For any sports fan, the greatest experience is watching your favorite team play, the experience of actually seeing your beloved players in a surreal setting of lights, music, and fans that are your equal in passion.
Now imagine waiting nearly 21 years to see it happen.
For most of my life I have lived in Vero Beach, Fla. If you haven’t heard of it, I’m not surprised. If you have, I’ll say hi to your grandparents for you. The only problem with living in this tropical paradise is that it’s hundreds of miles from my favorite teams, most of which play in New York.
I’ve seen the Giants play a couple of times, but over the course of my life I had never seen the Knicks. So when my girlfriend told me she was getting me tickets for my birthday, needless to say I was slightly excited.
Living in a family of New Yorkers, I was brought up to love the Knicks and was never given the option to switch my allegiances. My dad and I would sit in our living room during playoff time and watch Ewing, Starks, Mason, and the rest of the crew from the mid-90s, him reminiscing, me asking questions.
Going to school the next day, I would deal with the Miami Heat fans giving me grief about how ugly Ewing was, how obnoxious New Yorkers are, and how ridiculous it was that I was actually a member of the Knickerbockers fan club.
All of this was going through my mind as I walked up Seventh Avenue with the mecca of sporting arenas standing majestically to my right. I thought of all the hours in front of the tube, all the grief from stupid Floridians, and all the times I wished that I were actually there.
The hustle and bustle of New York is personified in that slim separation between Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. That sweet stench of gas, cigarettes, and that strange urine-esque smell which oozes from the streets of New York was thick in the air, and one could almost feel the energy coming from the arena.
When I first stepped inside there were life-sized photos of Stephon Marbury, Penny Hardaway, and Dikembe Mutombo lining the walls. My only wish at that moment was that instead of Mutombo, his Georgetown predecessor Ewing was still around.
We found our seats among the New York proud, of course ridiculously early because I was incredibly anxious. I settled in and watched the players warm up, checking the countdown, second by drawn out second.
An entire gospel group came out and sang the national anthem; as I always do, I stood hat over chest and let my mind wander. I thought of how surreal it was to be there.
The player introductions were exciting, but I was the only one in my section that was going ballistic. I must have really looked like a first-timer as my eyes never left the court and the smallest no-call evoked a series of profanity that would have made Spike Lee proud.
After a first half which saw the Knicks score only 28 points against the always-bland Jazz, I was a little distraught. It didn’t register that my team was playing this bad while I was there; didn’t they know I was coming?
Then my attitude did a full 180.
Right as the final Frisbee-catching dog scampered off the court I sat back in my seat and waited for the second half to start. Just then I looked up at the Jumbotron and saw a message to me: “Bob McGovern, happy 21st birthday.”
I took a double-take, a triple-take, it just couldn’t register that my name was up there for all to see. I looked around as if anyone besides my date knew me, but of course no one did. It didn’t matter; it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
The rest of the game was filled with angry New York fans booing their team, chanting for Keith Van Horn to come back, and scoffing at Marbury’s pathetic percentage from the charity stripe. I was tearing myself up, it wasn’t the storybook first game that I wanted, and thought I deserved.
Then it hit me; maybe this is what I deserve. It was the side I had never witnessed before, I couldn’t just change the channel or throw the remote control across the room. The new Knicks were blowing it right in front of me, led by a lackluster performance by newly acquired Tim Thomas.
When the game was far enough out of reach, people began to hit the exits and I was getting mad at the mass exodus. I had waited my whole life for this and the group of three tourists in front of me decided to leave with 10 minutes left. And for what, to take a few more pictures of the Empire State Building?
On the drive home, we got stuck in some token New York traffic and I listened to WFAN, where callers were ripping up the Knicks. I sat and listened with images of the debacle fresh in my mind.
My allegiances never faltered and I’ve always backed the Orange and Blue through thick and thin. Somewhere between New Haven and Hartford everything hit me, and I realized that staying true to my team made the experience that much more amazing.
Bob McGovern is a Collegian columnist.
