William Ronald McKnight has traveled the world nursing the highest caliber athletes”™ sore muscles back to health, usually with a tune.
“I sing when I work,” said McKnight. “I”™ve always sung when I work.”
McKnight was born in Plainfield, N.J.
“I started out at Rutgers,” said McKnight. “I went from Rutgers to academic year abroad.”
McKnight actually studied in Austria for two years, first at the University of Graz outside of Vienna and then at the sister school of Staten Island”™s Wagner College in Bregenz, Austria, majoring in business administration and language.
“I was there for two years and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” said McKnight. “When I got out of school, I immediately started work for GTE Sylvania. They had just started their headquarters in Stamford at the time. That”™s what brought me to Fairfield County. I graduated international trade, but at the time most companies weren”™t employing blacks to represent them internationally. I had to find something else.”
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GTE offered McKnight the opportunity to get his engineering degree, which he obtained from Bridgeport Engineering Institute.
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Soon after, McKnight moved to the GTE New York City office, but he continued to live in Stamford.
McKnight moved to Wilton, got married and bought a house in Bethel.
He did not begin singing seriously until he met Georgia Louis, a tenant at a property he owned. “In knowing her I started signing.”
Louis encouraged McKnight to sing with her at events and even to attend open microphone nights. He said it”™s a way to release stress for him and people seem to like it so he must be pretty good.
McKnight worked as an engineer with GTE for two years before leaving to start his own company, an electrical supply company in Harlem.
“It failed,” said McKnight. “It had problems, but the coup de grâce was in 1977 when the blackout came. They took everything over night, just like that. Fortunately I had some of the accounts that I did, Pfizer and RCA, come to my rescue. Pfizer gave me a location in New Jersey for one dollar.” It was a temporary arrangement.
Before leaving the engineering industry behind for the world of sore muscles, McKnight picked up a fateful account with the Swedish Institute of Massage.
“They were moving their headquarters and they wanted me relight the facility,” said McKnight. “I went into the institute to sign the contract and Mrs. Eckhart who was then the owner of the school said ”˜You don”™t look good.”™ As soon as she said it I couldn”™t stop the tears.”
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Eckhart brought McKnight into the student clinic and had the massage student”™s work on him for four hours. McKnight soon after began to study to become a masseur himself and then in 1987 formed The Center for Therapeutic Massage & Athletics, which now has locations in Bethel, Danbury and Norwalk.
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McKnight began again his old habit of singing while he worked, he started to sing for his clients who would eventually ask him to sing and even request songs.
“They love it,” he said.
He said he mostly likes the blues and R&B. His theme song is Aretha Franklin”™s “Dr. Feelgood (Love Is a Serious Business).”
By 1990, McKnight became involved in working with elite athletes in the Goodwill Games and then with the U.S. wrestling team even after its subsequent move to Salt Lake City. McKnight continued to work with the athletes of the wrestlers, traveling with them to the Olympics of Barcelona in 1992, Atlanta in 1996 and Athens in 2004.
When he”™s not soothing the aches of his clients, McKnight can be found soothing ears at either La Fortuna in Bethel or The Georgetown Saloon in Redding.
