And then, I think back to Oakley I knew 18 years ago in Toronto, alone in a hotel room as he tried to get used to the fact he was now with the Raptors.Charles Oakley’s wife is called Charisse Oakley. I think of how proud Oakley was to be a Knick. I think he simply wanted the people who wrote about him to know who he was and see what had given a Gheri-curled kid from Cleveland enough resolve, medium-range jumpers and death stares to become a fan favorite in New York. During the 1997 All-Star weekend, in his hometown of Cleveland, he took four of us reporters home to his mother, fed us sweet potato pie and even showed us a prom picture, circa 1981, from John Hay High School. There are myriad of embellished tales of how tough Oak was, how many times he should have come equipped with an airbag as he hurtled into fans seated by the court going for a loose ball, occasionally winding up with beer or mustard or even portions of a Garden Dog on his jersey.īut here’s my favorite Oakley story. Nearly everyone who covered Oakley has fond memories. This is something I’ve thought a lot about over the past few days as I traded Oakley stories over the phone with various reporters I worked with in the 1990s. How much diplomacy can you really expect from a guy who made a living through hustle and muscle, through non-stop nastiness underneath the basket? The thing is Oakley’s honestly was really a great part of his charm. This trait likely is what caused his falling out with the organization in recent years as his opinion of his former team didn’t always jive with what you might be putting on a news release. If Oakley didn’t like something, he would tell you - whether it be your shoes, a story you wrote or some recent development on the Knicks. One Sunday on the road when he and Chris Childs both showed up in the same pastel-colored suit, a miffed Oakley went back and changed his to black so that he would stand out. I remember he once told me he had 18 pairs of exotic leather shoes in his closet, two in green alligator. Oakley was a clothes horse extraordinaire, and part of my pregame ritual came to include stopping by his locker to see what he was wearing postgame.
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“Lemme see those boots.”Īnd with that, a professional friendship was born. “Barbara!” I remember him bellowing across the room gesturing at my feet. I was exceedingly uncomfortable doing this part of the job, and Oakley noticed.
Locker rooms were open for 45 minutes before each game, and reporters were supposed to use that time to hang out and chat with players, many of whom were in various stages of undress. The Knicks’ locker room in the 1990s was small, set up in a way so that the media was forced to walk by the opening to the sink and shower room in order to get where the players’ cubicles were. And for that, I will be forever grateful. I don’t know what happened Wednesday night when Oakley was removed from the Clippers game, but I do know that Oakley had my back in the locker room in the 1990s when not everyone was thrilled that a woman was in there.
They fell in love with the Knicks because of Oakley, and to see him banned from the Garden was emotionally wrenching. Many of today’s Knicks fans grew up watching those teams. Because more than any other player, including Patrick Ewing, Oakley personified the Knicks’ gritty, bruising, physical style of play in the 1990s. Though Oakley has said he is still upset about the incident, I would bet that he will eventually be back as a guest at The Garden. This is why NBA Commissioner Adam Silver took the unusual and dramatic step Monday of bringing Oakley and Knicks owner James Dolan together to broker peace, why Oakley’s longtime friend and former teammate Michael Jordan conferenced in. And, if we have learned anything over this past week since Oakley got into an altercation with security guards and was banned from the Garden, it’s that the love affair was a two-way street. This story bears telling today because it shows how much Oakley’s heart, soul and identity is intertwined with the Knicks and their fans.
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