Harthorne Wingo, the last player off the bench on the Knicks’ last championship team in 1973, has died. He was 73.
“Sending our deepest sympathies to the family & friends of Harthorne Wingo,” the Knicks tweeted on Monday. “The 1972-73 NBA Champion has passed away. Once a Knick, Always a Knick.”
Wingo, a Tryon, North Carolina native, played four seasons, 1972-1976 with the Knicks, making his NBA debut on Feb. 2, 1973 against the Baltimore Bullets.
But before he was a Knick, he played in the real mecca of basketball, Rucker Park, where his talent was actually discovered by ex-Knick Dave Stallworth, a member of the 1970 championship team.
Stallowrth played in the Rucker Park Pro League, according to commissioner Bob McCullough. “He played against Harthorne Wingo and he was so impressed that he went to (Knicks coach) Red Holzman,” McCullough told the Daily News. “He asked Holzman to give Harthorne Wingo a tryout and Harthorne Wingo made the team.”
McCullough remembered playing against him in the Pro League, recalling the time Wingo dropped 69 points in a single game there. But even after he made it to the NBA, he always came back to the park whenever McCullough asked to mentor students in Rucker Park’s “Each One Teach One” youth program.
“You should be proud of your career and your accomplishments.” McCullough said he would tell Wingo if he could. “You have been an example to the youth in New York City and in Harlem.”
On the bigger stage, Wingo played with the likes of Dr. Dick Barnett, Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, Phil Jackson, Earl Monroe and Willis Reed. Taking a backseat to such giants on the golden era team, Wingo still captured the hearts of the Knicks faithful.
“Wingo! Wingo! Wingo!,” the fans at the Garden would chant near the end of games when the Knicks were set to blow out opposing teams.
Wingo was never fond of those chants, a teammate confirmed to the Daily News, but to the city who watched him come up from Rucker Park, those chants meant the world. Harthorne Wingo wasn’t just a bench guy, he was one of our own.
He never forgot what that team or what playing at The Garden meant to him.
“It was my first and only championship… This is the greatest place in the world,” Wingo said in 2013 at a 40th anniversary celebration of the championship. “The fans are the best fans. They appreciate basketball and they understand it, so it makes it a lot easier to be a part of it.”
Wingo admitted he hadn’t stayed in complete communication with his former teammates, but he never stopped rooting for them or his team through the years.
“Today I am saddened by the passing of my former teammate Harthorne Wingo,” Frazier said in a statement. “Like his name, he was a very unique individual. He was effervescent, gregarious, with an infectious personality not only endearing to his teammates, but the Knicks Nation as well.”
Wingo finished his NBA career after 212 games (all with the Knicks) and an NBA title, and an even bigger legacy in the city that helped nurture his career.
