The Sporting Life:
The Public Professor’s
Saturday Sports Column
In an earlier post I revealed the origins of my only foreign allegiance, my only rooting interest in a team not from New York City: the Pittsburgh Steelers. So now that football’s done for the year, let me talk a little bit about my loyalty to the Rangers and Knicks.
When I was a kid, baseball was Ichi Ban, Number One! Football was a solid but 
distant second, and basketball and hockey were largely irrelevant. They seemed like sports for doing, not watching. I had a one of those rubberized Spalding basketballs with a David Thompson signature; just a plain leather colored one, alas, not the red, white, and blue ABA model. I also had a street hockey stick (Bobby Clark) with a bright orange plastic-blade. I didn’t know Thompson was a former number one overall pick of both the ABA and NBA. Didn’t even know who Clark was. Eventually someone mentioned something about the Flyers. All I knew is that it was fun now and again to shoot some hoops and whack shit with a stick.
Now that I’m older, football has leapfrogged baseball, garnering the lion’s share of my attention, but that’s mostly because I like to gamble (shhhhh!). Basketball and hockey are still way behind, duking it out for a distant third, that is, when I’m not watching a boxing match. But when it comes time to pay attention to hockey and basketball, I do throw my support behind the Rangers and Knicks, even if it’s lackadaisical, so lets clear the air on why.
Back in the 7th grade I knew next to nothing about hockey. Something about guys on skates beating the living shit out of each other. There were two local teams (the 
Devils were still in Colorado), neither of which I cared about. Of the two, the Islanders seemed to be winning the Stanley Cup every year, and they had that awful TV commercial with highlight footage synchronized to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” which was very popular at the time. That, and they were Jay Hong’s favorite team.
Jay Hong was from North Riverdale, one of the new kids who had recently arrived in South Riverdale to attend J.H.S. 141. Jay seemed big for an Asian kid. Maybe he was a year older or something. Or maybe it’s just that I was skinny and still short for my age. Either way, he was a big buck. One day we were standing on line in the hallway, getting ready to leave, waiting for the three o’clock bell. I decided to wind him up a bit. Being a skinny, little loudmouth, I was good at that kinda thing.
“Hey Jay.”
“Yeah?”
“Islanders suck.”
He punched me in the arm. Hard. It hurt. “Don’t ever say that again. Every time you say that, I’m gonna punch you.”
“Islanders suck.” Bang! This time in the chest.
“Ow.”
That’s the way it went for several weeks. Rangers fan ever since.
And as for the Knicks? Again, at first I just didn’t care that much. Knicks? Nets? Basketball? Whatever.
Then in late January of 1979, I watched the NCAA championship game between Larry Bird’s Indiana State and Earvin “Magic Shoes” Johnson’s Michigan State. I was completely blown away by Johnson. Cool name, cool player, done deal: where ever he ended up, that’s the NBA team I would root for.
Wait a second Professor! I thought you said you’re a Knicks fan?
I am! Really!
Hey, c’mon, it was the 1980s. Everyone was wearing satin robes loosely draped around their banana hammocks, listening to cassette tapes of Night Ranger, free basing cocaine, and rooting for the Lakers. Or was that just Boogie Nights?
Anyway, that fling with the Lakers didn’t mean anything. It was a youthful indiscretion. Though clearly not as indiscreet as the fling that led Magic to catch Los SIDA. Ouch.
Eventually I grew up, got responsible, and married the team next door. True, I’m not
much of a husband, though in all fairness to me, the Garden ain’t much of a house and the Knicks and Rangers ain’t much to come home to. But hey, that’s what being a man’s all about, and you won’t see me jumping ship. At least not until the kids are through with college and the mortgage is paid off. Hot cha cha!
Then I’m running off to the Caribbean with the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Oklahoma City Thunder, if they’ll have me.
You can also find me every Saturday at Meet the Matts.