“THE NEW YORK KNICKS: THOSE CHAMPIONSHIP SEASONS”

THE NEW YORK KNICKS: THOSE CHAMPIONSHIP SEASONS INTRODUCTION

This is a love story about a team and a time: the New York Knicks of the late 60’s and early 70’s. The picture above is just one vestige of that love affair: a 12 year old me at Willis Reed’s Basketball Camp in 1971, smiling broadly for a picture with the Captain. For millions of young basketball fans who grew up in the New York area at that time, our lives revolved around the championship Knicks: Willis and Clyde, Bradley and Debusschere, Barnett and Cazzie and Mike Riordan and the rest. And later, the Pearl, Earl Monroe, Dean the Dream Meminger, Phil Jackson and Jerry Lucas. I fell in love with a group of men who played beautiful team basketball on the court and were a compelling cast of characters off the court. The memories of that era are vivid and the championship Knicks remain one of the most beloved teams in American sports history.

“The New York Knicks: Those Championship Seasons” is a three hour radio documentary I created for WNBC Radio in 1987. WNBC Radio ceased to exist in 1988. For years, the documentary existed on cassette tapes. They eventually were transferred to MP3s, where they sat in my computer for a long time. No longer.

I’ve broken the documentary up into nine chapters. It’s all here. The two championship seasons. The cast of characters. The important role played by Marv Albert. The fans. And so much more.

This is one of my proudest creations in a long career. I produced and wrote the script and conducted the interviews. My former WNBC Radio colleague Gary Bridges did a terrific job voicing it.

Each week I will release one episode. But to get things started I am releasing two episodes to set the table. I hope you enjoy the 1987 WNBC Radio documentary “The New York Knicks: Those Championship Seasons.”