Stan Asofsky, Vociferous Courtside Superfan of the Knicks, Dies at 87

For decades, beginning in 1959, he was a regular presence at Madison Square Garden (in two locations), befriending players and heckling opposing players and refs.

Stan Asofsky was more than a rabid New York Knicks fan. He was a ticket holder with access, reflecting a time when professional sports venues were far less fortified and class-segregated. When one didn’t have to be Spike Lee, or Taylor Swift, to walk in a celebrity athlete’s world.

Or play. During the 1960s, Mr. Asofsky delivered crisp bounce passes to Cazzie Russell, a young Knicks forward, while Russell practiced jump shots at the 92nd Street Y, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Then they would shower and walk a few blocks south to the hot-dog emporium Papaya King, so that Russell could rehydrate with a glass of tropical juice.

“He wasn’t getting enough minutes, and he wanted the workout,” Mr. Asofsky told me in 2009. “I said, ‘Come to our Y.’ He said, ‘Are there ballplayers there?’”

Mr. Asofsky, who died on Sept. 12 at 87, was more than a prideful gym rat with a bum knee, not to mention a superfan; he could also be an accommodating friend: He once set Russell up on a blind date, with a woman who worked with Mr. Asofsky in CBS’s publishing division, as he recalled in the 2009 interview, for a book I was writing about the Knicks’ glory days.

Certainly seat location helped in the creation of the insider persona that Mr. Asofsky developed alongside Fred Klein, his front-row companion for a half century at two Madison Square Garden locations.

Long before there was such a thing as celebrity row, where Mr. Lee has stretched his vocal cords and enhanced his exposure as a premier filmmaker, Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein were the arena’s best-known baiters of Knicks’ opponents and referees alike.

When Mr. Lee learned of Mr. Asofsky’s death, at the Princeton Medical Center near his home in Monroe, N.J. — four years after Mr. Klein died of Covid-19 — he paid homage to the men whose floor-level seats were within shouting distance of Mr. Lee’s sideline perch opposite the Knicks’ bench.

In a text to Mr. Asofsky’s family, Mr. Lee wrote: “Stan and his buddy Fred are Knicks/Garden royalty. I grew up with them.”

The Knicks likewise matured as a franchise under the watchful eyes of Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein, whose relationship had commenced during a pickup game in which they traded blows.

Mr. Asofsky began attending Knicks games during the 1959-60 season, when the Garden was at Eighth Avenue and West 49th Street, his son-in-law, Greg Fersko, said. Development of a Knicks championship team began a half-decade later, leading to titles in 1970 and 1973 (the last the franchise has won).

When those rising contenders moved into the new Garden, less than a mile south, in 1968, Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein managed to keep their front-row seats. They became featured characters in “Miracle on 33rd Street,” Phil Berger’s 1970 book recounting the 1969-70 championship run.

By then, they were well known to everyone, from Wilt Chamberlain — whom Mr. Asofsky enjoyed serenading by his middle name, Norman — to Jake O’Donnell, one of the league’s most well-known officials.

Years into retirement, in 2009, Mr. O’Donnell asked if “those Carnegie guys” were still around the Garden — a reference to Mr. Klein, a restaurateur who was part owner of the Carnegie Deli, once a Midtown Manhattan landmark.

“They raised hell a lot, and got you going a little bit — not that it ever swayed a call,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

Mr. Asofsky was wintering in Florida by 2008. Given the skyrocketing costs of Knicks tickets, watching on flat-screen television was a more pragmatic, if no less rabid, viewing experience, said his wife, Roberta Cohen, who confirmed his death, from a cerebral hematoma.

“He watched all the games, read all the papers, scoured over the stats — the passion never left him,” she said.

Stanley Edward Asofsky was born in Brooklyn on June 16, 1937, the younger of two sons of David and Evelyn Asofsky. He attended Stuyvesant High School and Baruch College, both in Manhattan. In addition to his publishing work at CBS, as director of inventory and distribution, Mr. Asofsky owned a deli on Long Island, near Great Neck, where he lived before moving to New Jersey. He also managed a tennis club and was an avid player.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Tami Fersko, and two grandchildren.

Mr. Asofsky was a fan of other New York sports teams, but nothing compared to his love and knowledge of the Knicks, Ms. Cohen said in an interview. Early on, she said, he would not let her attend a game with him unless she could “name at least seven players on the opposing team.”

Mr. Asofsky’s allegiance to the Knicks wasn’t a one-way affair — indeed, it refuted the notion that a sports team won’t love you back. When he missed a rare game in 1996 to attend his daughter’s wedding rehearsal dinner, Jeff Van Gundy, the Knicks coach at the time, called to ask if he was all right.

When Mr. Asofsky’s family planned a 65th-birthday celebration in 2002, Willis Reed, who had been captain of New York’s championship teams of 1970 and 1973, called to apologize for having business to attend to as a New Jersey Nets executive — the N.B.A. finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. He recorded a five-minute video tribute and sent it to Mr. Asofsky instead.

Mr. Asofsky also reveled in his association with reporters who might need an extra set of courtside eyes and ears. At halftime of Game 2 of the 1993 Eastern Conference finals, against the Chicago Bulls, he and Mr. Klein directed me to a fan several rows back who had been heckling Michael Jordan for being out in the wee hours of the morning in Atlantic City.

After The Times reported the details of Jordan’s gambling excursion, he defiantly led the Bulls as they recovered from an 0-2 deficit by winning four straight games. Much to Mr. Asofsky’s and every Knicks fan’s despair, that was arguably their best chance of winning a third title. Perhaps until now.

His death occurred shortly before the Knicks acquired the center Karl-Anthony Towns, completing a formidable lineup that many believe will contend this season. Watching the team’s formation in recent years lifted Mr. Asofsky’s spirits despite his declining health, Ms. Cohen said.

“He just loved Jalen Brunson,” she said of the Knicks’ star point guard. “He was so up with everything. It’s just so sad that he’s not here to see if they can finally win another championship.”

Harvey Araton is the author of “When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks” (2011).