Patrick Ewing nearly went to UNC if not for the KKK?

[nmduke2001]

Interesting story by Ewing on how a chance meeting at his hotel during his official visit to UNC swayed his decision.



http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ba...221522599.html

[DukeAlumBS]

Great timing, more like a cherry on top now with their problems at UNC. Nice day, Jimmy

[oldnavy]

Well, not proud that the Klan held a rally in NC, but I can say that I am happy that Patrick went to Georgetown instead of UNC.

He would have made UNC almost unbeatable and perhaps the best college team of all time?

However, I get the sense that he is slightly tounge in cheek for the reason, since he was also "frightened" by the sound of crickets!

[OldPhiKap]

The hits just keep on coming.

[CameronBlue]

The hits just keep on coming.

They do? Hey anything to rain on UNCs parade but it wasn't as if his his next words were going to be

"So I decided to go to Duke instead." Yeah yeah I get the UNCs agony is our moment of quiet contentment but bridging the cultural divide has often been a bridge too far for Duke in years past.

...on the other hand. Blah ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[-bdbd]

When I was an undergad in the early/mid-80's one of my fraternity brothers was a manager on the Duke BB team. I recall him sharing a story that Ewing had shown some early interest in a (very) young, new coach at Duke by the name of Krzyzewski. Story was that Ewing, who was known to have some learning issues - I think he had a degree of dyslexia or some such - was rejected by the Duke Admissions office before the recruitment really went very far. Probably a very long shot, but can you imagine how that would have changed history if K had landed Patrick in his early days at Duke??

[wilko]

We should plant and post assorted club meetings and drug checkpoint signs in Chapel Hill for every UNC recruiting visit.

[DukeAlumBS]

When I was an undergad in the early/mid-80's one of my fraternity brothers was a manager on the Duke BB team. I recall him sharing a story that Ewing had shown some early interest in a (very) young, new coach at Duke by the name of Krzyzewski. Story was that Ewing, who was known to have some learning issues - I think he had a degree of dyslexia or some such - was rejected by the Duke Admissions office before the recruitment really went very far. Probably a very long shot, but can you imagine how that would have changed history if K had landed Patrick in his early days at Duke??

This is very interesting, goes to Georgetown instead of UNC because he had a learning problem. Thank you for sharing.
Nice day

[grit74]

I understand the speculation. But, UNC in 1982 had Worthy, Perkins, Jordan, and other high value recruits(Peterson was NC POY); in 1983 they had Jordan, Perkins, and Daughtery, and the rest of the cast; in 1984, they had Jordan and added Wolf, Popson, Kenny Smith and, again, other notable recruits.

Despite that talent, in those three years they won one ACC Championship, and one NCAA national championship in the only Final Four in those years. Their regular season performances were outstanding.

Ewing would have elevated the talent. But, if the actual UNC teams were beatable, they would still be beatable with Ewing added.

Ewing at UNC would not be Ewing at Georgetown. Dean would not allow it.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

When I was an undergad in the early/mid-80's one of my fraternity brothers was a manager on the Duke BB team. I recall him sharing a story that Ewing had shown some early interest in a (very) young, new coach at Duke by the name of Krzyzewski. Story was that Ewing, who was known to have some learning issues - I think he had a degree of dyslexia or some such - was rejected by the Duke Admissions office before the recruitment really went very far. Probably a very long shot, but can you imagine how that would have changed history if K had landed Patrick in his early days at Duke??

Might have eventually had a successful run as Duke's head coach. (sorry, not busting your chops, just couldn't help myself!)

[Dev11]

Probably a very long shot, but can you imagine how that would have changed history if K had landed Patrick in his early days at Duke??

Yeah, we probably could have snagged Greg Monroe down the line!

[lotusland]

This is very interesting, goes to Georgetown instead of UNC because he had a learning problem. Thank you for sharing.
Nice day

And depsite his learning disability and his reticence about the Klan in North Carolina, and even despite the fact that he went to Georgetown instead, he still managed to walked away from his recruiting visit with a degree in African American Studies from Carolina

[Olympic Fan]

Just thought I'd mention that one of the enduring myths I keep hearing from Duke haters is how barbarically Patrick Ewing was treated when he visited Cameron. Supposedly, the Crazies taunted him with signs that suggested he was a baboon and that several students turned out with fake long gorilla arms ... oh those racist Crazies ...

Of course, there is a slight problem with that smear -- Ewing never played at Cameron. In fact, he never faced Duke during his career at Georgetown.

When I pointed that out to one hater, he backtracked and suggested that maybe it happened to Alonzo Mourning. Problem is he never played at Duke either, although he did face Duke twice -- once in the East Regional title game in 1989 and once in the old ACC-Big East Challenge in 1990, but that game was played in Landover, Md.

In other words, the racist treatment of Georgetown players by the Duke crowd at Cameron is a total fabrication.

There's some debate on another thread about the disconnect between a school's overall academic standing and it's athletic-academic standing. I would suggest that Georgetown in he 1980s had the greatest disconnect in modern times. A great school -- easily in the elite class of a Duke, Stanford, Northwestern or Vanderbilt -- that was represented by a basketball team that was an academic farce.

[NSDukeFan]

Might have eventually had a successful run as Duke's head coach. (sorry, not busting your chops, just couldn't help myself!)

He could have become the winningest coach ever.

[BD80]

He could have become the winningest coach ever.

Big deal. Maybe he could have had a reputation as a big man coach. That matters!

[Billy Dat]

This part of the article turned my head:

"Ewing: But you know, my first choice was Georgetown. That was my last visit. My second choice was UCLA, and that was my first visit. North Carolina was a great school and they had an outstanding coach in Dean Smith, and they had some outstanding talent. But even Dean Smith told me, "Patrick, if you're not going to come to North Carolina, you should go to Georgetown. Coach Thompson's an outstanding coach and you will learn a lot from him."

Can you imagine that happening today? Now, it's all a coach can do to make sure he gets in 3 nasty barbs about every competing program before the kids heads back home from his official vsiit. I'm not saying everyone does that, but it's likely more the norm.

Or, maybe Dean was just trying to shade UCLA because Larry Brown has just departed...

[Olympic Fan]

This part of the article turned my head:

"Ewing: But you know, my first choice was Georgetown. That was my last visit. My second choice was UCLA, and that was my first visit. North Carolina was a great school and they had an outstanding coach in Dean Smith, and they had some outstanding talent. But even Dean Smith told me, "Patrick, if you're not going to come to North Carolina, you should go to Georgetown. Coach Thompson's an outstanding coach and you will learn a lot from him."

Can you imagine that happening today? Now, it's all a coach can do to make sure he gets in 3 nasty barbs about every competing program before the kids heads back home from his official vsiit. I'm not saying everyone does that, but it's likely more the norm.

Or, maybe Dean was just trying to shade UCLA because Larry Brown has just departed...

Happens all the time.

Coaches often jump in on kids they know they're not going to get to try and negatively recruit one school. Dean was a master at it. He famously told Jeff Ruland, if you don't go to UNC, you ought to go play for Iona ... doing his best to keep him from going to Kentucky. Dean figured that Ruland at Iona would never ben a threat ... at Kentucky, he'd have to play against him.

I sometimes wonder if Roy hasn't learned from the master. We've noted before how often he jumps in on prospects after Duke has targeted them. No proof, but I wonder if his main goal in many cases isn't to try and steer a kid away from Duke? For instance, unless Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones break up, he's wasn't getting Okafor because UNC already has a quality point guard in that class (Joel Berry) and they aren't recruiting Jones. So why did he waste time with Okafor (UNC was only recently dropped from his list)? Well, he might have thought he could break the two of them up and land the best big man in the country. Or he may have been angling for the chance to whisper in the kid's ear, "If you don't want to go to UNC, you ought to play for Jim O'Brien at Ohio State -- look at the success he's had with big men. You don't want to go to Duke and just set screens."

I was at the induction of NFL Hall of Famer Bobby Bell to the NC Sports Hall of Famer in 1987. Bell, a native of Shelby, was explaining how he would up at Minnesota. He was originally going to Notre Dame, but the North Carolina coaches, who knew what a beast he was and unable to recruit him themselves due to the color line, helped steer him to Minnesota. Why? Because they had to play Notre Dame during the time when Bell would have been there ... they didn't play Minnesota.

I will add this about Dean and Ewing and John Thompson. There was a genuine bond between Dean and Thompson that dated back to when Thompson was a high school coach and the ward of prep All-American Donald Washington. While recruiting Washington, Dean got very close with Thompson. He helped him get the Georgetown job. He made him an assistant coach on the 1976 Olympic team. His advice to Ewing was probably genuine -- he did like Thompson that much.

[MCFinARL]

Just thought I'd mention that one of the enduring myths I keep hearing from Duke haters is how barbarically Patrick Ewing was treated when he visited Cameron. Supposedly, the Crazies taunted him with signs that suggested he was a baboon and that several students turned out with fake long gorilla arms ... oh those racist Crazies ...

Of course, there is a slight problem with that smear -- Ewing never played at Cameron. In fact, he never faced Duke during his career at Georgetown.

When I pointed that out to one hater, he backtracked and suggested that maybe it happened to Alonzo Mourning. Problem is he never played at Duke either, although he did face Duke twice -- once in the East Regional title game in 1989 and once in the old ACC-Big East Challenge in 1990, but that game was played in Landover, Md.

In other words, the racist treatment of Georgetown players by the Duke crowd at Cameron is a total fabrication.

There's some debate on another thread about the disconnect between a school's overall academic standing and it's athletic-academic standing. I would suggest that Georgetown in he 1980s had the greatest disconnect in modern times. A great school -- easily in the elite class of a Duke, Stanford, Northwestern or Vanderbilt -- that was represented by a basketball team that was an academic farce.

Ewing was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse, but it was mostly within the Big East, and it likely started in his own backyard, when local fans and sportswriters were disappointed that he chose Georgetown over Boston schools and began openly questioning whether he was qualified to be a college student. http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/...936459?pgno=2

Why Duke haters would attribute this to Duke fans, other than their general ignorance and distorted world view, I can't say, but it doesn't especially surprise me. If you want to think bad things about someone or something it's pretty easy to distort the facts to fit your preconceived notions.

As for "academic farce," it's true there was a big gap between the academic qualifications of Georgetown basketball players and those of the general student body. But give John Thompson the credit he is due--he made sure his players got academic support (and my impression is it was actually academic support, not someone to do their work for them) and most of them got degrees. By comparison, many basketball programs at less academically prestigious schools in those pre-APR days didn't pay a lot of attention to whether their players were actually on track to graduate, as long as they were doing whatever was minimally required to stay eligible.

[sagegrouse]

Ewing was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse, but it was mostly within the Big East, and it likely started in his own backyard, when local fans and sportswriters were disappointed that he chose Georgetown over Boston schools and began openly questioning whether he was qualified to be a college student. were actually on track to graduate, as long as they were doing whatever was minimally required to stay eligible.

Here are the money quotes from the Daily News article:

The animosity continued at Georgetown. In Philadelphia, Villanova fans raised a sheet that read "Ewing is an ape.

" Another fan wore a T-shirt that said "Ewing kant read dis.

" Someone threw a banana peel on the court. In Providence, Hoyas coach John Thompson pulled his team off the floor until a sign that said "Ewing can't read" was removed. At the Meadowlands, another sign read "Think, Ewing, think.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/...#ixzz2WJzjZ6aW

IMHO (where the H is silent) the behavior by students against Ewing reflects the Big East in all its glory. I hope the Big Ten enjoys the sportsmanship from Rutgers and our own Big-East-like contribution to the midwest, Maryland.

Here's an apology from the Rutgers AD for the student against Navy in football a few years ago:

"No student-athlete should ever be subject to profane language directed at them from the crowd, and certainly not the young men of the Naval Academy who have made a commitment to serve our nation in a time of war," McCormick wrote.

And what the Rutgers students did was no worse than the chanting of the Maryland students against Duke; it became an issue when a sportswriter pointed out that the objects of derision were going to be defending the USA within months or years.

I also seem to recall that Boston high school students were on Ewing even before he committed to Georgetown.

sagegrouse

[sagegrouse]

Ewing was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse, but it was mostly within the Big East, and it likely started in his own backyard, when local fans and sportswriters were disappointed that he chose Georgetown over Boston schools and began openly questioning whether he was qualified to be a college student. were actually on track to graduate, as long as they were doing whatever was minimally required to stay eligible.

Here are the money quotes from the Daily News article:

The animosity continued at Georgetown. In Philadelphia, Villanova fans raised a sheet that read "Ewing is an ape.

" Another fan wore a T-shirt that said "Ewing kant read dis.

" Someone threw a banana peel on the court. In Providence, Hoyas coach John Thompson pulled his team off the floor until a sign that said "Ewing can't read" was removed. At the Meadowlands, another sign read "Think, Ewing, think.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/...#ixzz2WJzjZ6aW

IMHO (where the H is silent) the behavior by students against Ewing reflects the Big East in all its glory. I hope the Big Ten enjoys the sportsmanship from Rutgers and our own Big-East-like contribution to the Midwest, Maryland.

Here's an apology from the Rutgers AD for the student against Navy in football a few years ago:

"No student-athlete should ever be subject to profane language directed at them from the crowd, and certainly not the young men of the Naval Academy who have made a commitment to serve our nation in a time of war," McCormick wrote.

And what the Rutgers students did was no worse than the chanting of the Maryland students against Duke; it became an issue when a sportswriter pointed out that the objects of derision were going to be defending the USA within months or years.

I also seem to recall that Boston high school students were on Ewing even before he committed to Georgetown.

sagegrouse