Georgetown, North Carolina, Duke...epic battles in hugely entertaining games when Big Man Patrick Ewing was playing for John Thompson during the early ‘80’s at Georgetown. Patrick Ewing’s footprint on east coast basketball is huge. Perhaps the biggest ever. He was a magnificently strong, relentless, imposing, talented, and proud, but totally classy and sportsmanlike player who deserves every recognition he cold ever be given. An American original and a fine citizen of this country. No way anybody should take from this news story that he is anything different than he has always been. Go somewhere else if you’re looking for a scapegoat. No comparison to Spike Jones. Not in the least. Unless all you’re looking at is skin color.
I stood next to Patrick Ewing on the floor of the Carrier Dome back when I was a senior at SU in 84/85. He was so much bigger than Rony Seikaly that it was funny. Rony was 6’11” 230 lbs.
Ewing was 7’ pushing 300 lbs. Ewing used to push Seikaly around in the paint like he was a child.
I was 5’ 10” 150 lbs at the time. Ewing also seemed like a nice guy. Soft spoken. It was hard to hate him. Even as an Orangmen fan/Alumni. Damn Hoya’s
FYI, Seikaly also was a nice guy who worked his butt off to become a professional basketball player. He used to spend an hour/day just practicing free throws. In addition to his regular practice. He was also a pretty good student. Plus he spent a lot of time in the weight room trying to bulk up so that monsters like Ewing could not push him around as much.
I remember seeing Ewing give a post game interview in college, it might have been his first, and he seemed so nervous and scared he barely get any words out at all. He ended up being pretty articulate and a good interviewee as he matured.