Knicks Fan Gives Up Career As A Lawyer And Spends $20,000 To Go To All 82 Games This Season

NY Times – Dennis Doyle knows how strange it must sound, his giving up his career as a lawyer to hit the road with his favorite sports team. And then his story gets even more unusual. The part about his favorite team being the Knicks, an addiction since childhood. And choosing this season, of all seasons, to attend every one of the team’s 82 games, home and away. And withdrawing about $20,000 from his savings to make it all happen. “I knew there was a chance that this could be a really awful season,” Doyle, 31, said Thursday at his apartment in Queens. “I asked for it, I guess.” Ten games into the season, Doyle has already made more trips than two injured players, Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani. He bumped into Charles Oakley, his favorite former player, at a craps table in Cleveland. He stayed at an urban farm in Detroit. He has watched the Knicks lose eight times (and counting). And he has found his adventure to be a largely solitary one. “It’s actually been hard to talk friends into coming to these games,” Doyle said. But for all the novelty of his season-long experiment, Doyle sees real value in it — a quest for self-discovery, he said, and a chance to explore his passion for writing. He has been chronicling his travels in a blog, The Oakman Cometh: A Season with the New York Knicks, and plans to pitch a book. “I think there’s a metaphor between what’s happening with the team and what’s happening in my own life,” Doyle said. “You’ve got this team that’s coming off a horrible year where everything went wrong. But they’re in transition, and there’s hope on the horizon.”

“There have been times when I would have loved to have been rid of the Knicks,” Doyle said. “For the better part of the last 15 years, I’d say.” Yet his devotion to the team has been unshakable. Consider that he endorsed the Antonio McDyess trade, which turned out to be one of the worst deals in franchise history. He also once ripped the head off a life-size cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan during a playoff game. “That cardboard cutout had it coming,” Doyle said. So one night, in the wake of losing his job, the idea came to him: Why not combine all three of his interests by spending six months with the Knicks? Doyle Snyder, 43, who works as a life coach, said her brother was “living daringly.” Few Knicks fans (if any) have chosen to express their existential crises by committing to attend 82 straight games. During a rebuilding season. And paying for it, in more ways than one. Doyle, who is single, has been meticulous in his planning. He has spent $8,000 on airfare for the team’s road trips. He shelled out $3,500 for season tickets to home games at Madison Square Garden (Section 220) and another $4,000 for tickets to away games.

This is, without a doubt, unequivocally, the worst life decision anyone has ever made. It bumps me from the Number 1 spot leaving Deloitte to hitch my wagon to Dave Portnoy. Abandoning your career while spending 20 grand and a year of your life following around the 2014-2015 Knicks sounds flat out atrocious. Its maybe the most depressing thing I can think of. Going city to city, by yourself, watching this stumbling Knicks team lose 50 games all while blowing a huge chunk of your money to do it. Like really think about what this entails. Think about how awful that 7 game losing streak was for this dude. Think about it being the dead of winter and you travel all the way to Detroit and lose a shitty game. Travel to Milwaukee in the middle of January and watch Carmelo score 40 on 40 shots while the rest of the team plays like shit and you walk away with the loss. Away games in Toronto. Traveling to fucking London to watch this team run an offense they have no clue how to run. Its just honestly the worst plan I’ve ever heard. I could maybe understand doing it with your baseball team. Travel the country in the summer and sit out in the cheap seats in the sun and go through the (hot) dog days of summer with America’s Pastime. But following around a shitty NBA team in the winter makes me so depressed I can’t even imagine how Dennis Doyle feels.

Some of these quotes just makes me want to kill myself. “It’s actually been hard to talk friends into coming to these games” made me wanna cry. Are they hard to give away because the Knicks are playing ugly basketball, or are they hard to give away because nobody wants to go see the Knicks at the Hawks with a guy named Dennis Doyle who barely has any reason to wake up in the morning? “I think there’s a metaphor between what’s happening with the team and what’s happening in my own life,” Doyle said. “You’ve got this team that’s coming off a horrible year where everything went wrong. But they’re in transition, and there’s hope on the horizon.” YIKES. Not trying to get you down here, Dennis. But the hope on the horizon is basically completely predicated upon massive free agent signings or trades. Unless you’re planning on winning the lottery or some other sort of major life acquisition, after the 2014-2015 season youre still just gonna be the guy who spent his life savings watching 82 games of 9th seed basketball. “He also once ripped the head off a life-size cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan during a playoff game. “That cardboard cutout had it coming.”  That was the one. That line was rock bottom for me as a reader. I had to just shut it down after that part. Dennis Doyle may God have mercy on your soul.

PS – How about Doyle Snyder, Dennis’ sister who’s a LIFE COACH. First of all, was your name Doyle Doyle before you got married? Sincerely hope so. Secondly lemme ask you a question – are you the worst life coach on the planet? Condoning this worldwide tour of mediocrity is the most irresponsible thing a Life Coach can do.