Champions

My beloved New York Knicks have just been crowned champions of the NBA and I felt that I had  say something about this wondrous turn of events. But what is there to say beyond expressing elation? I have been actively rooting for the Knicks since 1990 or thereabouts. Prior to then I was a big baseball fan, following exploits of the New York Mets closely. When they won the World Series in 1986 I was over the moon. Expectation was for a dynasty, multiple consecutive titles, but it was not to be. One and done was less than hoped for, but still beyond my wildest boyhood dreams. After enduring seemingly endless incompetency in the latter half of the 1970's and first half of the 1980's, they finally turned things around and became the boys of summer.

As I wrapped up college, I also put a bow on my era of being a close follower of baseball in general and the Mets in particular. Along with rooting for my beleaguered New York Jets in football, my sporting interest was pulled to basketball. After watching a handful of pretty awful seasons, the Knicks won the inaugural NBA draft lottery. That lucky bounce of ping pong balls, which some to this day believe was rigged to favor a big market team, resulted in the Knicks obtaining Patrick Ewing with the first pick. Several years of excellence followed. The Knicks made it to the Finals in 1994 when Michael Jordan got out of the way to chase his own baseball dreams, but they fell to the Houston Rockets. One memorable evening during that series featured a white Ford Bronco with O.J. Simpson in it interrupting exclusive focus on the game. In 1999, despite being the lowest seeded playoff team and their leader Patrick Ewing out due to injury, they went on an improbable playoff run. Their title chase ended in them losing to the San Antonio Spurs in five contests. I was in attendance at the final game in the nose bleed section of Madison Square Garden when the magic ran out. Tickets cost less than a brand new automobile back then.

In 2026, 53 years after their last championship in 1973, the Knicks put me back up on sports fanatic cloud nine, galvanizing an entire city in the process. No, make that an entire tri-state area. They were solid during the regular season but found an awesome new gear for the postseason, winning 13 straight at one point. Several games they made victories look almost too easy. Other games, insurmountable odds were somehow overcome, rendered surmountable. Most notably when they fell behind by 29 points and crawled all the way to being ahead at the final buzzer. That is something you do not see every day, an unforgettable marvel.

How did they do it? How is any great achievement accomplished? The famous Nike slogan is JUST DO IT. The power, truth and beauty of that statement is in its simplicity. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until the journey of a thousand miles has been completed. The road to writing a beautiful novel is paved with plenty of ugly, awkward sentences. Put in the time, put in the effort, conquer all insecurities, then assume your place on bookshelves between Hemingway and Shakespeare. 

If this sounds too basic, too lacking in nuance, too trite - perhaps that is because it is. We all have goals and dreams of varying sizes that we set out realize, only to eventually be overwhelmed by the various difficulties of reality. Just doing it frequently proves to be insufficient in getting the damn thing done. So, we give up. Sweet surrender. The dream was nice while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever.

Then there are those who persevere. Success is often what happens after a long sequence of failures. What may seem from the outside like it took place overnight was in fact the result of a great many nights of coming up short and crippling doubt. Diligence and patience and consistency and fortitude will lead to improvement, but will it lead your wildest dreams coming true? 

Only sometimes. That's the closest to a guarantee that we get. Some of the people some of the times will get to hoist the championship trophy. The rest will get as close as they manage to get and hopefully they will derive satisfaction from giving it their best shot. In group efforts, at least there is a brotherhood to help you get through the grind. When it's a solo mission, nobody assists in getting you back up on your feet. The urge to stay on your back can understandably overwhelm willingness to rise again.

Do you want to be the Heavyweight champion of the world? A Hollywood movie star? A rock star? The person who cures cancer? The guy who gets THE GIRL? The girl who breaks the ultimate glass ceiling? Just do it sounds nice, but it probably won't be quite that elementary. Perhaps it's best to be honest with yourself that you are probably going to fail. Not just once overall, but over and over again on the long journey. It will be frustrating, heartbreaking, soul draining. But if the pursuit of your greatest desire is worth the effort despite understanding that the end result may not be a parade of confetti...

Just do it ANYWAY.

Way to go, 2026 New York Knicks!!!