The University of Richmond's first basketball team played in 1913. It’s a fairly safe bet the Spiders never previously had a Yale graduate in the rotation. And Noah Yates, who graduates Monday from Yale with an economics degree, is expected to be a two-year player at UR. He turns 22 in August.
The strange tale of Yates, a 6-foot-5, 195-pound forward known for his 3-point shooting, begins with an overused right pitching elbow. Yates required surgery as a junior at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant Beach High School. A screw was used to repair the stress fracture.
Yates had been primarily a baseball player, part of the travel-team circuit.