The biggest news around Cambridge in recent weeks has been Jeremy Lin, the Harvard economics graduate who has shocked the National Basketball Association by rising overnight from "nowhere" to become a genuine star, leading a losing New York Knicks team to an unlikely string of victories.

Lin's success is delicious, partly because it contradicts so many cultural prejudices about Asian-American athletes.

Flabbergasted experts who overlooked Lin have been saying things like "he just didn't look the part." Lin's obvious integrity and graciousness has won him fans outside the sport as well.