Little known facts about Patrick Ewing could be hard to discover. When you are seven feet tall and weigh in at around 240 pounds as Patrick Ewing did during his playing years, it’s hard for people to miss a single step you take. That he was a great high school and college athlete are not little known facts about Patrick Ewing. The fact that he led his team and was a dominating player during his career days in the NBA are also not little known facts about Patrick Ewing. Still there are some little known facts about Patrick Ewing that continue to make him a figure of interest to young and not so young sports fans today.
High School Career It’s a pretty well known fact that Patrick Ewing played four years of college basketball at Georgetown University in Washington D. C. and that he played most of his professional career in New York City. One might guess that he went to high school in one of those two metropolitan areas. But one of the little known facts about Patrick Ewing is that he played his high school basketball hundreds of miles away from both D. C. and the Big Apple.
Patrick Ewing played high school basketball at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in the Boston, MA area where his statistics and his coach ( who coincidentally happened to be one Mike Jarvis who appeared much later as head coach at St. John’s in the Big East) both worked in his favor to get him some eyeballing from top coaches around the country. When Ewing made his choice to leave behind opportunities to play college ball in the Boston area and instead became an immediate impact player with the Hoyas at Georgetown, it was not without engendering a lot of hostility on the part of Boston area hoop enthusiasts.
Ewing’s departure from the Boston sports scene to work under the tutelage of Coach John Thompson was seldom seen by Boston fans as a wise move for a young man with professional potential but rather as a a selfish abandonment of Boston fans who had supported him and watched his development at Cambridge and Latin and hoped to see him shine at a more local college venue.
When Ewing agreed to play for Georgetown , he was also agreeing to play in the Big East Basketball Conference. This meant that once each year he would find himself with his team back in Boston playing against local Big East contender Boston College.
Ewing had decided wisely to play for Coach John Thompson , one time back up center to the legendary Bill Russell. Ewing spent four years learning to play the center position from arguably one of the best big man coaches in the nation. In return he endured the annual boo-fest at Boston College along with insulting posters and gratuitous verbal insults. It was never pretty for Ewing to play in Boston , but in the end Ewing became an extremely well paid NBA star, and the epithet hurlers , well they undoubtedly found other targets.
NBA All Star Most anyone who follows the NBA could tell you that Patrick Ewing was a force to be reckoned with in the lane. Most would also know that on more than one occasion during his illustrious career, Patrick Ewing was honored by being selected as an NBA All Star.
What is perhaps a little known fact bout Patrick Ewing is that the All Star caliber of his play was as consistent as the sunrise. In fact for ten straight years without interruption, Ewing was recognized as one of the NBA’s finest and named an NBA All star. If you watched an NBA All Star game in the years between 1988 and 1997 you would have heard Patrick Ewing’s name announced, every single year.
Being named an All Star in any professional sport means someone is recognized as having reached the pinnacle of his or her career. Retaining that recognition for ten consecutive years is literally the achievement of a Life Time Achievement Award. As with any professional athlete there are always other goals to be achieved and other records to be broken. For Patrick Ewing, winning a place as an NBA All Star for ten years in a row may have helped to compensate for anything else he might have missed along the way.
Patrick Ewing, Jr. Like many professional and public figures, Patrick Ewing had a private life that he seldom chose to share with the media. Still when you name your son Patrick Ewing ,Jr. and he turns out to be 6 ‘8 and weigh 240 lbs the cat may very well be out of the bag. Still one little known fact about Patrick Ewing is that he has a son who is about to begin playing basketball at Patrick’s alma mater, Georgetown University .
Patrick Ewing II began his college basketball career playing at Indiana, a basketball icon in its own right. But Patrick the younger eventually sought perhaps greater visibility playing in D.C., or the chance to see more playing time, or maybe the opportunity to work out and learn from other Georgetown big men who return most summers to help the young recruits catch on to Hoya Hoops – men like Othello Harrington, Alonso Mourning and even Dikembe Motombo
A little know fact about Patrick Ewing , Sr. is that when this year’s college basketball season gets under way his son, Patrick Jr., will be playing for Georgetown and he will be coached by John Thompson III, son of Patrick Ewing’s much beloved college coach. At Georgetown the Ewing’s and the Thompson’s have made basketball a truly family affair.
Happy Birthday Because he tended to be a private person, a little known fact about Patrick Ewing is that he he shares the same birth date with astronaut Neil Armstrong. The two men are quite different in size , race, interests and lifestyle., but there is a delicious similarity in that each in his own area of expertise has shown others how to take to the air and deliver. From a more serious perspective both have given young people great example of the value of hard work and dedication. Still the next time August 5 rolls around it will still be a little known fact that for Patrick Ewing and Neil Armstrong it’s a special day indeed.
Little known facts about Patrick Ewing, there aren’t many. He’s just too big to hide.
