and podcasting.Michael Owens for The New York TimesSmith played 12 rounds in four tournaments as a freshman with an average score of 85.58. Smith is not on North Carolina A&T’s campus as much this year. He had arrived in Los Angeles that week to shoot episodes with the celebrity jewelry maker Ben Baller and the fashion designer Stephen Malbon for their podcast, “Par 3,” about their love for golf. Smith takes most of his classes online and prefers training with professional golfers in Florida.Nearly 20 years ago, Smith thought his school days were over, but his path seemed to be clear. Now, his plans are open-ended after college.He wants to be involved in golf. He’s interested in becoming an athletic director at an H.B.C.U. He may even coach children, he said, “teach them the game of basketball, as opposed to running and chucking, this new-age game.”From the eighth hole at El Caballero, Smith stood in the tee box, slightly bent forward at his waist and knees. He flushed the ball solidly down the fairway.“Respect,” Smith said, returning to his cart. “That’s what I like about it the most. You’ve got to put the time in. You ain’t just come out here and think you’re Tiger Woods.”Smith said it was his first good shot of the day and returned to his golf cart, his destination uncertain beyond the next hole.Michael Owens for The New York Times

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      Texas Longhorns Fire Basketball Coach After Domestic Assault Charge

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      Chris Beard, who was named head coach of the University of Texas men’s team in April 2021, was arrested in December and charged with a third-degree felony.Chris Beard was fired on Thursday as the head coach of the University of Texas men’s basketball team, weeks after he was arrested on a felony domestic violence charge in Austin.Chris Del Conte, the university’s vice president and athletic director, said in a statement on Thursday that the university had decided to terminate Beard’s contract effective immediately.Beard, 49, was suspended without pay on Dec. 12 after he was arrested and charged with assault on a member of a family or household by impeding breath circulation, a third-degree felony, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Beard posted a cash bond of $10,000 and was released from jail the day of his arrest.Rodney Terry, the team’s associate head coach, has been serving as acting head coach of the Texas Longhorns men’s basketball team since Beard was suspended. Del Conte said that Terry would finish the season as the team’s acting head coach.“This has been a difficult situation that we’ve been diligently working through,” Del Conte said.The Austin Police Department said officers responded to a call about a disturbance at a home in Austin at around 12:15 a.m. on Dec. 12. The caller told the police that the disturbance had ended and that one person at the home had left, the police said in a statement. When the police arrived at the house, a woman told them that Beard had assaulted and choked her.Perry Minton, a lawyer for Beard, said in a statement on Thursday that Beard was “crushed at the news he will not be coaching at the University of Texas.”“At the outset of Coach Beard’s suspension, the university promised they would conduct an independent investigation surrounding the allegations and make a decision regarding his employment only after they had done so,” Minton said. “They proceeded to terminate Coach Beard without asking a single question of him or his fiancée.”The university declined to comment on its investigation.A few days after Beard was arrested, Randi Trew, Beard’s fiancée, said in a statement that her lawyer shared with The Associated Press that the two had engaged in a “physical struggle” after she broke his glasses in “frustration.” Beard, she added, “did not strangle me.”“Chris has stated that he was acting in self-defense, and I do not refute that,” she said. “I do not believe Chris was trying to intentionally harm me in any way. It was never my intent to have him arrested or prosecuted.” A university spokesman confirmed that Beard had been offered the opportunity to resign or have his contracted terminated by the university. Minton, Beard’s lawyer, told James Davis, the university’s vice president of legal affairs, in a letter on Thursday that the offer “came as a shock.”“With this, I want to be on record as emphatically stating, and herein memorializing, that Coach Beard has not done anything to violate any provision of his contract with the University of Texas,” Minton said in the letter. “He was arrested, then his fiancée retracted her previously reported statement.”The Texas Longhorns named Beard head coach in April 2021 after he spent five seasons as the head coach of the men’s basketball team at Texas Tech University, which he led to the N.C.A.A. national championship game in 2019.Before coaching the Longhorns, Beard was the head coach of the men’s basketball teams at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas; McMurry University in Abilene, Texas; Seminole State College in Seminole, Okla.; and Fort Scott Community College in Fort Scott, Kan. Beard graduated from the University of Texas in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology, the study of human motion. More

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      Sedona Prince Has a Good Feeling About the Next Era

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      For many, the basketball player’s TikTok was a before-and-after marker of how society talks about modern women’s sports. For Prince, there’s much to celebrate, more to be done and a W.N.B.A. roster spot to secure.The New York Times Sports department is revisiting the subjects of some compelling articles from the last year or so. In March, we covered Sedona Prince’s video and the way it challenged the disparities between the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Here is an update.Sedona Prince sees her life in eras.There was the injury era, when she snapped her tibia and fibula just before the start of her freshman year of college; her practice-player era, when she mastered the playing style of future opponents; her “crazy” era, when she found her footing on and off the court as a college student; her depression era, when she was finally cleared to play and immediately injured herself again; her N.C.A.A. tournament era, when she was suddenly under the national spotlight for exposing gross disparities between men’s and women’s basketball; and her name, image and likeness era, when she learned how to monetize her work.These days, Prince is in what she calls her rebuilding era. And she’s only 22.A 6-foot-7 forward, Prince became a centerpiece for the University of Oregon women’s basketball program with her towering ability to find the open shot alongside Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sabally. But in the course of defining herself on the court, she also helped to redefine the role of a college athlete.“I’m in a place now where I’m allowing myself to look back and trying to reminisce on all these times and process them because in the moment I couldn’t. It all happened way too fast; it was all happening at once,” Prince said in a recent interview from Los Angeles.Prince graduated from Oregon in the spring with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences with a focus in business and economics. She opted into her fifth season this fall and began to pursue a master’s degree, but during a practice before the season opener, she tore a ligament in her elbow, ending her season and college career at Oregon.“I wanted to keep playing; I love this team,” Prince said. “But I knew there’s no way I can keep playing. I have to take care of myself.”Still young in her career, Prince knows how to prioritize herself. All of her so-called eras have taught her as much. As one of the pioneering athletes of the N.I.L. era, Prince said she knew she could take the financial and professional risk of leaving college basketball to rehabilitate and pursue a coveted spot on a W.N.B.A. roster.“There are always less options for women — there’s less freedom,” she said. “There’s always that thing of like, oh, God, how am I going to support myself?”But getting to this point was far from linear. If every generation has its disrupters, Prince is chief among her peers. In one 38-second video, she lifted the curtain on a problem that was long talked about but that nobody had made so visually and abundantly clear.In 2021, Prince showed the glaring differences between what the N.C.A.A. had provided for workout facilities for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments: The men, anchored in Indianpolis because of the pandemic, were provided an expansive ballroom filled with free weights, hand weights and machine weights. The women, based in San Antonio, had a stand with hand weights.Within days, Prince’s posts had been seen more than 13 million times on TikTok and Twitter, a number the N.C.A.A. could not ignore, despite its attempts to explain away some of the differences. The women’s workout room was eventually beefed up.“I had no idea what it would do, honestly,” Prince said. “Looking back, I wish I would have spoken up more. But I did all I could as a 19-year-old kid. I was figuring it out.”CNN and “Good Morning America” called. All of a sudden, Prince thought, “I’m now an activist.”Prince at an ESPN awards show in July. She said she would continue to use her platform for change. “It’s our duty as athletes.”Leon Bennett/Getty Images“I’ve always been about activism, but this was a stage that I had never been on,” she recalled. She also had to balance speaking up while not insulting the N.C.A.A.“I had no idea if I had broken the rules. There’s this constant fear of student-athletes — they are this reigning governing body and really scary people that we never get to see or hear,” Prince said. “I thought, have I just lost my college career?”Hardly. Five months later, an independent report detailed the structural gender inequities between the two tournaments. The 114-page report compared Prince’s video to “the contemporary equivalent of ‘the shot heard round the world.’”Many look at Prince’s TikTok as a before-and-after marker of how society talks about women’s sports. But for Prince, there is still much work to be done — it all comes down to a lack of respect.“It’s the worst part of it,” Prince said. “Every single time we go places, it’s just less and it’s just disrespect, and so we’re trained to think that, oh, this is normal. This is what we deserve.”Even for Prince, who quickly established herself as a leader in her sport, she often finds herself second-guessing her worth.“There are times where it’s like I have to pull myself out of that mentality of like, this is what it’s always been, this is what I deserve as a woman in sport, I’m just going to get less because we get less viewership,” Prince said. “And it’s like, no, that’s not, that’s not true. So I have to constantly check myself of like, Hey, you know, this is not correct. This is not right.”Prince said she would continue to use her platform for change. “It’s our duty as athletes,” she said. “When you feel like you should talk about something, you probably should. So when I have a platform, I’m like, OK, I should probably talk about this. And then I can see the ripple effects after that, which is the coolest part of it and see it’s actually working.” More

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      in Soccer

      NYU vs. Chicago Men’s Soccer: A Match Between Two Women Coaches

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      An array of major college sporting events will kick off this weekend, many with huge audiences, on TV and in person. But perhaps the most significant game will take place at little Gaelic Park in the Riverdale section of the Bronx on Friday, when two men’s soccer teams coached by women will square off in a game that could help define a new standard.Kim Wyant is the head coach of New York University, which will host powerhouse University of Chicago, coached by Julianne Sitch. It is believed to be the first N.C.A.A. men’s soccer game in which both coaches are women.“This is definitely historic,” said Nicole LaVoi, a senior lecturer at the University of Minnesota, who compiles annual data on the number of women coaching in college sports. “It’s a landmark occurrence.”A small number of women are coaching men in various roles at both the professional and college levels. Becky Hammon, now a head coach in the W.N.B.A., was hired as a full-time assistant for the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs in 2014 and that league has had several women hired in assistant roles in the years since. A handful of women are coaches in the N.F.L. and in Major League Baseball. Rachel Balkovec just finished her first season as the manager for the Yankees’ Class A affiliate in Tampa, Fla.But the instances remain rare, particularly in college sports, where male coaches far outnumber women, even in women’s sports. Data published by the U.S. Department of Education shows that only about 5 percent of all men’s college teams are coached by women, and the majority of those are in low-revenue, combined-gender sports like skiing, swimming and track and field.The data also showed there are no women in head coaching positions in Division I football, baseball, men’s basketball and men’s soccer, and only about 26 percent of Division I women’s soccer coaches are women.Wyant broke the barrier in 2015, when she was hired by N.Y.U., a Division III school. The first goalie to play an international game for the United States women’s national team, she has led the Violets to five postseason appearances and has become the standard-bearer for women coaching a men’s team in a college team sport.She has also been a role model for many aspiring players and coaches, including Sitch, who until April was an assistant coach for the Chicago women’s team — just as Wyant had been an assistant for the N.Y.U. women’s team. When the Chicago men’s job opened up last winter, Sitch called Wyant and they spoke for about a half-hour. Sitch hung up inspired, feeling there was no reason she could not follow Wyant’s lead.“Prior to her, there wasn’t any other women coaching and leading men’s teams,” Sitch said. “She was obviously a positive influence and role model.”Kim Wyant became N.Y.U.’s head men’s soccer coach in 2015.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesJulianne Sitch is in her first season as the University of Chicago head coach.Anjali Pinto for The New York TimesNow, they are facing one another in a highly anticipated game that holds important social meaning, but also significance within the University Athletic Association, the teams’ conference. Sitch took over a team that went 16-6-1 last year, and this year the Maroons are 14-0 and ranked No. 1 in a Division III coaches’ poll.“It’s a really solid group of young men,” Sitch said. “It’s a tribute to the alums and former staff and the legacy that has been built here. It has been very positive and very inviting, across the board.”In the few months she has been recruiting high school athletes as a head coach, Sitch said she never sensed the slightest resistance from players and families about her gender. Wyant had told her on the phone that she had the same experience.“Players just want to know, ‘Can I get better?’” Wyant said at a recent N.Y.U. practice at Pier 40 in Manhattan. “They are looking for a leader who is invested in the team. Do we feel respected? Whether male or female, if you can deliver all of those things, you can succeed.”Five years ago, Wyant was on a recruiting trip in San Diego, visiting with the family of a player named Jet Trask. Also at the table that day was Trask’s younger brother, Ben, then a high school freshman. Jet Trask opted for Sacramento State, a Division I program, but Wyant made such an impression on young Ben that four years later he wanted to play for her.“Her experience and credentials were never in doubt,” Ben Trask, a sophomore midfielder, said. “I knew if I came here, I would be playing for a great coach. If I had it to do again, I would come here again.”Ben Trask, and Nicholas Suter, a senior co-captain, both said that most of their friends and high school teammates ask them what it is like to play for a woman coach, and both said they tell them there is no difference from playing for a man.“It’s amazing to play for her,” said Suter, who is from Long Island. “It was one of the perks of coming here.”Suter said Wyant has a unique ability to communicate with the players and get the most out of them. He recalled a dramatic first-round game in last year’s N.C.A.A. tournament, against St. Joseph’s College of Maine in New London, Conn. With N.Y.U. trailing, 2-1, and only 15 minutes remaining, the game was suspended because of lightning. The Violets trudged back to their hotel while organizers looked for a new field with lights.Wyant has led the Violets to five postseason appearances and has been a role model for many aspiring players and coaches, including Sitch.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHiroko Masuike/The New York TimesOver a team dinner, while they waited three hours for a new field with a different playing surface, Wyant told the players that they were prepared for the situation. As a team in an urban setting, N.Y.U. often shuttles between various sites around New York for practices and games, and Wyant stressed that they were better suited to adapt to the uncertainties of the moment. Inspired, they went to the new field, where Suter scored the equalizer and N.Y.U. won, 3-2, in extra time.They may need similar magic to handle Chicago, which has rolled through its schedule under Sitch and produced a record that helps validate the decision to hire her.“We had the student-athletes be a part of the search and it was really important to see how they would react,” said Angie Torain, the Chicago athletic director. “They were just so positive, it was ridiculous. It’s because of her soccer knowledge and what she brings for them.”But according to Teresa Gould, the deputy commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, one of the Power 5 leagues in Division I, far too few university administrators are making similar decisions. Gould is also the president of the board of WeCOACH, an organization dedicated to the development, support and retention of women in coaching at all levels. She says the numbers are troubling, especially 50 years after Title IX was adopted to promote equal participation and access to sports.But Title IX does not govern coaching hires. Gould points to LaVoi’s yearly data, compiled at the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, which reveals that only 42.7 percent of the coaches of women’s collegiate teams are women. In 1971, about 90 percent of coaches of women’s college teams were women.Sitch took over a team that went 16-6-1 last year, and this year the Maroons are 14-0.Anjali Pinto for The New York TimesGould said there has been a general exodus away from coaching as the pressures and demands of the jobs multiply under the weight of win-now approaches, financial imperatives and the exhausting influence of social media. She says coaching is a lifestyle commitment more than just a career, and it often hampers women more than men because of things like child care and travel.“It has become harder for women, who may still be the primary general managers of their households, to do both,” Gould said.That is why she is so excited about Friday’s game, hoping it will raise awareness and provide proof to girls, young women and especially college administrators, that coaching is a viable career path for women, regardless of the players’ gender.But the game, and the examples set by Wyant and Sitch, also provide strong female role models for boys and men, too.“It’s immensely important,” LaVoi said, “because we know from the data that when young men are exposed to female leaders in a context they care about, like sports, they have more egalitarian perceptions and beliefs about gender and leadership. Then they are more likely, as they graduate from college, to treat women as equals in the workplace and perhaps in their personal relationships.”For the N.Y.U. players, going through their paces at Pier 40 under Wyant’s watchful eye, their immediate concern is beating Chicago, a talented team that has only improved under Sitch’s leadership.“It will be historic, it will be special,” Wyant said. “I think it’s so appropriate that N.Y.U. is hosting it, because N.Y.U. is a major reason this is happening. They put me in this role and had the courage to make this decision. But our main focus right here is on trying to beat a really good team on Friday.” More

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      in Tennis

      At the U.S. Open, Future College Tennis Stars Are an Unsung Draw

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      College coaches can be found across the U.S. Open’s outer courts during the juniors competitions, displaying their school colors while searching for the next star recruit.On an outer court at the U.S. Open, tucked into a far corner by the perimeter fencing, Raquel Gonzalez Vilar powered shots over the net in her first-round match of the junior girls’ draw. Two men dressed in orange and black, wearing white hats emblazoned with the words “Oklahoma State,” cheered her on.On a nearby court, a woman in a bright orange shirt with a fierce tiger on it chatted with a man wearing a black Georgia Tech shirt and hat. Across from them were two men in light blue shirts and hats with Columbia University tennis logos.They were not fans out for a fun afternoon of tennis-star gazing. They are college coaches who were dotted across the far courts for the juniors competitions, purposely displaying their school colors while searching for the next star recruit or protecting a committed player from a rival’s watchful eye.“All the coaches come here,” said Jamea Jackson, the incoming women’s head coach at Princeton and a former professional player who also scoured these grounds as an assistant at Oklahoma State. “The U.S. Open is integral to your recruiting calendar.”While competition on the courts at the U.S. Open is intense, the battle among these coaches in the stands and pathways is sometimes just as cutthroat, with dozens of coaches showing up each year to stock their rosters.In some cases, coaches introduce themselves after the players have finished for the day to plant a seed with players and eventually sign them.In other cases, the players have committed to a school, and the coaches are there to offer support and encouragement — and to prove their undying devotion. The two men in orange and black — Chris Young, the women’s tennis head coach at Oklahoma State and Jaime Sanchez-Cañamares, his top lieutenant — were watching Gonzalez Vilar.The coaches had already persuaded Vilar to attend Oklahoma State, but she was thrilled that they had shown up and celebrated her first-round win by jumping into their arms.“I really enjoyed today because they helped me along and gave me energy,” she said through an interpreter. “It was nice to have them here with me.”If you are not looking for these coaches, they could slip by, unnoticed. If you are, they are easy to spot behind their crisp shirts and hats in school colors. Over on Court 5, a man in University of Washington gear watched a match intently. Another, in a U.C.L.A. shirt, sat nearby, and across the way Arizona, Arizona State, Northern Arizona, Pepperdine, Mississippi and many more were represented, too.The U.S. Open is not the only tournament to which coaches flock. They also pop up (in fewer numbers) at events in Europe. But it is the big junior tournaments in Kalamazoo, Mich., and San Diego and the Orange Bowl event near Miami that, along with the U.S. Open, teem with college coaches dressed like models for athletic-department logo-wear.“You never see college coaches without their gear on,” said Parsa Nemati, a college tennis recruiting expert and marketing consultant for Universal Tennis Rating, who also serves as the social media coordinator for the Tennis Channel.Billy Pate, center, of Princeton University, said the gear coaches wore turned them into “billboards.” Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesBilly Pate, the men’s coach at Princeton, joked that the gear turned coaches into “billboards.” But it is important to fly the school’s colors, if only to grab the attention of the players.College tennis is an increasingly enticing alternative for young players who may not be ready for the rigors of the professional tour. For some players, college is an easy choice because of the potential opportunity for free coaching, free food, free training facilities, free medical attention and, in many cases, free education.According to Nemati, the recruiting expert, 21 of the 64 boys in the draw are committed to colleges and at least four more will soon declare. The number of girls is slightly lower, he said. The rest consider themselves good enough to turn professional or are still undecided.Most Americans and their families are aware of the college option. But Jordan Szabo, the assistant women’s coach at Texas A&M, said some of the international players were less aware and sought guidance.For Szabo, who is Australian, the U.S. Open is not very productive because so many coaches are there and most of the players are already spoken for. But like most coaches, he knows it is too important to pass up. On Monday, he had his eye on a hard-serving Australian girl and watched to evaluate the intangibles that do not appear on any rankings or stat sheets.Finding the right moment to say hello is an art, especially with other coaches lurking nearby. A coach may have to wait patiently while a rival filibusters with the player. No one wants to be the one to barge in on a conversation or appear too aggressive in front of the players.“It’s awkward,” Szabo said. “Yesterday, a girl walked up to me to say hi when another coach had been waiting. We had just spoken the day before, and she obviously felt it would be rude not to say hello. It can just be really awkward, but it’s part of it.”Pate, the Princeton men’s coach, said most coaches respectfully — but not always — backed off when a player had committed elsewhere. But there are other challenges to fend off. National tennis federations often do not want their players to attend college, preferring that they remain under the federation’s umbrella and then go pro. And agents, who profit when a player becomes a professional, can be an obstacle, too.Gina Suarez-Malaguti, a women’s associate head coach at Virginia, said she employed unique methods to gain a player’s interest and trust.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesGina Suarez-Malaguti, a women’s associate head coach at Virginia, has been recruiting at the U.S. Open for years. She said that at a big event such as the U.S. Open, juniors breathe the same intoxicating air and share the same hallways with top pros.“They are in a different cloud here,” Suarez-Malaguti said, “thinking anything is possible.”She employs unique methods to gain a player’s interest and trust.“I can’t tell you my secrets,” she smiled. “But, you’ve got to be creative.”Another danger can arise if a college-bound player does too well at a major event. Success at the top level can suddenly alter plans.“Sometimes, they need a bad loss to bring them back to earth and make them think about college,” said German Dalmagro, the associate head coach of the Illinois women’s team.Dalmagro, who also coached at Nebraska and Kansas, said there were many more coaches at the U.S. Open now than in previous years. The big tournaments are like conventions, and many coaches get along well. Some have even worked together at stops in their careers. Most greet one another cordially, but in an optimal world, each would be the only one there, with unfettered access to players.“We have a joke,” said Howard Endelman, the head men’s coach at Columbia, who was on site to watch his top recruit, Michael Zheng. “We always say, ‘Hi, nice to see you.’ But they don’t want to see me here, and I don’t want to see them.”Alexis Casati, an associate head coach of Georgia Tech women’s tennis, watching a girls’ match.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe big tournaments are like conventions, and many coaches get along well.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesCoaches also use social media, email and texts to reach out to players, beginning on June 15 of their sophomore year in high school. Matchmaking services, like Stars and Stripes Tennis Recruitment, connect under-scouted players, usually from overseas, with colleges. Some players fish for scholarships by listing preferences on websites.Daniil Medvedev, last year’s U.S. Open men’s champion and the current world No. 1, used such a tactic when he was a little-known junior, listing every Ivy League college as a school of interest to him.When Endelman saw that, he hopped on a plane for a junior tournament in Linz, Austria, to watch Medvedev. Endelman laughs at himself now, knowing what Medvedev has become.“I looked at his strokes, which are unorthodox, and I was like, ‘I don’t know,’” he said with a chuckle. “Shows what I know.”But he also knew enough to be on hand to support Zheng, lest some other coach in different colors gets too close. More

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      in Basket

      Steph Curry’s Graduation From Davidson Was a Long Time Coming

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      Curry, the N.B.A. superstar, returned to Davidson College, where he first showed how great he could be. The college, and its community, still feel his impact over a decade later.DAVIDSON, N.C. — On the first day of the fall semester in 2007, Stephen Curry sat in a class on gender and society at Davidson College, a small, liberal arts school 20 miles north of Charlotte, N.C.Prof. Gayle Kaufman, who was teaching the class, began the roll call alphabetically.At the end of the Cs, she called out, “Steven Curry?”The students erupted in laughter. Curry smiled. “It’s Steph-en,” he said, politely.Kaufman had been on sabbatical the year before, which was probably why she seemed to be one of the few people in Davidson — both the college and the town of 10,000 people then — who didn’t know how to pronounce his name.Five months before, Curry had led Davidson to the N.C.A.A. Division I men’s basketball tournament in his freshman season, gaining local celebrity status that would eventually be dwarfed by his superstardom as a four-time N.B.A. champion with Golden State. But to his fellow students, Curry was just one of them. He made funny videos with his friends, studied in the library and ate at the Outpost, the only late-night eatery on campus. Curry said he “was always a breakfast-at-night type guy.”“In hindsight, he’s obviously the best player in the world,” said Adah Fitzgerald (not pictured), the owner of Main Street Books in Davidson. The book store has one of Curry’s children’s books displayed in the front window.Travis Dove for The New York Times“Everyone is truly a student at Davidson,” said Jason Richards, Curry’s friend and college teammate. “There are no superstars. There’s no one walking the pathways like, ‘Oh, wow, there’s so-and-so.’ You knew who you’d pass on your way to class, and you knew everyone in class by first name. It’s what makes Davidson so special, and so special to Stephen: No one is bigger than the college itself.”But as the past few days showed, Curry comes close.‘Isn’t that the place where … ?’Marshall Oelsen walked into Stephen Curry’s freshman dorm room at the start of the fall 2006 semester and saw oversize pairs of Charlotte Hornets basketball shorts on the floor. He asked whose they were. Curry said they belonged to his father, Dell Curry, who spent 10 seasons with the Hornets.“Those first months, he was just known as Dell Curry’s kid,” said Oelsen, who lived down the hall.But one October afternoon, Bryant Barr, Stephen Curry’s roommate and teammate, told some friends: “Guys, Steph is the real thing. He’s going to be huge.”Chris Clunie, the school’s director of athletics, played on the men’s basketball team for four seasons before Curry arrived. “I describe Davidson basketball as B.S. and A.S. — Before Steph and After Steph,” Clunie said.Dell Curry, left, spent 16 seasons in the N.B.A. But to many people, he may be better known now as “Stephen Curry’s dad.”Clunie’s squad was successful, earning a No. 15 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament the year before Curry came. But once Curry arrived? “It was a launchpad,” Clunie said.Curry became Davidson’s career leader in points and 3-pointers. The Wildcats made it to the tournament in his freshman and sophomore seasons, including a magical run to the round of 8 in 2008. Curry scored 40 points and made eight 3-pointers in a first-round upset of Gonzaga.After his junior year, Curry left for the N.B.A., and Golden State drafted him seventh overall.Chris Gruber, Davidson’s dean of admission and financial aid, said applications surged after the 2008 tournament run. “It allowed us to be known in many cases,” he said. “It put us on a map in terms of, ‘Isn’t that the place where …?’ ”Gruber said even now the school is “riding that wave.”Davidson men’s basketball relies heavily on recruiting international players. Coach Matt McKillop, whose father, Bob, coached Curry, said the first conversation often starts with the recruit saying, “I know Davidson — that’s where Steph Curry went.”Stephen Curry was — at least kind of — a normal college student. He said he liked to order milkshakes and sausage, egg and cheese bagels from Outpost, a late-night eatery on the Davidson campus.Jane Avinger and her husband, Bob Avinger, started attending games when they moved to Davidson in 1967. Curry, she said, made them go consistently. When the Wildcats made it to the round of 16 in Detroit in 2008, they bought plane tickets and traveled there to cheer on the team. “We’d never done anything like that,” she said.Signs of Curry are everywhere in town. The Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop on Main Street has a dipped, rainbow-sprinkle waffle cone called #30, after Curry’s jersey number. Sabor Latin Street Grill on Jetton Street has a large mural of Curry painted on a wall inside. At Main Street Books, a basketball-themed children’s book by Curry titled “I Have a Superpower” is displayed by the register.On Thursday, Curry announced that the basketball court at the Ada Jenkins Center, a nonprofit in Davidson, would be refurbished by his Curry Brand with Under Armour; the Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation he started with his wife, Ayesha Curry; and The Summit Foundation.During Davidson’s 2008 tournament run, hundreds of town residents hung bedsheets from their porches with words of support. This past week, with Curry returning to town for a special celebration, townspeople were encouraged to hang their sheets again. “Proud of you #30,” read one. “Congrats, Steph,” was written in black and red ink, Davidson’s school colors, on another.“It’s just so wild that he would end up here for college, to play for this team, because in hindsight, he’s obviously the best player in the world,” said Adah Fitzgerald, the owner of Main Street Books. “Like, what? He doesn’t even have to come back very often or have to pay much attention to us as a town — and we’ll just forever be die-hard fans.”‘I’ve never seen you smile like that’Some people had driven from as far as Florida to be among the nearly 5,000 people crowded into Belk Arena on Davidson’s campus on Wednesday. Mayor Rusty Knox of Davidson was there. Sai Tummala and Jack Brown, Davidson men’s soccer players who said they were drawn to the school because of Curry, were in floor seats with other students. So were Curry’s wife and the couple’s three children: Riley, 10; Ryan, 7; and Canon, 4.Finally, Stephen Curry was there, too.Dressed in cap and gown, he shook hands and offered hugs as the crowd cheered. Curry smiled as he took his seat in the front row next to Ayesha. Thirteen years after leaving Davidson, he had earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology. He missed the school’s graduation ceremony in May because he was a little busy trying to win his fourth N.B.A. championship. But now, Davidson was having a ceremony just for him.“I made a joke the other day: Would we put on an event like this if the president was coming to town?” said Joey Beeler, Davidson’s director of athletic communications.Afterward, Curry said it was “almost overwhelming.”Stephen Curry, right, with his family, left to right: Ayesha Curry, his wife; Riley and Ryan, his daughters; and Canon, his son.The ceremony also marked Curry’s induction into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame and the retirement of his No. 30 jersey. Davidson had long required inductees to graduate first, but the rule was changed in 2019, in part, for Curry. Still, he refused the honor, wanting to wait until he’d graduated.He took classes in 2011, during an N.B.A. work stoppage, and in December 2019 he called Clunie, the director of athletics, to map out a plan to complete the final few classes for his degree. Then the coronavirus pandemic stalled his plans. But last winter, Curry called Clunie again.Clunie scheduled calls and video conferences with professors before practices, after shootarounds, even after games. Curry said he completed the bulk of his work in March and April, when he missed a dozen games with a foot injury.“Some of the professors had to tell him to slow down,” Clunie said.Kaufman, the gender and society professor, was his adviser for a thesis on advancing gender equality in sports. As the N.B.A. playoffs unfolded, Curry still hadn’t finished. Around midnight on a Wednesday, Kaufman received an email from Curry: “Dr. K, I want to assure you, I will have everything finished, and to you, by Friday night,” he wrote.“It was that moment where I was like, ‘holy, wow,’” Kaufman said. She added, “And sure enough, he finished the paper, and it was great.”Curry wrote a thesis on advancing gender equality in sports to complete his bachelor’s degree in sociology at Davidson.By completing his degree, Curry had given Bob McKillop, his college coach, a 100 percent graduation rate for his players during a 33-year tenure. McKillop, whom Curry has remained close with, retired in June, one day after Curry was named the most valuable player of the N.B.A. finals.“He has given this community, this college, this athletic department a gift that, in my judgment, is unparalleled — the gift being his time and his love,” McKillop said. “Those are the two most prized gifts that I believe we as human beings have.”At his graduation on Wednesday, Curry held up his diploma, grinning. He turned his tassel and threw his hat high into the air on the stage as the crowd cheered, cellphones held aloft.“Few alumni are as well known as you are, Stephen,” Doug Hicks, the president of Davidson, said during the ceremony. “OK, actually, none are.”Almost 5,000 people attended Stephen Curry’s graduation ceremony at Davidson on Wednesday. Some alumni traveled from Florida to attend.As Curry stepped to the podium as the afternoon’s final speaker, chants of “M-V-P!” rang out.“The best decision I ever made was to come to Davidson College,” he said, adding that he cried when he decided to leave early for the N.B.A.“What Davidson stands for lives with me every time I step on the court, and every time I try to impact lives,” he said. “How we represent Davidson in every room we walk into — it matters.”Later, in an interview, he said that his Golden State teammate Draymond Green texted him after the ceremony.“He said, ‘I’ve never seen you smile like that — when you were on that stage,’” Curry said. “I didn’t think people could read through that.”Curry said Davidson “was kind of the beginning of a major evolution in my life, and I have so many memories of every experience, everyone I met, and the support of the community throughout it all. That speaks volumes to why I want to come back, and why yesterday was so special. That’s such a big part of my origin story.” More