"The worst was at Cornell, when I was being called a c--k" - Jeremy Lin said he faced much harsher racism in college than the NBA originally appeared on Basketball Network .
Jeremy Lin 's NBA career brought him global fame and made him one of the most visible Asian American athletes in history. That visibility came with moments of ignorance and bigotry at the professional level, yet Lin insists nothing in the league compares to what he endured as a college player at Harvard.
On the road from 2006 to 2010, he was subjected to racial slurs from fans, opposing players, and even coaches.
The worst, in his mind, came during a road game in upstate New York, when an Ivy League rival crossed a line so far it shook him for the rest of the night.
Lin had learned to expect taunts about his background whenever Harvard traveled, but the trip to Cornell was different. The atmosphere was charged before tip-off, and the abuse started as soon as the game began.
"The worst was at Cornell, when I was being called a c—k," Lin revealed in 2017. "That's when it happened. I don't know ... that game, I ended up playing terrible and getting a couple of charges and doing real out-of-character stuff. My teammate told my coaches [that] they were calling Jeremy a c—k the whole first half. I didn't say anything, because when that stuff happens, I kind of just, I go and bottle up — where I go into turtle mode and don't say anything and just internalize everything."
The barrage affected his play, pulling him out of rhythm and into an emotional fog. It was the fact that it was allowed to continue unchecked that got to him in the worst way.
That trip to Cornell wasn't an isolated incident. Lin remembers being in Washington, D.C., and hearing a Georgetown fan shout out negative Asian stereotypes for the entire game — mock orders like "chicken fried rice" and "beef lo mein" echoing from the stands. In New Haven, Yale's student section took aim at his appearance, yelling things like, "Hey! Can you even see the scoreboard with those eyes?"
These moments didn't just come from the stands. They sometimes came from people in positions of authority. One of the most jarring examples happened during a game in Vermont. Lin says he was standing with his hands up as a free throw was being shot when he suddenly heard the opposing coach yelling at the officials.
"In Vermont — I remember," Lin said, "because I had my hands up while the Vermont player was shooting free throws — their coach was like, 'Hey ref! You can't let that Oriental do that!' I was like, What is going on here? I have been called a c—k by players in front of the refs; the refs heard it, because they were yelling it, [like,] 'Yeah, get that out, c—k!' And the ref heard it, looked at both of us and didn't do anything."
For Lin, the silence of authority figures was almost as damaging as the slurs themselves. There was no sense of protection that something wrong had been said. It was proof that there wasn't much conversation about race in sports during those years beyond the obvious.
Lin's path to the NBA was already an uphill climb as an undrafted guard out of Harvard, but the mental load he carried from those experiences made it even heavier. By the time he entered the league, he had built a thick enough skin to absorb insults without breaking stride. Yet the fact he had to develop that armor in the first place speaks volumes about what he endured.
For him, the Cornell game, the Georgetown chants, the Yale heckling, and the Vermont coach's words are part of a reality he had to survive before he ever stepped onto an NBA court.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
