Chris Bosh visits FIU, speaks to students during SPC lecture

Either learn about a player by analyzing his stats, or listen as he talks about his inspirations and experiences.

Several hundred students experienced the latter as Chris Bosh, a power forward with the Miami Heat, came to the University on Thursday, Sept. 22 as part of the Student Programming Council’s lecture series.

The lecture, which took place in the auditorium of the School of International and Public Affairs building and cost SPC $20,000, had topics ranging from Bosh’s basketball motivations, those who inspire him and his college experiences.

However, it wasn’t a lecture in the traditional sense.

Instead of standing behind a podium speaking on one topic, Bosh sat on an armchair with an interviewer across from him and a crowd in front of him sprinkled with students wearing their Miami Heat #1 jerseys and shirts. The questions came from SPC and students who stood in line to receive their tickets.

Michael Katzmayr, vice president of campus relations for SPC and a sophomore architect major, asked the questions and was in charge of bringing Bosh to the University, a process which started during the summer.

The format, which Katzmayr said Bosh wanted, was intended to allow students to interact with Bosh, according to Lukas Calafell, president of SPC and a senior sociology major.

“By trying new things and seeing how successful they are we, know we have credible people who know what they’re doing,” Calafell said to Student Media.

While the audience responded when Bosh answered questions about living in and playing in Toronto versus Miami or general basketball questions – either laughing or applauding – they were silent when the questions got personal. At times silent for different reasons.

“At at any point did you ever want to give up?” Katzmayr asked.

“In college,” Bosh answered.

He said he, and most everyone else, are babied during high school. So as a native of Dallas, Tex., when he started attending college at Georgia Tech Institute of Technology, everything he had to deal with as a student-athlete came crashing down on him all at once.

“I was getting killed in practice, I wasn’t doing well in class but I thought I would and I was so far from home,” Bosh said. “So I sat there with my head in my hands and called my parents.”

The crowd was silent.

From that, Bosh said he learned to “stick with it even when things get difficult.”

“I could’ve complained. I could’ve quit because it was difficult. But I didn’t and things worked out.”

Things did work out for Bosh as the Toronto Raptors eventually drafted him when he was 19 as their fourth overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. Since then and throughout his 8-season career in the NBA Bosh gives credit to only one player as having the greatest influence on him. He did admit that player wasn’t well known, to say the least.

“Probably know one in this room knows this guy, but Darrick Martin,” Bosh said.

The crowd was silent.

Martin, a Raptor from 2005 to 2008, gets Bosh’s praise as the first person who instilled in him self-confidence.

“He was the first guy who helped me believe in myself,” Bosh said of Martin, a teammate for two and a half years.

Although Martin had the greatest influence, how Bosh plays is all his own.

“I don’t model my game after anyone,” Bosh said. “When I was little it used to be Kevin Garnett.”

Boos quickly followed Garnett’s name.

From minute one of the 45-minute Q&A and until Katzmayr got the “one more question” signal, students got to know the soft-spoken giant of their star-studded Miami Heat. And the format wasn’t an issue for them.

“I thought it was really good,” junior biology major Ana Rivas said. “Chris is really well-spoken, [and] I liked the way he answered.”

But Rivas wasn’t a fan of the one asking the questions, Katzmayr.

“I didn’t like the interviewer,” she said. “[His] questions were repetitive.”

Katzmayr later told Student Media it was he and Bosh’s first time in such a setting, but Rivas’ opinion did not sway even with considering from where the questions came.

“It was his delivery and his inability to flow from one question to another that made it sometimes feel awkward,” Rivas said.

SPC on the other hand is happy with the way the lecture went.

“I think it went well,” Calafell said. “The students responded well and they behaved.”