And They Can Spell "Cat"

The Knicks invited the son of former NBA star Rick Barry to play with their summer league team.  The interesting thing for me about Canyon Barry, a guard, is that he’s working on his master’s degree in nuclear engineering.  According to a recent story in the NYT, Barry is maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

I love smart athletes, the ones who challenge themselves in the classroom as well as the gym or weight room.  With Clare, we insisted she do well in school.  Don’t get me wrong, our daughter was her own person; unlike her parents, who were liberal arts’ majors to a fault, she was more attracted to the sciences, and that was fine.  If she could understand the physics of hitting, so be it.

In time, the nerd and jock coincided nicely.  As a senior in high school, Clare attended a National Honors Society event straight from a game, in uniform (this after hitting her ninth homerun of the season).  At Elmhurst, she was a finalist for senior of the year.  The college even president held a luncheon for the finalists, but Clare couldn’t attend.  As I recall, she had a doubleheader at the University of Chicago that day.  Talk about irony.

Athletes have a way of looking at the world that’s different from other people.  With luck, they can make use of that viewpoint even after their careers are over; they just need to have a skillset ready.  It looks like Canyon Barry and Clare have that in common.