Rita Williams-Ewing: What Happened to Patrick Ewing’s Ex-Wife

For many basketball fans, the name rita williams ewing belongs to the great New York Knicks years of the 1990s, when Patrick Ewing was the face of the franchise and his wife was part of the life around the team. What happened to her after their very public divorce in 1998 is a different and more interesting story.

Rita Williams-Ewing did not chase fame after the marriage ended. She used her degrees in nursing and law, co wrote a well reviewed novel about the women behind a basketball team, created a children’s book series, and helped run one of Harlem’s best known bookstores. This is her story, based on the published record.

Quick Facts

Education and Meeting Patrick Ewing

Rita Williams built serious qualifications before the public knew her name. Her publisher, HarperCollins, describes her as holding degrees in both nursing and law, an unusual combination that points to a woman who planned a professional life of her own. Reports about the couple’s early years place her at Howard University in Washington, DC, one of the country’s most respected historically Black universities.

She met Patrick Ewing in the early 1980s, when both young people were doing internships on Capitol Hill in Washington. He was a rising college basketball star at Georgetown University, already one of the most watched young players in America. She was an ambitious student with her own plans. Their relationship began long before NBA money and Madison Square Garden fame, which is part of why their later story drew so much attention.

The couple dated through Ewing’s college years and his arrival in the NBA. The New York Knicks selected him first overall in the 1985 draft, and he quickly became the centre of the team and one of the biggest stars in New York sports.

Marriage During the Knicks Years

Rita Williams and Patrick Ewing married in 1990, according to most published reports, though a few sources give 1991. Either way, the marriage covered the heart of his career: the hard fought Knicks teams that battled Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, the run to the 1994 NBA Finals, and his place on the famous 1992 United States Olympic Dream Team.

Those were glamorous years from the outside, but they were also years of constant public attention. The spouse of a New York sports star lives under a particular kind of pressure, with gossip columns watching the family as closely as sports pages watch the games. Rita kept her own professional identity through this period, which mattered later, when the marriage ended and she needed a life that was hers alone.

The couple had three children together: Patrick Jr., Randi and Corey. Their son, Patrick Ewing Jr., followed his father into basketball, playing college ball at Indiana and Georgetown and then professionally, before moving into coaching. Their daughter Randi played volleyball at the college level, and Corey has lived the most private life of the three.

A Public Divorce in 1998

By 1998, the marriage was over. The divorce was widely covered by New York tabloids, and rumours flew, including gossip about a Knicks dancer that Rita herself publicly dismissed at the time. In comments reported then and repeated in later profiles, she said there was no significant other in the picture except their children, and she described long standing issues in the marriage rather than a single dramatic cause.

That response set the tone for everything after. Rita did not sell a tell all story. She did not build a public feud. The split was final in 1998, and Patrick Ewing never remarried. In later years he has been in a long term relationship with former volleyball player Cheryl Weaver, with whom he has a daughter, but Rita remained his only wife.

For Rita, the question the public kept asking was simple: what would she do next, now that the most famous chapter of her life had closed while she was still a young, highly educated woman?

Homecourt Advantage and a Writer’s Life

Her answer came in print. In 1998, the same year as the divorce, the novel Homecourt Advantage was published, co written by Rita Ewing and Crystal McCrary Anthony, who was herself married to NBA player Greg Anthony. Both women held law degrees, and both knew the world of basketball families from the inside.

The novel follows the wives and partners of a fictional New York basketball team, the Flyers, as a playoff season pushes their marriages, friendships and loyalties to breaking point. HarperCollins calls it a critically acclaimed novel, and the reviews at the time treated it as a sharp inside look at the NBA lifestyle, with Newsweek calling it an outrageous courtside seat on that world and the Baltimore Sun describing it as a juicy inside look at professional basketball. Publishers Weekly was cooler on the writing itself, but even its review recognised that the book came from two insiders who knew exactly the world they were describing.

Choosing fiction was a smart and dignified move. It let her write about fame, money, loyalty and pressure from real experience, without turning her own family’s private pain into a product. The book’s main character, Casey Rogers, is a successful lawyer married to the team’s star forward, and readers at the time naturally saw echoes of the authors’ lives in her, while the story itself remained a novel, not a confession.

The Hue-Man Bookstore and Patrick’s Pals

Writing was not her only project. HarperCollins also lists her as the creator of the Patrick’s Pals children’s book series and as co owner of the Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem. The Hue-Man was one of the largest and best known Black owned bookstores in the United States, a cultural landmark in Harlem that hosted major authors and served as a meeting place for readers for many years before its original store closed in 2012.

Those two projects fit together. A children’s book series and a community bookstore are both about putting stories into the hands of young readers. For a woman with degrees in nursing and law, they also show how wide her interests ran once she was free to build her own public identity: health, law, fiction, children’s books and Black literary culture all appear in her record.

Later profiles also connect her name with a second novel, Brickhouse, set around a Harlem fitness business, though her publisher’s own biography page highlights Homecourt Advantage, the children’s series and the bookstore as her defining work. What is not in the record is any attempt to trade on her former marriage. There is no reality show, no memoir of grievances, and no long run of interviews about Patrick Ewing.

Life Today: Private by Choice

So what happened to Rita Williams-Ewing? In simple terms, she built a private professional life and kept it. She is a mother of three grown children, including a son who carried the family name through Georgetown and into professional basketball and coaching. She has stayed out of the entertainment spotlight for more than twenty five years.

There is no verified public figure for her personal net worth, and websites that publish one are guessing, usually by borrowing from her former husband’s earnings. Her divorce settlement was never made public in reliable reporting, and honest coverage should leave it that way.

Her story stands out in the world of sports celebrity because of what she refused to do. Offered every incentive to turn a painful public divorce into money and attention, she instead wrote a novel, helped run a landmark bookstore, created books for children, and raised her family. That is a complete answer to the question fans still ask.

FAQs

Who is Rita Williams-Ewing?

Rita Williams-Ewing, published as Rita Ewing, is an author with degrees in nursing and law. She is best known to the public as the former wife of New York Knicks legend Patrick Ewing and as the co author, with Crystal McCrary Anthony, of the novel Homecourt Advantage.

When were Rita Williams and Patrick Ewing married and divorced?

Most reports say they married in 1990, after meeting in the early 1980s as interns on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1998. Patrick Ewing has not remarried.

How many children do Rita Williams-Ewing and Patrick Ewing have?

They have three children together: Patrick Ewing Jr., who played professional basketball and moved into coaching, Randi Ewing, who played college volleyball, and Corey Ewing, who lives privately.

What books has Rita Ewing written?

She co wrote the novel Homecourt Advantage with Crystal McCrary Anthony, a story about the women behind a fictional New York basketball team. She also created the Patrick’s Pals children’s book series and was co owner of the Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem.

You may also read: Melissa Esplana: Meet Dusty Baker’s Wife and Family Partner

Final Thoughts

Rita Williams-Ewing’s life after Patrick Ewing is not a mystery or a fall from fame. It is the record of an educated woman who went through one of the most public sports divorces of the 1990s and answered it with work: a novel drawn from real knowledge, books for children, and a place in Harlem’s literary life through the Hue-Man Bookstore. Fans who search her name expecting scandal will instead find something rarer, a person who left the spotlight and built a life that belonged to her.

Featured photo: Patrick Ewing – photo by Mike, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons