NBA Hall of Fame Center Patrick Ewing was the beast of the Big East during his days at Georgetown University but he revealed on The Dan Patrick Show that he was almost a Tar Heel. According to Ewing, he ruled the University of North Carolina out because a Ku Klux Klan rally was staged in Chapel Hill during his last campus visit.
“I was close. 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 in North Carolina when I was there. And I was like, you know, I’m not coming down here. I’m staying my butt back in Boston.”
Ewing says that it was legendary UNC coach Dean Smith who encouraged him to go to John Thompson’s Georgetown if he wasn’t going to be a Tar Heel.
College basketball fans can only wonder what it would’ve been like to witness a basketball team featuring Patrick Ewing, James Worthy and Michael Jordan. It would have been the greatest college basketball team in history. And the KKK kept it from happening.
Watch the segment here: