Patrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. is a Jamaican-American basketball coach and former professional player who is a basketball ambassador for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he spent most of his 17-year playing career as the starting center before ending his playing career with brief stints with the Seattle SuperSonics and Orlando Magic. Ewing is regarded as one of the greatest centers of all time, playing a dominant role in the New York Knicks' 1990s success.
Highly recruited out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ewing played center for the Georgetown Hoyas for four seasons, during which the team reached the NCAA championship game three times. ESPN in 2008 designated him the 16th-greatest college basketball player of all time. He had a seventeen-year NBA career, predominantly playing for the New York Knicks, where he was an eleven-time all-star and named to seven All-NBA teams. The Knicks appeared in the NBA Finals twice (1994 and 1999) during his tenure. He won Olympic gold medals as a member of the 1984 and 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball teams.