Knicks' Walt Frazier on how he stays on top of his game at 81

The game planning starts a good 48 hours before tipoff.

Walt Frazier owns over 100 custom-made suits, which he keeps in a half dozen closets. He also has at least 70 pairs of shoes and too many ties to count. Frazier will look at the weather report, consider the Knicks' opponent and then begin pulling together possible outfits.

“Just like I prepare for everything else, I prepare when I dress,” Frazier told Newsday. “I hang different shirts and ties and pants together and I might look at them for two days or more. When I dress, I hope people like it, but it's primarily for myself. You have to have nerve with some of the combinations I’ve put together.”

Indeed, you do. Few men would think of wearing a brocade paisley jacket with salmon pink pants and a polka-dot iridescent tie, let alone be in possession of all three. Yet on Frazier — who turned 81 on Sunday — the combo is the epitome of cool earning him an A-plus on "Clyde So Fly," a website devoted to rating Frazier’s suits game by game.

First as a Hall of Fame point guard who helped lead the Knicks to their only two NBA titles and then as a Hall of Fame broadcaster with his pithy plays on words, Frazier has been an icon of coolness for nearly six decades in New York. That’s long enough that most Knicks fans cannot remember a time when he wasn’t an integral part of the game day experience.

Frazier is the reassuring constant that has carried the Madison Square Garden faithful through both the highs and the plentiful lows of being a Knicks fan. That’s no easy trick for someone entering the ninth decade in life, yet Frazier continues to do it with the same kind of pride, discipline and love of the city that he has had since the Knicks selected him with the No. 5 overall pick in 1967.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a professional athlete in New York understand what he means to fans more than Clyde does,” said broadcast partner Mike Breen, using the nickname first given to Frazier his rookie season (more on that later). “He almost takes it as a responsibility. His ability to embrace the fans is uncanny because it’s nonstop and he never tires of it.

“He could be the most New York New Yorker I’ve ever met who wasn’t born in New York.”

A star is born

The basketball player who would end up owning New York was 21 years old when he first set foot in the city.

The oldest of nine growing up in Atlanta, Frazier played baseball, football (he was the quarterback) and basketball. He learned early from his parents about hard work and doing things the right way.

“I was a role model before I knew what the word meant,” Frazier said. “When my parents weren’t around, I was in charge. I had seven sisters. I had to take them to school. You know where my dressing came from? Growing up under the pressure of segregation. When I went downtown, my mother would tell me put on your best clothes and your best manners. You are not only representing the Frazier family, you are representing Black people as well.

“Whenever I step out of the house, I think that now. I am representing the Knicks. I am representing Black people. It’s, ‘Hey, that’s Walt Frazier, New York Knicks,’ no matter where I go.”

Frazier was offered several football scholarships but said he accepted an offer to play basketball at Division II Southern Illinois because there were no Black players playing quarterback then. Though twice named a Division II All-American, he wasn't high on the Knicks’ or any other team’s draft list until Southern Illinois was invited to the NIT at the Garden in 1967.

Southern Illinois won the tournament, beating Marquette — coached by former Knick Al McGuire — in the final. Frazier was named the tournament’s MVP. Less than two months later, he was a Knick. 

He fell hard for the city his first day in New York as a Knick. Willis Reed, his idol, picked him up at the airport. Frazier emembers Reed speeding down the expressway when he was stopped by a policeman.

“Willis starts yelling at the cop,” Frazier said. “I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, segregation. I’m thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’m going to see this guy get shot.’ The cop didn’t even give Willis a ticket.

“We were in a convertible and we drove downtown through Times Square and then we headed up to Harlem to a place Wilt Chamberlain had called Wilt’s Smalls Paradise. They had tables and loud music and go-go girls. Three girls in cages. My head was going back and forth like I was at a tennis match. They introduce Willis and he gets a huge ovation. They introduce me and I get a smaller ovation.

“I never forgot that night. I was like, ‘Man, I hope I am a star in this city.' ”

It didn’t take long before he was. Frazier made the NBA's all-rookie team in the 1967-68 season, and two seasons later took his first step toward icon status when in 1970 he quarterbacked the Knicks to the first of their only two NBA championships.

Frazier’s greatest game as a Knick, Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Lakers, has been overshadowed by the injured Reed’s inspiring entrance onto the Garden floor. While Reed won Finals MVP and pumped up the crowd when he made his first two jumpers, it was Frazier who owned the night by turning in one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA history: 36 points, 19 assists, seven rebounds and five steals.

“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard tell Clyde that they were at that Game 7,” Breen said.

The Knicks went to the postseason in the first eight of Frazier’s 10 seasons. They went to the Finals  three times and beat the Lakers for their second title in 1973. He was a seven-time All-Star and was voted to the NBA’s all-defensive team seven times.

Like a true New Yorker, he was at his best when the lights shined the brightest. Frazier averaged 20.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.4 assists in his 93 career playoff games.

From Walt to Clyde

Of course, Frazier’s stardom famously wasn’t limited to his play on the court.

One of the most surprising things you learn talking to Frazier is that he considers himself to be a “quiet and shy” person. Yet he thrived in New York by leaning into his alter ego, a sharp-dressing, Rolls Royce-driving character which former Knicks trainer Danny Whelan nicknamed “Clyde” his rookie season. Why Clyde? Because Frazier often wore a fedora like Warren Beatty did in the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” which was released a little over three months after the 1967 draft.

The Clyde persona helped Frazier become the first basketball player to have his own signature sneaker, the Puma Clyde, which was first released in 1973 and is still made today. Frazier helped design the shoe, insisting that it be made in suede, bear his signature and be made in a different color variation in every game he played in. It has been reported that Frazier wore over 390 different colors of the shoe over the course of his career.

In his classic 1973 autobiography “Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool,” Frazier said: “Everybody has a hang-up. Mine is clothes. Some guys have drinking or smoking or cattin’ around. I’ve got clothes.”

Putting in the work 

Behind all the surface flash, however, was a lot of hard work.

Frazier was one of the first basketball players to get into weightlifting, after learning about its benefits from a trainer at Southern Illinois. In the early 1970s, Frazier incorporated yoga into his workout routines at a time when few of his teammates, or members of the public, were familiar with it. As a result, he was able to avoid injuries until late in his career when he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Hard work and preparation have also been the secret behind Frazier’s second act as a Hall of Fame announcer.

Frazier, who retired in the middle of the 1979-80 season, worked briefly as a player’s agent, representing such big names as Julius Erving and George Gervin. In the early 1980s he did some work for TBS in Atlanta before he was hired to replace Ernie Grunfeld on radio as the Knicks' color commentator.

It was here where Frazier first started deploying his trademark descriptive rhymes like "swishing and dishing" and "posting and toasting." It was the only way he could get a word in edgewise with then broadcast partner Jim Karvellas.

“He didn’t give me a chance to say anything, so I started rhyming just to get something in,” Frazier said. “I remember I had to learn how to project my voice and be loud and talk over the crowd. I would go out to loud bars and practice talking to people just to practice.”

When Frazier asked longtime announcer Marty Glickman for advice, Glickman recommended he be as descriptive as possible in his comments. That’s when Frazier started closely reading different sections of the newspaper, circling words he liked and then hitting the dictionary to expand his vocabulary. This is how he came up with some classic non-rhyming Clyde-isms like percolating and precocious and omnipotent and serendipity. It’s a habit he continued when he first partnered with Breen on radio in the 1992-93 season and then when they later moved to television.

“We used to be on the plane and I would see him with his dictionary, memorizing words and checking out their definitions,” said Howie Singer, Frazier’s longtime director at MSG. “He used to say it was because he wanted to expand children’s vocabulary by using words they weren’t used to hearing.”

Frazier credits Breen with giving him the freedom and the confidence to say what he wants. And, even after 27 years together, those who work with Frazier marvel at the new on-the-mark Clyde-isms he continues to come up with. For example, in a game against Washington earlier this month, Frazier referred to 6-foot guard Sharife Cooper as a Lilliputian in a land of Gullivers.

While some critics may have first written off Frazier’s Clyde-isms as a gimmick, he is now greatly appreciated for how much he brings to the game, Breen said.

“It’s like the clothing and the rhymes overshadowed the substance, but the rhymes do have substance,” Breen said. “Clyde understands the job. His job is not only to inform and analyze, but it’s to inform and entertain. His ability to combine the two is unparalleled.

“I think the last five years have been his best ever on the air. As you get older, maybe some analysts don’t like to prepare as much. He’s the opposite. He’s more into it. Maybe it has to do with the team being good again. It bothered him to have to watch bad basketball, those teams with 17 wins. Now, it’s invigorated him. He’s never been better than he has the last five years.”

Discipline suits him well

Despite having recently turned 81, Frazier keeps a schedule that could exhaust someone a fraction of his age.

Over the course of his career, he’s written eight books, many aimed at children, including his most recent “Winning and Grinning”, a book about basketball and life.

“I love kids. I have two kids [a son and daughter] of my own and two grandboys,” Frazier said. “I tell people when you grow up the oldest of nine, you either love kids or you don’t. I do.”

On a recent Sunday — having spent several hours on his “off day” Saturday doing a Q&A and signing books at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey — he popped out of bed, put on some Motown and hit the gym he built in his Harlem apartment.

“I rode the bike 25 minutes and today I did shoulders,” Frazier said. “Tomorrow is arms and back.”

Frazier weighed 205 pounds when he played and has maintained his weight at 185 since he gave up things “like Snickers and French fries and everything else.” Instead, he drinks a protein shake almost daily and does most of his own cooking at home on a George Foreman grill, preferring salmon, chicken, eel, pasta and salads. During games, he might treat himself to some raisin bread — no more than two pieces — and butter.

“It’s all discipline,” Frazier said. “It’s why I have so many suits. I can wear ones from 15 years ago."

Before leaving for Madison Square Garden to work the Washington game, his longtime girlfriend, Patricia James, helped him shoot three Cameos, short videos for fans congratulating them on a birthday or a Bar Mitzvah or anniversary. At the Garden, before joining Breen courtside, he sat for a 45-minute interview with a reporter and posed for photos on the court.

Frazier has eased up on his schedule recently, cutting back on road games. He loves working at the Garden, however, and does not see retirement in the near future.

“Right now, I’d love to do this as long as I’m coherent," he said

Frasier then paused and smiled. Whether he's dishing out assists in a Knicks jersey or rhyming with timing in a paisley jacket, he is clearly a man comfortable in his own skin. And he enjoys his status as a Knicks icon.

"I count my blessings a lot," he said. "I know I am a lucky man."