As if the damnation to the NBA’s Dark Ages and an owner in as much denial about the future as LBJ was about Vietnam wasn’t enough to make New York Knicks fans pound their chests in sorrow and pity, the Jan. 2 arrest of Marlboro resident and Knicks fan Ivan Cash might just push them over the edge.
Within the last few weeks, the 22 year-old Cash had provoked the wrath of Madison Square Garden high-ups by creating T-shirts for a college class with a hand-drawn depiction of Knicks coach/general manager Isiah Thomas, fitted in a rococo portrait frame, sporting the words, “Don’t hate the player or the game. Hate the coach.” The T-shirts more than hint at the rapidly growing sentiment among Knicks fans that Thomas, enabled by team owner James Dolan, has been running the former champion team into the ground.
Cash is a senior at SUNY Geneseo where he is majoring in communications and has a minor in graphic design. He also co-produced and was the lead anchor for Sports Block, broadcast at his college. The T-shirt was originally handmade, designed and created for an advanced silk-screening class.
Cash and comrade Alex Menasche were marketing these bright orange T-shirts for $20 a pop at MSG until the NYPD pulled the plug on the operation two weeks ago by arresting Menasche while Cash was inside enjoying a game.
Ironically, Menasche was taken away in handcuffs to enjoy the warm comforts of a New York City jail cell despite the fact that the boys’ operation was packed and shut down for the day. The cops confiscated the remainder of the T-shirts.
But it wasn’t over. Far from it. Not to be daunted from his quest to support himself in college, and showing a bit of the determination Knicks legend Willis Reed showed in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals, Cash invested his profits into the production of new shirts, and began to sell his products online on a Web site he created just for the venture (www.hatethecoach.com). He also continued to sell in New York City, this time through a vendor he found on Craigslist. Happily ever after? Not quite.
On a recent afternoon, Cash and friend Matt Buccelli waited with their 60 freshly minted T-shirts sitting in bags at the corner of 33rd Street and 7th Avenue for the vendor to show. Cash claims that his bags were in piles and the two display posters bearing the T-shirts were neatly leaning so as not to be damaged. The boys sat and chatted while waiting. Three police officers soon began to hover.
The NYPD soon closed in, and within moments, gave Cash a late holiday gift of a slightly used set of shiny bracelets to wear behind his back, citing that he was “intending to sell” because the $20 sign was visible.
“The fact that they were waiting for me and came up right away didn’t give me a good feeling. (At that point) I was just hoping to get out of there without getting arrested,” said Cash.
“In a non-threatening, unassuming manner, I replied that the shirts had merely been plopped down, and that the displayed price was purely arbitrary and totally inadvertent,” Cash said. “To further emphasize the point that we had not been trying to sell the shirts, I cited a previous experience when someone had wanted to buy a shirt, but I’d told them they’d have to come back because my vendor had been momentarily absent. I also pointed out that the duffle bag was covering part of the shirt’s design, which didn’t make any sense if we were in fact trying to sell them. My final explanation referenced the display board handles which were clearly meant for holding.” He pointed out that if he was trying to sell them then he would be holding up the T-shirts and hawking as he had for the previous three games, but the cops’ positions was unwavering.
Just as Cash was being hauled away, “Victor,” the vendor rolled onto the scene. Cash was immediately heartened, assuming that Victor would be able to relieve the entire situation with an explanation and a flash of the vending license. Despite Victor’s presence, according to both Cash and his friend, Cash was placed in the police van anyway, long before the police checked Victor’s license or listened to his corroborating story.
Alas, the fates had turned on young Cash again because the police were still not hearing it. Worse yet, Victor’s license was not an actual New York City vending license — it was a tax license, not good enough for selling T-shirts, said the police, thus sealing Cash’s fate.
“I was right with him when it happened,” said Buccelli, 19, of Poughkeepsie. “Ultimately the vendor’s license rules have a lot of technicalities. The sense I got was that they wanted to arrest one of us and they weren’t going to change their minds. We were clearly, clearly, clearly not trying to sell the shirts when the cops came up. They had looked at his vendor license on three other occasions when (Cash) was selling the T-shirts with Victor. I think it’s pretty ironic that his time it wasn’t good enough.”
Trip downtown
Cash was spirited away to New York’s Midtown South precinct, where he claims the police reacted with a light-hearted manner over the message of the T-shirt. Cash also claims that he asked one of the police officers in the station whether MSG ordered for him to be arrested, and the police officer confirmed. Representatives for the Garden could not be reached for comment.
“After taking all of my belongings, including my belt and shoelaces (a precaution taken to ensure I wouldn’t kill myself), my arresting officer beckoned for me to follow him into a small jail cell that was horribly dirty, reeked of urine and was freezing cold,” Cash related on his blog. “Sitting quietly in this tiny, filthy cage for three hours was more than enough time for me to make some philosophical reflections. What has our society come to, I wondered, where we lock people in cages not because they are murdering or stealing but because they are expressing themselves by say, selling a product, or writing on a wall?”
Cash sat in a solitary cell the size of a desk, engaged in deep dialogue with a fellow inmate on topics ranging from Nelson Mandela to the ethical issues of purchasing sweatshop-made Nike shoes (the man was in jail for selling Nike Airs).
“After being fingerprinted, attempting to meditate for a little while, and finally chowing my way through a complimentary McDonald’s hamburger, my three hours were soon up,” said Cash, and he was once again a free man. He was charged with selling without a vending license and is due for a “desk appearance.” Cash is hopeful that someone will contact him through his Web site with free legal advice on the matter.
Cash contacted all the metropolitan newspapers with his story, and found himself on page one of the Daily News. The story was also featured in the Chicago Tribune, Indianapolis Star and the Los Angeles Times, and he even did a phone interview with ESPN radio. His T-shirts have been featured on Channel 7 and CW11, and on sports blogs like Deadspin, Can’t Stop the Bleeding and Sports by Brooks.
“My story is getting a lot of attention,” said Cash. He said that one of the arresting cops even called into WFAN to give his version of the story. “That makes me worry that this is getting personal.
“Isiah said that he was going to run the team to its death. I think that’s what he’s going to do.” That being the case, Cash doesn’t anticipate T-shirt sales dropping off too quickly. “It stinks for me as a Knicks fan, but the better for me as an entrepreneur,” said Cash.
Getting feedback
But how do people and fans react to the shirt’s upfront message? “Most people will smile. They understand the situation. Most people smile or laugh. Most people might be like ‘Fire Isiah!’ even if they don’t like the shirt. There’s a few oddballs who might be like, ‘Oh come on, why do you have be that way about him?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh come on … do you want them to keep on losing?’ That usually shuts them up,” Cash said, with a tinge of pride.
“My parents aren’t so into sports,” said Cash. “They are happy that I am doing this endeavor and that I am making money for myself without getting a nine-to-five job. I got an e-mail from the executive director of Morgan Stanley – he was encouraging me. People who are totally successful are encouraging me. I am a nobody. It’s neat to get this encouragement.”
“I think it’s great,” said Cash’s father, Sydney Cash, a self-employed artist. “I think he‘s learning a lot of about the entrepreneurial spirit, and I feel like my father and uncle are smiling on him from someplace up above.” Sydney explained that his own Uncle Ralph used to sell items at sporting events. “I feel like it’s a learning about capitalism and the marketplace that you can’t get any other place. It’s so fundamental. I think it will serve him well in his career just to understand that.”
Cash is aware that the longevity of the shirt’s success is finite – a microtrend – lasting only as long as Thomas’s job does. “Then my shirts become meaningless,” he said.