You don’t get to choose your name. Not as a child, anyway.

You wear it. Sometimes, proudly. Sometimes, quietly. Sometimes, literally, stitched in block letters across your back.

E-W-I-N-G conjures only one image in the D.C. metropolitan area, in New York, in the minds of anyone who watched the Hall of Fame center star with the Knicks and Georgetown and the Dream Team.

Patrick’s oldest son, Patrick Jr., was followed by his father’s 7-foot shadow at Georgetown and Indiana, becoming a second-round draft pick who appeared in seven NBA games. His youngest daughter, Alexis, didn’t want to follow her father’s path. It is understandable, given the weighty and unfair expectations attached to her legendary name.