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David Crisp (far right) with teammates from the 2014-2015 National Prep Championship team: Justin Simon (St. John’s University); Jalen Adams (UConn); and Donovan Mitchell (Louisville).
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My Postgraduate Year David Crisp reflects on his year as a Bobcat
Temperatures dipped into the mid-20s in Seattle for the better part of the first week of January, causing locals unfamiliar with consistent periods of colder weather to act like the next ice age had arrived. David Crisp, who spent the 2014-2015 school year as a postgraduate student at Brewster Academy, and is now a 6-foot sophomore guard for the University of Washington men’s basketball team, faces below-average temperatures in Seattle with a laugh these days. “I thought it was cold here before I went to prep school,” said Crisp, unable to hold back a smile that lit up the room. “When I went up there, the cold’s just like a completely different thing. I might feel cold now, but this isn’t cold.” It wasn’t just climate at the Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, private school that took a little getting used to for Crisp, who helped Rainier Beach High School in Seattle to its third-straight Class 3A state championship the year before arriving on the banks of Lake Winnipesaukee. Crisp, who graduated high school at 17, had already made his commitment to play college ball in his hometown at Washington, but he was about to be challenged like never before, both on the court and in the classroom. “I think being 3,000 miles away from home would be a challenge for any kid, compounded by the fact he was about to come into the prep school basketball and really the whole prep school experience for the first time,” said Jason Smith,
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BY MICHAEL HEINBACH ’92
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38 Brewster head boys’ basketball coach and associate director of admission. “That’s going to be pretty daunting for anyone. But for D.C., he flew in on Friday, and I picked him up. We got him set in his dorm on Saturday, and we had our very first conditioning (practice) at 6 a.m. the next day on Sunday. So he was running for about two hours before a regimented day of orientation right off the bat.” When Crisp speaks of his decision to take a postgraduate year at Brewster rather than go directly from Rainier Beach across town to UW, he sounds confident he made the right choice, not that he’s likely often accused of lacking confidence. “Going out there to prep school, I really didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “My whole life when I was growing up, I was always a year younger than anyone else in the grade I was in. In eighth grade, I wanted to reclassify, but my parents said to just be patient and see how it plays out. “So, I decided I didn’t want to go to college young – I would’ve been only 17 starting out and I just decided that I wasn’t going to do that. I talked to my parents and my AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) coach and they talked to me about Brewster, and I got introduced to Coach Smith. He’s just such a great guy. I came out there and he took me under his wing. He’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever met.” Once settled at Brewster, Crisp quickly began to earn the respect of the Brewster community – teammates, classmates, coaches, and teachers alike. Smith recalls that off the court, Crisp often drew a crowd of his peers. “He’s just got this infectious personality and people just tend to gravitate to a guy like that,” said Smith. “He’s a wonderful person that people like to be around. He’s fun and gregarious, but he knows when to draw the line. He always knew when it was time to be serious.” Crisp nearly seamlessly navigated the transition from being one of the focal points of his Rainier Beach Left: After a postgraduate year at Brewster, David Crisp ’15 returned home to play for the University of Washington. Below: David Crisp with friends and teammates Jalen Adams and Jarred Reuter at the Class of 2015 Lobster Bake.
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Crisp nearly seamlessly navigated the transition from being one of the focal points of his Rainier Beach team to an unselfish cog on a Brewster squad loaded with top-flight Division I college commitments and its sights set on a national prep championship. team to an unselfish cog on a Brewster squad loaded with top-flight Division I college commitments and its sights set on a national prep championship. Included among the schools Crisp’s former BA teammates are currently playing at are Louisville, Connecticut, Georgetown, and Arizona. “Coach Smith always kept it real with me,” Crisp said. “Even sometimes, when I didn’t want to hear some stuff … he’d still call me on it, but you could tell it was always in a real caring way. He just wanted the best for me and he wanted me to demand the best from myself.” But as much as he focused on basketball while at Brewster, Crisp also met the academic challenges he faced in his new setting head on. “I’m just really thankful that I went there. That was huge for me because academically, I didn’t really feel strong going into college,” Crisp said. “When I went to Brewster, they were pretty strict on the academics, and I really developed good study habits and all that off the court.” Brewster won both the New England and National Prep championships in the 2014-2015 school year as Crisp averaged 12 points a game with 62 assists on the season. He shot 46 percent from the field and 40 percent from 3-point range, which led Crisp to be ranked as the 17th best point guard in the country and the No. 2 guard in New Hampshire heading into his freshman year of college to play for head coach Lorenzo Romar at Washington. Last year, Crisp played in all 34 of the Huskies’ games as a freshman and averaged 7.2 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 1.6 assists in 21.4 minutes per game. As of January 13, in the early stages of this year’s Pac-12 Conference slate, Crisp’s scoring average had nearly doubled to 14.2 points per game. But the midpoint of the season had brought Washington its fair share of struggles.
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Entering a January 7 home game against conference-foe Oregon State University, the Huskies stood at 7-7 overall and 0-2 in Pac-12 contests, which led to a team meeting the night before. That night, Crisp took the floor and reminded his teammates they would face an Oregon State team the next day that handed UW arguably its most painful defeat of the previous season on a buzzer-beater, which likely spelled the end of the Huskies’ NCAA tournament hopes for that season. “I’m still holding on to that memory from last year when we played at Oregon State,” Crisp said. “Anyone who saw that remembers how it ended up. We know that game possibly cost us a tourney run, so I definitely had that on my mind. I brought it up with everybody to make sure everybody knew.” When told Crisp had addressed the team in its meeting, Smith was the least bit surprised. “I think winning was very important to that entire team D.C. played on here,” said Smith. “That year we only lost one game, and we played that team a couple of more times that season and really took it to them. David’s a very competitive person with a desire to win and play hard doing it.” Watching Crisp warm up prior to tipoff against Oregon State, it was hard to tell he had his mind set on revenge and helping the Huskies avoid an 0-3 Pac-12 start. Through stretching, layup drills, and a shoot-around, Crisp appeared almost too relaxed – oftentimes dancing to the music blaring from the P.A. and flashing his grin toward his Husky teammates. “I think any successful team needs a little personality,” Smith said. “Basketball is a long season and you have to have the ability to keep the clubhouse loose.” Crisp said that’s just the kind of guy he is. “My spirit, it’s a happy spirit,” he said. “Any time I hear music, I might be dancing. That’s just who I am. I feel like I can have fun and still be locked in at the same time.” Once the game got underway, Crisp was nearly all business. Against an Oregon State team hampered by injuries, UW battled past a slow start to surge to a 15-point halftime lead. The undisputed highlight had been Crisp’s no-look, alley-oop pass to senior forward Malik Dime, who threw it down with a thunderous, two-handed dunk that brought the home crowd of 7,781 at Alaska Airlines Arena to its feet. When it was over, Crisp had earned his first collegiate double-double, having collected 14 points and 10 assists in UW’s 87-61 win. After facing the media, one of only two Huskies chosen to participate in the team’s postgame press conference, Crisp was just as happy to speak about his Brewster experience as he was talking about the game.
David Crisp ’15 earned his first collegiate doubledouble, having collected 14 points and 10 assists in the Huskies’ 87-61 win over Oregon State in January.
“Coach Smith texts me after almost every game, both him and Coach (Josh) Lee,” Crisp said. “It means a lot that they still stay in contact with me. It shows they really care about me as a person and not just a basketball player. “And I’m just so thankful for that opportunity I got at Brewster. I love all those guys I encountered when I was there, and I know we all wish each other the best in our future endeavors. It was a special time, and I’m really thankful I went there.” Michael Heinbach, a 1992 graduate of Brewster, is a reporter with the Shelton-Mason County Reporter in Shelton, Washington.
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