Disgusting

In 1985, the NBA held its first draft lottery ever in Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum (now the Hulu Theater). Without hesitation, the Knicks picked Patrick Ewing of Georgetown as their No. 1 pick. Ewing led Georgetown to the NCAA Championship game three of his four years there, winning it in 1984, and was one of the dominant college basketball players of the ‘80s.

The pre-Ewing Knicks “earned” entry into the lottery by winning 24 and losing 58 in 1984-85, and most believed Ewing could turn that record around.  One of them was Davey Rubin,* my colleague in the social studies department at Arabella Churchill Vocational High School in the Bronx. Davey was also a part-time lawyer who went to Fordham Law at night and was one inspiration for my decision to go there in 1983.

 Right after the Knicks drafted Ewing in 1985, Davey bought two season tickets in the upper deck. Over the years, he was able to improve the seats down to Section 204, just two levels up from what’s now known as “celebrity row.” But Davey was getting tired of going to lots of games and having to get rid of the rest of the tickets, so he asked me to help him join a group of four to share the two tickets per game.  By this time, I had graduated from Fordham, left teaching, and was practicing law full-time at a firm. I recruited a lawyer from there and a prominent criminal lawyer completed the quartet. The only condition was the tickets remained in Davey’s name – no problem for us because Davey was an honest, upstanding guy we trusted not to screw us.

Before each season in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, we had our own “draft” to determine who would get the games with the most desirable Knicks opponents, like Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls or the waning years of Magic’s “Showtime” with the LA Lakers. And Ewing turned out to be great, as Davey knew he would be.

There were about 80 games in the regular season, so sharing two seats four ways was not a problem before the playoffs.  But the post-season complicated things. In a four-of-seven-game series, it was impossible to tell how many available games there would be. The easiest solution was for each of us to go with another of the four, alternating each game. That way everyone was guaranteed at least one seat for a game.

We must remember this was a group of four lawyers, so inevitably complex negotiations arose when one of us wanted to bring someone other than the gang of four -- a wife, girlfriend, child, client, buddy from middle school, or college chum in for the week from Oregon. All contingencies and probabilities were carefully dissected in tense talks on this and other ticket subjects. Trades were proposed and rejected. Ancillary issues arose: Did the arrangement carry over into next year’s playoffs (if the team got there)? Was further consideration in the form of money involved? Some years, we barely avoided having to bring in a mediator or arbitrator from a neutral third-party firm. Despite the antics of some, Davey’s integrity always prevailed, so we were right about our initial decision.

That is, until Davey got married again. His new wife was in finance.  She saw her colleagues using tickets as a potential client perk, and wanted in. (Never worked for me, by the way, not even when I took a Chinese banker to a Linsanity game.)

Before a season in the early ‘00s, she said to Davey, “Hey, the tickets are still in your name, aren’t they? Why are you letting these schmucks use them?” Davey, appropriately apologetic, reluctantly gave us the news. But “we schumcks” were irate. We hit the books and came up with all sorts of arcane legal theories why she couldn’t do this. She was as unimpressed as we knew the courts would be. It looked like our asses would no longer be in those sweet Section 204 seats.

But then I told my mother – a Depression survivor, dancer who studied with Martha Graham, wife of a W.W. II vet, summer camp director and generally a formidable, though completely charming person.

And Mom said it was “disgusting.” Someone who marched for the Scottsboro Boys in the thirties would not stand for this.

I communicated her outrage to Davey, who transmitted it to his wife, who finally relented when faced with the power of a mother’s outrage, saying something like, “Geez. I didn’t think it meant so much to them.”

Never underestimate the power of a woman, especially a mother, from the Greatest Generation.

And so we got to see another decade of the Knicks playing terrible post Patrick Ewing basketball.

Thanks Mom,

*Names have been changed.