NBA veteran and Tennessee State University alum Anthony Mason died this weekend, after suffering a serious heart attack in early February. He was 48.
The 6-foot-7 forward played for six teams during his 13-year career in the NBA. He’s best known for his time on the New York Knicks in the early ’90s, playing alongside Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and John Starks.
Mason played for TSU& 1985 to ’88, becoming the school’s fifth all-time leading scorer with 2,076 points.
One New York Times columnist remembered him this way: “He was loud. He was tough. He was, in so many respects, self-made.”
Read These Stories
- New York Times, “Tough Knick Anthony Mason Was True to the City“
Courtside observers couldn’t help noticing how Mason would avoid eye contact with [Knicks coach Pat] Riley while listening to his exhortations on the bench. Armchair psychology though it may be, it was Mason’s mother, Mary, who was his guiding light, to the day he died. Yielding to a male authority figure was never his thing.
- Bleacher Report, “Ex-Knick Derek Harper Remembers the Many Sides of Anthony Mason“
He was an overconfident guy, and I’d rather have that than a passive, indecisive guy. I’ll never forget we were playing in Atlanta. He’s dribbling the ball over and over again. And I finally told him, “Give up the ball.” He said, “Shoot, you can’t do anything with it, anyway. I got it.”
- Deadspin, “Anthony Mason Was From The Future“
Mase was a wondrously and diversely skilled actual basketball player: a combo forward who could handle the ball, knock down jumpers, defend wings out on the perimeter, and bang with bigs around the hoop.
That’s why Knicks fans adored him. He was the underdog out of Springfield Gardens in Queens who played for the Tennessee State Tigers, not for the Kentucky Wildcats or Duke Blue Devils, and who embodied a barrel-chested physicality on the court that mirrored the everyday grind of city life for the upper-deckers inside Madison Square Garden.
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