Toledo High School senior Chris Harvey has reached another illustrious milestone.
Harvey banked his 4,000th career half-court basketball shot on Monday as his family and classmates looked on. The achievement comes about eight months after Harvey hit his 2,000th half-court shot, which earned him the nickname “Mr. 2000.”
Much like his previous feat, Monday’s record-breaking shot took place during a student body-wide assembly, complete with a mock ESPN crew to conduct a postgame interview.
“We declare this in the Guinness Book of World Records, and dare someone else try to beat that,” school Principal Martin Huffman said.
After the record-breaking shot, Harvey received a plaque, a medal and a shirt featuring his new nickname: “Mr. 4,000.”
“It feels good, it’s been a long wait,” Harvey said. “It’s been awesome.”
During the 2022-2023 school year, Harvey banked 1,787 half-court shots, Huffman said. Last year, on the final day of school, he made more than 70.
Harvey’s pace this year has been equally impressive. After hitting his 2,000th shot on Sept. 21, Harvey doubled his total in just 242 days, which averages about eight made shots each day, including holidays and weekends.
“It was awesome. I can't thank the team at Irys Deaguero racing enough,” Harvey said after the shot. “They did a heck of a job getting me warmed up. I love my manager very much.”
For comparison, ESPN estimates the odds of making a half-court shot to be about 1%. Between the 2000 and 2016 seasons, players in the National Basketball Association attempted 6,255 shots from half-court and made 165 of them, a success rate of 2.64%. Jamal Crawford and Steph Curry are tied for the most half-court shots during regulation in NBA history at six.
While he needed 17 makes Monday to officially reach the milestone, Harvey left little doubt he would do so.
“What do you have to say to the doubters, to the people that don’t think you can succeed? You’re out here proving them wrong, what do you have to say?” a mock ESPN announcer asked Harvey.
“Thank you,” he responded.
