Q & A with Eastern Washington’s Tyler Harvey
Eastern Washington basketball player Tyler Harvey does most of his talking with his 3-point shooting, which has helped him become the leading scorer in the nation this year. A redshirt junior from Southern California, Harvey tries to stay away from the limelight when he’s off the court. After a recent practice, Harvey took time to answer a few non-basketball questions:
Q. Who is your hero?
A. Definitely my parents. They taught me to work hard, and that if I want something in life, I have to work hard at it.
A . Not necessarily a hero, but as a role model I like (NBA guard Stephen) Curry, he’s one of my favorites. I like the way way he plays and his demeanor and the way he carries himself as a person. He seems like a good guy.
Q. Should athletes be looked up to as role models?
A . It depends. If in your eyes, he’s the kind of person that you want to be someday, then I have no problem with that.
Q. Where do you see yourself in five years?
A. Wherever God wants me to be, but hopefully I’ll still playing basketball – that’s what I want to be doing.
Q. What’s something interesting that people don’t know about you?
A. That I grew 10 inches in one year. I came into high school at 5-foot-4, and I didn’t know if I was going to make the team. Then I grew 6 inches to 5-10 … Then I grew to to 6 feet and had to take three months off because my knees were catching up to my body.
Q. What’s the toughest thing about being a well-known athlete?
A . I don’t think of myself as different from anybody else. I just do my thing, go to class and go home. I treat everybody with respect, but I try to keep to myself.
Q. What’s the challenge of social media for an athlete?
A. You try not to say too much. People will try to heckle you, but I don’t respond to that. I Tweet about our fans after the games, though, but mostly I keep to myself.
Q. Can you get distracted by social media?
A. It can be a distraction if you respond. When people are behind closed doors on their own computer, they try to say what they want, but if you don’t respond, they get nothing out of you. The easiest way for me is to stay to myself.
Q . If you had a roast for coach Jim Hayford, what would you talk about?
A. Probably his fancy suits. He thinks it’s swag. But I like them – they’re cool.
A. When people don’t get treated with respect. I like to get treated with respect, and when see other people not getting treated with respect, that a pet peeve of mine. And I don’t like bullying. If I see that, I’ll say something.
Q . What do you like best about Cheney?
A . Definitely not the weather. Probably the community part of it. It definitely is a community, I really feel like it’s a community out here.
* This story was originally published as a post from the blog "SportsLink." Read all stories from this blog