Patrick Ewing talks losing Olympic gold medals, why he didn't join Michael Jordan at UNC
It’s been a rough week for Patrick Ewing.
After “The Last Dance” highlighted Michael Jordan’s career dominance over his peer on Sunday, the Hall of Fame center revealed some bad news Tuesday on “The Dan Patrick Show.”
Thieves stole his Olympic gold medals. Or so he thinks.
Ewing won a pair of gold medals — one in 1984 while an All-America center at Georgetown and another in 1992 with the Dream Team.
“I had lost my medals,” Ewing told Patrick. “I moved so many times, I couldn’t find both of my gold medals. My house got broken into in New York at one point. I think they stole my medals.”
Fortunately for Ewing, he has friends in high places. He told Patrick that former USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo arranged to procure replacement medals for him.
Ewing’s take on ‘The Last Dance’
With the sports world focused on “The Last Dance,” Ewing’s conversation with Patrick naturally centered around ESPN’s Michael Jordan documentary.
Is Ewing watching?
“I had to live through that,” Ewing told Patrick. “I had to live through him and all the battles that we had to go through. And now y’all have a documentary to keep rubbing it in my face.
“I watch a little of it, then I shut it off to go do other things. I lived through it. I don’t need to watch. I know he’s great.”
Jordan and Ewing’s careers are forever intertwined. Jordan’s North Carolina team famously beat Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown team in the 1982 NCAA championship game. Then the two did battle 70 times over the course of their NBA careers, with Jordan’s Chicago Bulls regularly besting Ewing’s New York Knicks in the regular season and heated playoff series.
So are Ewing and Jordan cool?
With all the tense competition and Jordan’s propensity for trash-talk that was featured on “The Last Dance” on Sunday, what kind of relationship do the two basketball greats have?
“That’s just Michael,” Ewing said of Jordan’s trash talk. “He’s a great guy. He’s a friend. But he’s the biggest trash-talker that I’ve ever met.
Why Ewing didn’t play with Jordan at UNC
Ewing told Patrick that he and Jordan have been friends since they both visited North Carolina as high schoolers. He told Patrick that he didn’t like North Carolina as much as he expected upon the visit, but received some valuable advice from head coach Dean Smith, who was close with Georgetown head coach John Thompson.
“Dean Smith told me if you’re not gonna come to North Carolina, you should go to Georgetown,” Ewing said. “So I listened to him.”
Ewing has previously talked about a Ku Klux Klan rally that took place in North Carolina when he made his visit. He didn’t mention that on Tuesday, but here’s guessing that’s what he meant.
He did engage in some “what-might-have-been” when talking about the possibility of playing with Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins.
“Imagine that team,” Ewing said. “If I had gone there, it would have been myself, Michael, Worthy, Perkins. That would have been a hell of a front line.”
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