Athlete of the Week

ERIN I. LEWIS/YH Mike Barbaro, DC '02 Basketball Hometown: North Haven, Conn. Favorite book: Portnoy's Complaint Favorite sport: Body-building Role model: Richard Simmons Favorite number: 69 Favorite Food: Shake 'n' Bake Favorite color: Purple

Michael "The Berserker" Barbaro, DC '02, was once the finest schoolboy basketball player in the nation. After an orgasmic junior season during which the 6'1", 120-lb. Barbaro averaged an astonishing 54.6 points, 23.5 rebounds, and 14.9 assists for Hamden Hall, Jim Martin's Elite Recruiting Report listed him as the country's top guard. How did the Lilliputian Barbaro record such staggering numbers? Though his world-record 65" vertical leap and his 18-hour-a-day workouts with renowned personal trainer and ninja coach Yuki Tanagawa, DIV '69, helped greatly, he attributes most of his success to a less obvious source. "Jane Austen is just fabulous," he said. "Once I decided to pattern my game after the sentence structure in Northanger Abbey, things just seemed to flow." Duke, Stanford and Arizona all sent him letters—and Austen anthologies.

But behind this guise of serenity and skill lurks a monstrous medical curiosity. "I have a disease that makes me incredibly violent," he said. "The medical community doesn't completely understand it yet, but it can be controlled with high doses of lithium. Without the lithium, I'm a freakin' animal."

The family of Andre Betts still laments the fury and ferocity of said freakin' animal. Betts was the leading scorer for the Hopkins School, the main rival of Barbaro's alma mater, in 1998, when the two teams squared off for the league championship. With 4:23 remaining in the third quarter, Barbaro was called for a foul after slapping Betts' arm. This unleashed the beast. Barbaro first punched Betts, rendering him unconscious, and ripped out his still-beating heart and shot a mid-range jumper with it. He then performed a bizarre ritual that has been likened by commentators to the medieval Scandinavian blota, or blood sacrifice. "It was absolutely ridiculous," Roxanne Betts, Andre's mother, said. "He didn't even perform the blota correctly. When we do it at our house, we aren't that sloppy. It was so amateurish." Following this display, Barbaro flayed Betts' skin, St. Bartholomew-style, and threw it on an unsuspecting fan. "I surprised myself with that one," Barbaro said. The Beserker's career had come to an end.

Barbaro was charged with murder, but he was tried as a minor and released from prison on his 18th birthday. He liked the Whalley Avenue prison so much, however, that he was reluctant to leave. "While I was there, I read a lot of newspapers and fell in love with journalism," he said. Barbaro is now the editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News.

Despite his love for the media, basketball still has a place in Barbaro's heart. The Connecticut state law banning him from playing basketball was just repealed thanks to the efforts of State Senator Martin Looney. "I'm playing against the Herald this weekend, and my lithium is running low. All I can say is, 'Hide the wife and kids.'"

—Aaron Lichtig

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