'Linsanity' Brings Palo Alto Into the Spotlight

Palo Alto High School is getting national attention as the spotlight shines on New York Knicks star Jeremy Lin, who is now one of the school's most famous alumni.

Filmmaker Spike Lee, one of the team's biggest fans, wore Lin's former Paly jersey during Friday night's game against the New Orleans Hornets.

Lee had agreed to wear the jersey after hearing Lin's former high school basketball coach Peter Diepenbrock on a New York sports radio program. Diepebrock said he was coming to town to see some Knicks games and joked that his goal was to put Lin's jersey on Lee's back.

On Thursday, former Palo Alto High School player Chris Bobel flew to New York and delivered the jersey to Lee's people in advance of the game, and Diepenbrock's offhand comment became a reality.

"They did lose that game, but it was still pretty neat to see Spike wearing the high school jersey," Bobel said.

Bobel was also at Friday's game, sitting with some of Lee's friends, and wore his own former high school jersey.

"As I was walking around wearing my Palo Alto jersey, people were asking, how can they get one?" Bobel said.

Someone even asked if they could have his, but Bobel declined, saying he had earned it by playing.

"They were just asking where they could get Palo Alto stuff," he said.

Bobel, who was a few years ahead of Lin in school, didn't get to chat with Lin himself and had to fly back to the Bay Area today, missing out on a lunch with Lin and a group of former Paly players who had traveled to New York over the weekend.

"They're all having lunch with him right now," Bobel said by phone during a midday layover in Philadelphia.

He said he coached freshman basketball at Palo Alto High School when Lin was a junior, and now works for the startup Box.com. Bobel said the Palo Alto basketball community is small, and that he enjoyed the reunion and the excitement of watching Lin play. "It was a good chance for a lot of us to see each other," he said.

— Bay City News

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