Ewing-Thompson: The Sequel

Patrick Jr. basically visited campus, liked the coach and the kids he was going to play with, and that was that. Bloodline nostalgia took a back seat to playing opportunity.

"Coach knows it better than I do; it's not about the past," Patrick Jr. said. "It's what we do now. It's Georgetown Hoyas, 2006-2007 -- not the Georgetown Hoyas in the '80s."

Still, to bone up on tradition, the kid recently watched old Hoyas tapes, back as far as John Duren and Craig Shelton. He forgot his father had hops until he saw the original Hoya Destroya throw down one of the nastiest dunks imaginable on a Kentucky player.

Patrick Jr. took an anthropology course last semester and was honored when Gwendolyn Mikell, the professor, told him his father was one of her favorite students.

"That's when I feel proud to be his son," he said. "Around here, he's known and thought of very highly. People like him a lot. It's a good feeling."

Big John wishes people wouldn't do the kid a disservice by asking him, "Don't you need to carve out your own identity?"

"You put people on the defensive with that question," he said. "It's a head game that society plays with you. Too many people fail when they try to become their own man. There's nothing wrong with trying to live up to your father if he accomplished great things. I have a picture of my father in my kitchen I look at every day. I hope I can live up to that man."

Patrick Sr. will attend his son's first Georgetown game, bringing along Patrick Jr.'s two half-sisters and a nervous feeling in his gut.

"It's not like he can hide from the fact he's my son; he's had to deal with that his whole life," Patrick Sr. said in a telephone interview from New York yesterday.

"It's funny: You feel invincible when you're the parent and you're going about your way. But when it's your own kids, you're very vulnerable. You want the best for them."

The legend and the prodigy went one-on-one a few years ago in Orlando. At the end of Ewing's NBA career, Patrick Jr. was growing into his gangly body and becoming a formidable foe.

"I finally beat him one game," Patrick Jr. said.