Meet Rockville Centre's Lavert Henderson-Hobbs, a Knicks superfan since the 1970s
Most Knicks fans have no idea what winning a championship actually feels like.
Many know what it’s like to come heartbreakingly close, having first fallen hard for the team in 1994 when they lost to the Houston Rockets in seven games. The two titles that the Knicks won back in 1970 and 1973 weren’t even shown live on television.
While that might be grainy ancient history to most Knicks fans, Lavert Henderson-Hobbs can remember it like yesterday.
That’s because Henderson-Hobbs, 78, was there, cheering for her Knicks in 1973. The longtime season ticket holder can remember exactly what it feels like to be a world champion and she is hoping beyond hope that she can have that feeling again this year when the Knicks play either Oklahoma City or San Antonio for the NBA title.
“I was a young kid in 1973, yelling and jumping in the air,” the Rockville Centre resident told Newsday. “I know what it’s like to win.”
After the Knicks clinched a trip to the finals with a sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Karl-Anthony Towns told reporters that was for the long-waiting Knicks fans like Henderson-Hobbs that the team wanted to bring the title to New York.
“I grew up a Knicks fan. It’s documented,” Towns said. “And I think what’s more of an honor is growing up in the area, I feel like the word hope has been gone from the New York Knicks for a long time . . . To be part of this team that revives the word hope in the city, it’s something special. It’s something really, really special, and it’s an honor.”
Lavert Henderson-Hobbs, of Rockville Centre, stands with 1973 champion Knicks player Walt "Clyde" Frazier. Credit: Lavert Henderson-Hobbs
Henderson-Hobbs first became a Knicks fan in 1970. Shortly after graduating college and moving to New York City, a man she met at work asked her if she wanted to go to a Knicks game. As it turns out, she fell in love with both the man and the team.
“We just kept going to games, and then it was we might as well get married,” Henderson-Hobbs said with a laugh. “We both were both big sports fans.”
It’s been 53 years since Henderson-Hobbs was cheering for Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe in the 1973 finals – almost an entire lifetime. In the intervening years, she and her husband, Ernest Hobbs, who passed in 2014, rarely missed a game.
Over the years, she’s been to more than 2,000 Knicks games, usually just taking the week of Christmas off.
She was there when Bernard King put up back-to-back 50-point nights in 1984. She was there when Patrick Ewing stood on the scorer’s table after the Knicks clinched a berth in the 1994 NBA Finals by beating Indiana in Game 7. She was there for the John Starks headbutt game, the night Spike Lee got into it with Reggie Miller, the night Carmelo Anthony scored 62 points and the stretch where Jeremy Lin took over the city.
Of course, she was also there to watch the Knicks fail to make the playoffs 15 times in 19 years before the current regime took over before the 2020-21 season.
Her secret to surviving the lean years?
“You can’t be a fair-weather fan. The Knicks were always my number one team,” she said. “But I also had a secondary team so I wasn’t disappointed and had someone in the playoffs.”
Henderson-Hobbs’ secondary team for years was the Lakers, but a few years ago she switched over to Oklahoma City, which of course she will have to promptly dump if the Knicks end up meeting them.
Henderson-Hobbs has had good feelings about the current Knicks since the start of the season. Since the Knicks lost in 1999, she hadn’t bought playoff tickets. But she decided she had to do it this season and it has paid off.
“I’m excited and I want the young kids to know what it feels like to win,” Henderson-Hobbs said. “I love basketball and I love my Knicks. Regardless of whether they win or lose, they are still my favorite team.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
