Fletcher Tynen knew that basketball was what he wanted to do with his life since the third grade. Now a graduate student guard/forward at Boston University, Tynen faces a decision: to pursue or not to pursue professional basketball.
“I’ve tried to take the season as it comes, and deal with that after. I’ve been away from home for five years and I love the idea of moving back home. But obviously that means I would have to start working,” Tynen said. “There’s also the option of going to play overseas. But there’s always the thing of, now you’re doing this for money. Is it the same thing? Are you still gonna have that love for the game when you’re doing it for money?”
Tynen followed a similar basketball path to Schakel and the two intersected in high school: he started playing Asian League in Torrance and went on to play for Bishop Montgomery in high school. For the last 15 years, basketball has been the theme of his life.
“I go back and forth thinking, ‘is this all I am?’” Tynen said. “Thinking back to my life, it’s always been basketball, school, friends and family. I’ve never really known anything else in my life.”
In high school, Tynen’s team played against and defeated some notorious NBA names, including the Ball brothers, Bol Bol and Marvin Bagley III, to name a few. Tynen recalls his favorite basketball memory of all time as winning State Open Division and CIF-SS titles his junior year in 2017 before becoming team captain and earning All CIF-SS honors his senior year. In his junior season, Bishop Montgomery played at a sold out Galen Center in front of 10,000 people, cementing the era of California high school hoops as one for the books.
“College basketball is a different animal than high school… It’s a little bit harder to be more successful in college,” Tynen said. “All the old people say, ‘the basketball always stops dribbling.’ Reality hits you. Every kid grows up playing basketball thinking they’re going to the NBA or they’re going to be the next LeBron or next Kevin Durant.”
At Boston, Tynen has experienced ups and downs in his five years. His freshman, junior and graduate years resulted in losing records, while his sophomore and senior years ended above .500. In his sophomore season, the Boston Terriers won the Patriot League on March 11, 2020, punching their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. However, COVID-19 effectively shut sports down just days later and the March Madness tournament was canceled, evaporating Tynen’s only opportunity to play on the biggest stage.
Through all the wins and losses in Boston, Tynen is able to remind himself of why he continues to play basketball 15 years later.
“I’d tell my younger self to work on your three point shooting because that’s where the game is changing,” Tynen joked. “No, there’s certainly going to be hard days and days you don’t want to practice or work out, but just remember why you chose to play the sport and the love you have.”
Today, Tynen looks ahead to graduating with his Master of Science in Global Marketing Management in May, having already earned his bachelor’s in Advertising. Growing up alongside many now-professional players, Tynen has seen it all in terms of post-college careers.
“I’ve been around guys who have played NBA, G League, overseas, even started working right away out of college,” Tynen said. “It seems to me like so many people wish they could have done the opposite of what they did.”
While Tynen is still unsure where the future may take him, he has recently been learning to discover identity beyond basketball.
“It kind of makes you take a back seat and think about individually who we are, what your character is, what your purpose is in life,” Tynen said, “and that’s not just in basketball, but finding other things that you enjoy or that you care about.”