Princeton’s Blake Peters is the most interesting man in the NCAA Tournament
I was supposed to be talking to Blake Peters about helping underdog Princeton crash the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, but just a few minutes into an interview, I found myself channeling my inner Allen Iverson.
Basketball? We talkin’ bout basketball?!
There must be, oh, 50 more interesting topics to discuss that boring old sports with the Tigers sharpshooter. Like how he started playing the classical guitar as a kid (his favorite artist, if you’re curious, is Fernando Sor). Or how is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Or how his great grandfather was a World War II pilot. Or how on many mornings, despite the ribbing from his teammates, he picks up a copy of the Wall Street Journal from a Princeton newstand to read because “it’s a great way to spend two hours being productive.”
Peters is a college sophomore who — someone please catch me if I faint — reads an actual newspaper.
This, of course, is something a person should do when he wants to follow a career path that might eventually lead him to become Secretary of State. Imagine that. One of the best players on the current Princeton basketball team wants to embark on a career that might match the one of Princeton legend/former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.
“This is going to be a consequential century for America and the world in general,” Peters told me. “My goal is to be one of the next leaders in American foreign policy. We need reasonable people in those positions, and I’m hoping one day I can serve this country.”
And I’m supposed to ask him about (checks schedule) Creighton?
Even if the conversation did turn to basketball, what Princeton’s evisceration of March Madness brackets isn’t the most interesting thing he’s done on the hardwood. That came on Jan. 26, 2018, when Peters was playing for Evanston High in Illinois. His team was down two points to Maine South when he rebounded a missed free throw with two seconds left, dribbled twice and heaved an 80-foot prayer that caught nothing but net.
Peters was lucky to survive the wild human mosh pit that followed. He was nominated for an ESPY after a grassroots campaign, flew out to Los Angeles to walk the red carpet among the stars — quarterback Baker Mayfield, then the Heisman Trophy winner, even recognized him — and still had the self awareness to later observe, “I’m a loser if that’s all I’m remembered for in 30 years.”
Well, after just five, it’s already a footnote. He finished as Evanston’s all-time leading scorer with 1,585 points, and when he announced he would attend Princeton in June 2020, he eschewed the slick Instagram video for a two-page, single-spaced essay entitled “My Next Chapter” that he posted onto his Twitter page.
He didn’t play much as a freshman, but this season, he found an important role off the bench. He had a career-best 17 points with five 3-pointers in the blowout win over Missouri in the second round — not too shabby given he only played 15 minutes — and then did his best Kevin Garnett in the postgame interview on live television.
“ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!” he screamed.
And maybe it is. Can Princeton, one of the powerhouses of American education, really be a Cinderella? It is a fair question, and one that Peters has grappled with. The Tigers aren’t exactly like Saint Peter’s, the underfunded Jersey City school that reached the Elite Eight last year. But the Tigers, as part of the Ivy League, don’t get scholarships, either.
“It’s not necessarily a false narrative,” Peters said when asked about being underdogs. “Definitely, the world sees us like that, and when we played Arizona (in the first round) we considered ourselves to be underdogs. We played like our life was on the line. We’re going to come into Friday with this underdog mentality, but at the end of the day, we’re as good as anybody in college basketball and we’re going to continue to prove that.”
And when the postseason ends?
He’ll finish his sophomore year at Princeton, of course, which has already included classes in Shakespeare and Chinese politics. He’ll pursue an internship as required for his major, public and international affairs, at a non-profit or a government agency such as the state department. He’ll probably pick up the classical guitar again, or maybe he’ll add to his list of international travel destinations that already includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Greece, Israel and Kenya.
“I used to want to be a billionaire and all that, but now I realize once you are gone, all that money and stuff doesn’t mean anything,” Blake once told a Chicago website when he was just 16. “If you’ve left a mark on the world, then your impact will be felt long after you are gone. That means a lot more than having the most money or the most cars. It’s just about having a balanced life.”
The most interesting man in the NCAA Tournament has big plans, for the near and distant future. The includes an NCAA Tournament game on Friday night. You can even ask him about it, but chances are, you’ll find a more compelling topic.
