{"id":44545,"date":"2017-04-03T19:56:23","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T23:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44545"},"modified":"2020-07-31T19:56:32","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T23:56:32","slug":"settling-on-second-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44545","title":{"rendered":"Settling on second best"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-44546 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/gtown_ewing.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/gtown_ewing.jpg 400w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/gtown_ewing-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I know baseball just started today, and naturally the Braves begin the season with a loss, in spite of a pretty impressive pitching duel being Julio Teheran and Noah Syndergaard, but if there was one sports headline that caught my attention more than anything else, it was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaab\/bigeast\/2017\/04\/03\/patrick-ewing-georgetown-coach\/99988542\/\">announcement made by Georgetown University<\/a>, declaring that the next coach of the once-vaunted Hoyas, would be none other than Georgetown alum, and former NBA player, Patrick Ewing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I know that Patrick Ewing basically carried the Hoyas to their only national championship back in like 1984, so I get why they think that he has the pedigree to lead the school\u2019s basketball program into a renaissance, but I don\u2019t really think that they really thought about what his career amounted to after he left Georgetown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I won\u2019t deny that I was a gigantic Knicks fan back in the 90s, and at one point I even had a Patrick Ewing jersey. \u00a0But there\u2019s also no denying the sheer amount of failure endured by Patrick Ewing throughout his professional career; losing the 1994 NBA Finals, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oq3nvSyuWEg\">missed finger roll<\/a> in 1995, watching the Knicks flourish in his injury absence in 1999 and making the NBA Finals, only to lose as soon as he was reactivated to play, and about the 766 times he was tormented and owned by Michael Jordan and\/or the Chicago Bulls throughout his career.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Make no mistake, there\u2019s pretty much nobody in the history of basketball that symbolizes failure, falling short, dashed expectations and broken dreams more than Patrick Ewing.\u00a0 I wanted Patrick Ewing to get an NBA ring more than anyone back in those days, as a member of the Knicks.\u00a0 But year after year, the ring never came, and the window of opportunity opened and shut in the span of my formative years.\u00a0 I watched MJ crush his hopes, then Hakeem Olajuwon, then Reggie Miller.\u00a0 And then Tim Duncan showed up and emerged to stamp nails into his Knicks career before he started bouncing around the NBA to teams like Seattle and Orlando.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">And then even after his career, he would continue to get tormented by Michael Jordan, who had transitioned into an ownership\/managerial role in basketball, and despite his best efforts, Ewing could never really amount to anything other than being a lowly-assistant coach or guy in a nice suit, sitting on the second row of the bench.\u00a0 MJ even personally denied Ewing the coaching gig for the Charlotte Hornets Bobcats Hornets, leading to an unprecedented incident of ownage nearly decades after their playing careers had ended.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Regardless, this is the guy that Georgetown felt that was best suited to take over the Hoyas basketball team.\u00a0 All because a long, long time ago, he was an outstanding player on the team that led the team to the pinnacle of its program\u2019s success.\u00a0 They even fired the descendant of the coach of the team that Ewing played for in 1984, to make room for Patrick Ewing.\u00a0 Sure, coaching ability isn\u2019t hereditary, but I\u2019d have to imagine that John Thompson III is probably better suited to coach basketball than Patrick Ewing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Whatever though, I can only surmise that Georgetown has accepted the fact that their school might have some success in general wins and losses, but with Patrick Ewing at the helm, the best that they can possibly hope for, are crushing Final Four defeats, national championship runner-ups, and having rosters full of players who will be destined to get dunked on and posterized by guys, probably playing for the University of North Carolina.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Coach Patrick Ewing.\u00a0 lol, it\u2019s funny to think about, even after typing all these words.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know baseball just started today, and naturally the Braves begin the season with a loss, in spite of a pretty impressive pitching duel being Julio Teheran and Noah Syndergaard, but if there was one sports headline that caught my attention more than anything else, it was the announcement made by Georgetown University, declaring that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44545\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Settling on second best<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,45,52],"class_list":["post-44545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-basketball","tag-fail","tag-owned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44547,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44545\/revisions\/44547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}