Patrick Ewing

By the time he was in college at Georgetown University, Ewing was already being called by Roy S. Johnson of New York Times basketball's "most important figure for the future." Ewing excelled on the Georgetown basketball team, helping his team to three NCAA championship games, one of which they won. Ewing's mother never got to see her son's championship game, which took place in 1984; she died in 1983 at the age of fifty-five. She had worked at her job in the hospital kitchen up until two days before her death.

With pro basketball offers pouring in while he was still at Georgetown, Ewing could have easily dropped out of school and immediately become a millionaire. But his mother had always felt that the key realizing the opportunities she felt America had to offer was to get a college degree, and so, Ewing stayed in school. Also, as he explained at the time to Johnson in the New York Times, "Money's never been the most important thing in my life."

In 1984, while he was still in college, Ewing played on the U.S. men's basketball team in the Olympic games, which took place in Los Angeles. His team took home the gold medal. It was a big year for Ewing; he also fathered a son by a girlfriend, Sharon D. Stanford. Patrick Ewing Jr. was born May 20, 1984, and he too went on to become an outstanding basketball player.