Stroke of Genius

Yes, he is from Canada, but no, sophomore Laurent Rivard is not a hockey player.

“People ask me that all the time,” Rivard says. “I used to play [hockey] in the park and with my dad, and the game is fun, but ... I’m all about basketball.”

Ever since he put up 12 points against Mercer in his Harvard debut last season, the 6’5 Quebec native has kept Harvard fans captivated with the sight of a Canadian dominating on the court—and not the ice.

Last season, Rivard averaged 11 points per game and led the Crimson in three-pointers with 61, third best in the Ivy League. With his long shooting range, Rivard is again poised to be a major offensive threat for Harvard this year.

“He’s a terrific long-distance shooter, and I told him there’s probably only one better shooter in this town—and that’s Ray Allen,” Crimson coach Tommy Amaker says.

Growing up in Saint-Bruno, Quebec, Rivard was likely expected to take up hockey. But with a former basketball player for a father and a mother with significant connections to Canada’s national basketball league, Rivard broke the norm.

At the age of seven, Rivard picked up an early passion for both basketball and mountain biking. Growing up, he spent nearly every Saturday dividing his time between the court and the race track.

As he grew older, Rivard, a natural athlete, excelled in both sports. After winning the Canadian national championship for mountain biking, Rivard was invited to suit up for the U-17 Canadian National Team.

At that young age of 15, Rivard had to make a difficult decision between his two passions: mountain biking and basketball. While his decision is now clear, it was a pivotal one.

“I really miss [biking],” Rivard says. “When I go home, I still train on my road bike for stamina. But it’s always something I can go back to again, even after basketball. My dad still does it, and he loves it.”

A major factor in Rivard’s decision to stick with hoops was the greater opportunities available to young athletes in the sport. And shortly after he made the full-time commitment to basketball, those chances quickly presented themselves.

In his junior year of high school, after being spotted at an American basketball tournament, Rivard was asked to play for Massachusetts’s Northfield Mount Hermon Preparatory School, where he would eventually be heavily recruited by Harvard and other American universities.

But the transition to the United States, at least at first, was less than seamless. A native French speaker, Rivard struggled with his sudden immersion into an entirely English-speaking environment.

“My junior year of prep school, it was pretty tough,” Rivard says. “[On my first day], my first class was a U.S. History class, and we had to read George Washington’s Farewell Address. I called home, and I was like ‘Ma, I’m not going to be able to do it.’ But I eventually eased into it and people helped me a lot.”

Although the language barrier proved to be an unavoidable obstacle in Rivard’s academics, it was an even bigger challenge throughout the recruiting process.

“It was tricky. Coaches would ask me a question, and I couldn’t really say what I really wanted to say,” Rivard recalls. “It was hard to say what I wanted.”

Now a sophomore in Cabot House, Rivard, who still struggles with the occasional word choice or French-to-English translation, distinguishes himself as not just a basketball star with a knack for French, but also one with a knack for computer science.

The son of a software translator, Rivard began studying computer science in high school, but his enthusiasm for the field only blossomed once he reached the university level of study.

Despite the notorious amount of work assigned within the concentration and Rivard’s loaded practice and lift schedule, he remains committed to computer science and will officially declare it as his concentration later this month.

“CS is something I enjoy doing,” Rivard says. “For me, it’s not a pain in the ass. It’s definitely time consuming, especially considering that time is what I don’t have. But I just have to be focused.”

Amaker believes that if Rivard applies the same work ethic to his programming as he does basketball, he will excel in both.

“Laurent has an incredible capacity for work,” Amaker says. “He’s going to work, or out-work, probably everyone he faces this season.”

While Rivard hopes to program iPhone apps later this school year and into next summer, he still has a potential Ivy League title and NCAA tournament bid to focus on for the time being.

Even for an athlete with such a varied background, that should keep him well-occupied.

—Staff writer Patrick Galvin can be reached at pgalvin@college.harvard.edu.