King of cool

ICONIC: Before he became known for his trademark suits while broadcasting 

Knicks games, Clyde Frazier was a style icon during his playing days.

NEVER GOING OUT OF STYLE

Clyde Frazier, NYC legend, turns 80 today

Clyde will forever be timess part of the New York City fabric

29 Mar 2025 - New York Post

An appreciation by Mike Vaccaro - Mvaccaro@nypost.com

HE has been a part of our lives since March 9, 1967. We didn’t realize it in the moment, of course. The papers that day all featured pictures of No. 52 for the Southern Illinois Salukis, the best team in what was then called the “college division” of NCAA basketball.

The Salukis would’ve been a shoo-in to win the college division tournament. They’d already won 22 games, already beaten defending Division I champ Texas Western and burgeoning D-I power Louisville that year, and craved the biggest stage and the best competition. So when the NIT came calling, Southern Illinois jumped at the chance. “We would’ve walked from Carbondale, Ill., to New York,” No. 52 said a few years ago, on the anniversary of that Salukis’ team march to glory. By then, we knew him as Walt Frazier.

By then, we knew him as “Clyde.”

He arrived in a mad rush: Southern Illinois defeated St. Peter’s, 103-58, the most lopsided of all 304 NIT games played to that point. Frazier had 24 points, and he delighted the swell of 15,357 who gathered that night at the Old Garden, the one on 50th Street next door to Nedick’s. But that was just warmup. Three nights later, Frazier scored 17 more as the Salukis upset ACC runner-up Duke, 72-63. In the semifinals, Frazier scored 26, but his biggest assignment was stopping the Rutgers guard having the game of his life, scoring 20 of his 24 in the first half, making 9 of 10 shots. “I knew Bobby Lloyd [Rutgers’ all-American guard] could shoot, but I didn’t know the other guy could shoot like that,” Frazier said that night after holding the other guy — a Long Island kid named Jimmy Valvano — to 2-for-6 shooting in the second half.

In the finals, in front of a packed house of 18,499, Frazier led the Salukis back from an 11-point halftime deficit and soared past heavily-favored Marquette, 71-56. Frazier scored 21 more and earned the MVP trophy.

“I’m gonna see that kid Frazier in my nightmares all summer,” Marquette coach Al McGuire quipped. Knicks fans who’d taken in the NIT had a different take: They saw, perhaps, the point guard of their dreams in the poised, complete player who’d fallen out of the sky and into the city. Immediately Frazier was asked if New York would appeal to him.

“If I’m good enough to play pro ball,” he said, “I’ll play on the moon. Wherever they’ll have me.”

“Bounding and Astounding … Dancing and Prancing … Dishing and Swishing … Huffing and Stuffing … Hustling and Bustling … Loosey Goosey … Movin’ and Groovin’ …”

He became an essential part of the fabric of New York City — that place to which only a rarefied few ever ascend — on May 8, 1970. That was the night Willis Reed came limping out of the locker room much to the delight of 19,500 fans gathered at the New Garden, the one five floors up from Penn Station, much to the despair of the Los Angeles Lakers.

But Reed only took five shots in Game 7 that night, making two. He only grabbed three rebounds. His inspiration was welcome. Far more useful were the 36 points, 19 assists, seven rebounds and five steals that Frazier posted in 44 of the greatest minutes a player has ever played in a title-clinching game. He was no one-trick pony, of course. He made seven straight All-Star Games as a Knick, 1970-76. He finished in the top 10 of the MVP vote three times.

Almost 48 years after playing his final game as a Knick, he is the team’s all-time leader in assists (by 786 of them) and triple-doubles (23), and would almost certainly hold a substantial lead in steals except that didn’t become an official statistic until his seventh year in the league. He’s 472 behind Patrick Ewing, but if he’d just maintained his career average those first six years (and he was almost certainly higher than that) he’d be No. 1 by at least 500 of them.

All across the ’70s, if you wanted to maximize your coolness quotient, the easiest way to do it was on your feet. Long before Dr. J lent his name to Converse and decades before Michael Jordan did the same thing for Nike, there were Puma Clydes. And for years, you couldn’t find a gym or a playground in or around New York where Clydes weren’t everywhere.

But the way he became a no-surname-necessary icon — “Clyde” is all that’s necessary, much like “Broadway Joe,” much like “The Babe,” much like “Eli” — was because one day he permitted a gifted photographer named George Kalinsky to take his picture in front of his ’69 Rolls-Royce, replete with wide-brimmed hat.

“I told him,” Kalinsky said, “you look just like Clyde Barrow, from ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ ”

“Maybe that can stick,” Walt Frazier replied shyly.

It stuck.

“Posting and Toasting ... Shaking and Baking … Slicing and Dicing … Spinning and Winning … Stumbling and Bumbling … Styling and Profiling … Swooping and Hooping … Wheeling and Dealing … Winning and Grinning ...”

He became a fundamental part of the city’s sporting soundtrack in 1987, on radio at first (paired with Jim Karvellas) and later on TV, with both Marv Albert and, beginning 25 years ago, with Mike Breen.

His style isn’t the kind you learn at Syracuse or Northwestern or, for that matter, at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. It is a 1-of-1. It is the product of a basketball life that began in Atlanta and exploded in New York and now has been an integral part of three generations of Knicks fans.

That’s what happens when broadcasters become a part of the local tapestry. For millions of Yankees fans, Phil Rizzuto is the team’s forever voice, even though he passed almost 18 years ago. Mets fans are the same way with Bob Murphy, gone since 2004. There are still a lot of fans of both the Giants and the Jets who associate some of their happiest memories with the great Marty Glickman.

Clyde turns 80 years old Saturday. Maybe he’s not going to serve up the kind of inside analysis that, say, Stan Van Gundy or Hubie Brown might provide. But when he’s working a Knicks game, you know he’s working the game — from his bottomless well of rhymes to the pained grunts whenever a Knick blows a defensive assignment. The voice is eternally 25. And if he’s ever going to enter a phase of opting for conservative on-air attire … well, it sure doesn’t seem like that’ll happen soon.

“Even now, after all these years, I find myself shaking my head sometimes and telling myself, ‘Holy cow, that’s Clyde Frazier sitting next to me,’ ” Breen said not long ago. “I mean … are you kidding me?”

Breen was one of millions of Knicks fans who had Clyde posters on their bedroom walls growing up, who had Clyde sneakers on their feet, who long ago committed “Rockin’ Steady: A Guide to Basketball and Cool” to memory — and as a result can still recite the proper way to catch a fly with style (you swipe at it, you don’t try to crush it).

He has been a part of our lives for 58 years, a part of this earth for 80. In a quiet moment a few years ago he said, “I think I set a record for the most nice things people have ever said to one person in a lifetime. I’ll never be able to pay that back.”

Here’s news to Clyde, celebrating his 80th trip around the sun: You already have. Time and time and time again.

***

An All-Star salute

Knicks greats, plus his broadcast partners, share their congratulations to Clyde Frazier on his 80th birthday Saturday:

Bill Bradley: “I’m sorry I cannot be at the 80th Birthday Party. It was an honor to be your teammate all those years. You’re a terrific human being. But, I’m going to be there for the 90th for sure.”

Jalen Brunson: “Happy 80th birthday Clyde! A New York Knicks icon on the court and on the mic, thank you for all you’ve done for this organization and the city.”

Earl Monroe: “Hey Clyde, Happy 80th Birthday. Way to join the club.”

Patrick Ewing: “I want to wish one of the greatest New York Knicks a Happy 80th Birthday. You still look like you can get out there and ball.”

Carmelo Anthony: “Happy 80th Clyde! Wishing you a birthday as legendary as you are.”

Marv Albert: “Clyde, wishing you a fantastic 80th birthday. I have enormous admiration for all the illustrious moments in your Hall of Fame career ... and how fortunate I’ve been to broadcast most of them. Also, it’s been a thrill to partner with you behind the microphone and to observe how kind and lowkey you’ve always been with people who approach you. But, of most significance, keep in mind ... 80 is the new 79!”

Mike Breen: “One of the great blessings and joys of my life have been working with him all these years because I idolized him as a kid and then when we became partners I thought that was just amazing. But then to have this lifelong friendship with him and basically grow up in the business with him has been just extraordinary.”