Sometimes, to figure out where you are, you have to pull out an old book, dust it off, and look through it. So...hello. It's been *checks watch* 10 years. I guess we should catch up.
Since my last post in 2016, here's what's happened:
1. My divorce was finalized
2. I moved twice and did everything I could to keep my kids feeling comfortable and stable
3. I taught at 4 different schools and finally have a place that I feel wants me
4. I dated which was an adventure to say the least
5. The world went through COVID, the first Trump presidency, and we're in the second Trump presidency
6. I got engaged to a woman that loves my children, and they love her
7. My son started college, and my daughter is almost there
8. I navigated the post-divorce relationship with my ex-wife. (spoiler: it's been rough.)
9. My mother died
There's a lot for me to talk about on here, and I think in order to organize my emotions and thoughts, I will go through a lot of it in different posts. Tonight, however, I want to talk about something that most people wouldn't expect me to: The New York Knicks.
Wait, you're thinking, Leab, you have years of stories to tell with lots of things that happened to you, and you're going to talk about...sportsball? Really?
Yup. As the Knicks are maybe on the cusp of winning a championship for the first time during my lifetime, and as the team was important to my mother and sister, I want to talk about my love for the team.
See, here's the thing: In early 1986, at 8 years old, I went to my first Knicks game with my mother. At this time, the Knicks were...bad. They had just drafted Patrick Ewing (which some people thought was fixed), and they were trying to be good again. My mother got the tickets from a school raffle, and they were cheap. Who wanted to watch a bad team? So, on a Saturday (11/9, I still have the ticket stubs), my mother took me to watch the Knicks lose their 8th straight to the Bulls.
I was new to this. My father hated, HATED, sports, so he never talked about anything sports-related. I didn't know the Knicks were a bad team at the time. I also didn't think about the fact that Jordan wasn't playing. I would learn about that later when I saw him destroy the Knicks. He always seemed to destroy the Knicks. Chicago would win this game, but Patrick Ewing, the 1st overall pick, was amazing to watch. He was SO TALL too. Remember, I was 8. I also thought that Gerald Wilkins was the coolest at the time.
As the years went on, I would learn the heartbreak of being a Knicks fan as my oldest sister and I would go to games and until the 90s, we'd rarely see the Knicks win. We'd always hope though. That was the hard part of Knicks fan: there was always hope, and it was almost always dashed.
When Bill Cartwright was traded to the Bulls for Charles Oakley, my mother found her favorite player. Until the day she died, she was all about Oak. "I bet he's good to his mom," she would say. She would cheer when he'd knock a player off the court. When we went to a game in 1990, she would cheer the loudest for him.
Then the 90s with Riley came. Suddenly the Knicks were...good? We'd still see games where the Bulls would crush them. I cannot express how good Jordan was, and how frustrating as a Knicks fan (and how amazing it was as a basketball fan) to watch him just take over the game. That's why being at the game in '93 when Starks dunked was incredible. It was the loudest I ever heard the Garden, and the loudest I ever heard a sporting event until the Rangers in 1994.
The thing about Starks was he was a perfect example of the blue collar underdog Knicks fans see themselves as. Here was a guy who wasn't drafted, played in the CBA (Continental Basketball League. It no longer exists), tried to dunk on Ewing, the star of the team, during his tryout, the team couldn't cut him, and then he proved he should be the starting guard. The Knicks would actually live and die not by Ewing or their other players but by Starks. His cold game in the 1994 Finals would be part of the reason why the Knicks would lose the championship that year.
The thing about the 1994 final, however, was OJ. Trying to watch the Knicks in a tiny little corner of a screen as the station was showing Al Cowlings driving. It was so frustrating. My sister and I were like, "Is that Ewing scoring?"
"No, I think that's Mason."
Then the announcer, "Greg Anthony with the nice shot."
The Knicks would lose that year. Then they'd go to the finals again in '99...and lose. We kept hope, but the dark times were coming. There would be terrible teams with players no one could name.
However, they are one game away from winning championship this year. In my lifetime, I've seen the Mets, Yankees, Giants, Islanders, Rangers, and Liberty all win championships, but I've never seen the Knicks win. That could change tonight. If they do win, I can't share that with my mother as she passed in 2020, but I know she'd be so excited about this. I can share it with my sister, though, who even though she is in another country, loves this team. We both still have our orange "BRICK" signs from games we went to together. It's my hope the Knicks do get their championship. If they don't, I'll be sad, but it won't be the end of the world.
Go, New York, Go, New York, Go!
