It’s hard to imagine Patrick Ewing playing somewhere other than Georgetown for his college basketball career, but that was very nearly the case.
During an interview on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday morning, Ewing said that he was considering attending North Carolina to play for coach Dean Smith, but ultimately a Ku Klux Klan rally made him reconsider.
“I was close [to attending UNC],” Ewing told Dan Patrick. “North Carolina was a very good school but, you know, when I went down there they put me in that Carolina Inn and there was a big Ku Klux Klan rally at North Carolina when I was there. And I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m not coming down here. I’m staying my butt back in Boston.'”
Ewing eventually decided to join the Hoyas and coach John Thompson, which Smith himself suggested to Ewing if he decided against attending UNC, Ewing said during the interview.
Ewing also said that the crickets in North Carolina annoyed him during his visit.
“So they stuck me in that Carolina Inn, and at night down in North Carolina it gets pitch black. And I hear all the crickets and I’m jumpin like, ‘What the heck?’ So I said, ‘Nah, I’m going back.'”
Check out the interview in the video below.
