With just under two minutes to play against the Miami Heat on April 26, Chris Childs, erratic point guard for the New York Knicks, scored a three-pointer. Not content to let the clutch shot speak for itself, Mr. Childs made a slashing motion across his throat with his index finger in an ugly pantomime of what he had just done to the other team. Then the crazily effusive John Starks took him in a bear hug. This was the old Knicks-thuggish and wild. But there’s another side to the ’97-’98 team, best embodied by starting point guard and team evangelist Charlie Ward, who rushed toward Mr. Childs and Mr. Starks in an attempt to get them to stop their victory dance and get back in the game.
Just after the final buzzer, the Knicks’ dual nature was even more apparent: Mr. Childs slammed down the basketball in a “take that” gesture, and the team gathered for an on-court prayer. Some fans might look askance at the public display of Christianity, but for John Love, the Knicks’ religious huddles are Good News.
Pastor Love has served as the unofficial, unpaid chaplain for the Knicks for the last 10 seasons. But no Knick team has responded to his call as wholeheartedly as the current group, with their post-game prayers, packed daily chapel sessions and frequent Bible study classes. Despite their reputation as brawlers and bangers who depend more on the hard foul than the graceful perimeter shot, this year’s Knicks have become the N.B.A.’s roving God squad.
Mr. Love, who desccribed himself as “just a little white guy hanging out with them,” works for the Greater Grace World Outreach in Baltimore. The church draws 1,500 parishioners every Sunday, and it takes the “World Outreach” part of its name seriously indeed, with goals that
Knicks’ God Guy
even the Mormons seem unambitious. “I think Mormon missions are short-term,” said Pastor Love, “and many of ours go out for 10, 20 years, or even a lifetime.”
So is he using the Knicks to help with what he described as his church’s “major missions emphasis throughout the world”? “I would love to bring a missionary attitude to the team,” he said. “I would love to bring Charlie Ward to Europe to address young people. The whole tool of basketball, the way it can relate to people, is more powerful than many people realize.”
Pastor Love drives all the way from Baltimore to Madison Square Garden for each Knicks home game in a blue Chevrolet Impala, praying as he works his way up I-95. With the series tied at one victory apiece, Pastor Love was busy preparing the 15-minute sermon he planned to deliver to the players before game three in a spare locker room at Madison Square Garden. For inspiration, he had hit upon something from the Book of Jeremiah: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and it shall not see when the heat cometh.”
The pastor still believes composure will help the team in the long run. “We can be under great pressure,” he said in a telephone interview, “but you can have this air-conditioned spirit. You can still relax in the face of this imposing opposition, this heat. This … Miami Heat.”
Well, the Heat comethed on strong in the first game of the series and blew the Knicks to kingdom come; and when the Knicks won the second game, even in the absence of their franchise player, injured center Patrick Ewing, they didn’t seem to do it with “air-conditioned spirits.”
Pastor Love grew up in Boston with four brothers and three sisters. His father, Al Love, worked for W.R. Grace and Company, and was the hero of Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action . At 17, he abandoned his family’s Catholicism for his own brand of nondenominational Christianity.
“I was 17 or 18 and I was hanging out with guys who I was using drugs with or buying drugs from,” he said. “That was when I first went to Bible study and an evangelical church. I mean, I was searching for meaning and searching for answers. I needed a radical transformation.”
Pastor Love-or Dr. Love, as he’s called in the Knicks’ locker room-is well known in the Garden, if looked on a bit dubiously by the Knick staff. “Some people think it’s not the right place for a chapel,” he said. “But we get the respect we need from the organization and from [the Knicks’ head coach, Jeff] Van Gundy.” He usually stands courtside, somewhere on Spike Lee row, while watching over “his guys” during games. “I’d like to think I’m their friend as well as their pastor,” he said. “I’m there to serve them, and they come to me with all sorts of problems. I’m like a guardrail on a road.”
Former Knick Anthony Mason, who used to carve religious slogans into his hair before being traded to the Charlotte Hornets two seasons ago, called him recently, when he was arrested on a charge of sexual assault after a night spent with two underage girls. “He told me he’s innocent, providing he’s telling me the truth,” said Pastor Love. “But he did admit he’s with the wrong people, in the wrong place and has got to make smarter decisions.” The charges against Mr. Mason are still pending.
Pastor Love said real tempations lie beyond the hardwood for this group of men who came into serious money after lives spent without much. “I’m disappointed when I hear about strip clubs and women and drugs,” he said. “When they come to chapel, they are publicly committing themselves before the eyes of God and are hypocrites if they indulge in those things.”
Despite the efforts of Mr. Ward, new convert John Starks and backup big man Terry Cummings, there is one Knick who has not given in to the team’s new religious fervor: Patrick Ewing. “I’m not sure he understands everything,” Pastor Love said. “It couldn’t hurt to have everyone there. It can only help the team.”
The believers among the Knicks say their convictions won’t keep them from muscling opposing players who come into the lane. “We can’t allow ourselves to play calmer or change our style of play,” said Knick forward-center Buck Williams. “We need to play real physical, typical New York Knick basketball.” The pastor also sees no lack of competitive fire. “They pray,” he said, “and then they go and beat the hell out of each other.”
But in the end, does the Lord really care if the Knicks advance to round two of the playoffs? The question is moot, according to Pastor Love. “We pray like it’s all up to God,” he said. “But when we take the court, you’ve got to play like it’s all up to you. God’s not going to go out and play for you.”
The Monica Diaries
Continued excerpts from several hundred loose pages, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, which were dumped on The Observer’ s front stoop and labeled, “The atached (sic) is my story, the story of a white house intirn (sic) in my own words, not that bitch Linda. ML.”
September 5, 1997, 11:09 P.M.
dear diary,
i get home from pentogon today in a bitch of a mood cause Big Creep has still not returned a single call and betty acts all nervous when i call and at home i see this dweeby guy sitting on our couch hes got a short haircut and a shiny face and this blue blazer with tacky gold buttons and kaki pants and little brown shoes and so im like um, Mom , who is this? and she says dont be silly monica you know as well as i do hes your boyfriend Ted and this guy stands up all fake polite and he comes to kiss me and im like Back off, loser , and he says My my, someone had a bad day today, and im like Excuse me i have never set the eyes on you in my life and he puts his arm around my showlder and hes like Thats my monica always the jokester! and he smells like soap and i want to puke so i push him off and Im like Touch me again and youll be sorry , and moms like, Monica whatever has gotten into you in the three years you and Ted have been dating youve never acted this way to him and Im like, Hel-lo? Three years? Ive never seen him before, and hes like standing there all smiling and i cannot deal so i turn around and walk to my room and theres the second freakout cause there’s a picture of me and this dweeb Ted in a silver frame on my nitestand and hes dressed in the same weenie outfit and im wearing my black mini and marooned vee-neck strechy tee shirt and choker and its a party picture but i never was there so i take one of the pills the new shrink gave me and now im just going to sleep and maybe its a dream …
September 6, 1997, 10 P.M.
stayed in my room all day and watched MTV no call from Big Creep and when i went to the kitchen moms like Ted called i really think you owe him an explanashun so i turned right around and went back to my room
September 8, 1997, 11:37 P.M.
saw the new shrink today and same as last time that Carvel lizard face guy is just leaving and the Docs got his greg brady turtleneck on and corderoy pants and i lie on the stupid couch and he says So i understand you and Ted are having problems and I sit right up and Im like Who is this Ted? I just met him hes a geek i would never date him in a gazillion years, i have told you for the last time my boyfriend is the President , this Ted is the kind of dork the Gore girls fuck, and the Doc is like Settle down Monica have you been taking your medicashun and im like yeah and he says well lets take a pill now and hands me a new pill with a glass of
