Red Carpet

Speaking of Hal Baker, another discussion point was the legendary story of Anil Nayar’s arrival at Harvard, about how coach Jack Barnaby did not know that the world’s #1 junior had applied and been accepted at Harvard, let alone arrived on campus in the fall of 1965. (The story appears on p.133 of my squash book—“I don’t have the red carpet here today, but I’ll have it tomorrow.”

It was the ultimate recruiting job, at least at Harvard: do nothing and you shall receive.

This story has been questioned by one person, since it seems so crazy. How was it possible that the coach didn’t know that such a great player was coming? But not only did both Jack and Anil corroborate the story with me, but it appeared in the Boston Globe in the 1970s.

After all this time, it was Hal Baker who supplied the motive. Hal said that Barnaby found out that his friends over in admissions kept Anil’s application secret, to play a joke on him. For the ebullient Barnaby, he must have roared with laughter when he got the admissions people on the phone.

 

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