John Thompson dead at 78

Kliq

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I'm too young to really remember John Thompson, I was only 4 years old when he resigned from Georgetown. Over the years I heard about him, his relationship with Patrick Ewing and how he played a pivotal role in turning the fledgling Big East into the best conference in College Basketball, along with other iconic coaches like Boeheim, Carnaseca, Massimino, etc.

It was not until I came across a splendid piece of the 10 part documentary on ESPN, Basketball: A Love Story, based on the oral history book that was compiled by Jackie MacMullan and Rafe Bartholomew, and they had a 20-minute segment on Thompson and Georgetown, that I really could appreciate what a special driving force he was in basketball. His success as a coach is overshadowed by the impact he had not only on the lives of his players, but on the game itself. I know people will say that when Coach K dies, or Calipari, or any great coach and it is certainly a cliche, but it feels especially true for Thompson.

Thompson started out as a star player in high school in Washington DC when DC was the basketball capital of the world and the neighborhoods produced a surplus of professional talent. He starred at Providence and then spent two years with the Celtics as Bill Russell's backup, not playing much but absorbing a ton of knowledge. When he ended up the coach at Georgetown he inherited a 3-23 team and quickly turned them into a respectable outlet. By the time the Big East rolled around they were a perennial contender; and Georgetown was a premier program in the 1980s, making the tournament finals three times and winning once, the two losses coming on a one point lost to North Carolina, and an upset by Villanova.

That is all basketball stuff though, what stood out to me with the more I learned about Thompson was his dignity. At 6'10 and 275lbs, he was a towering black man from Washington DC, and while Coach K, Dean Smith or Jim Boeheim might have been better coaches, it is hard to think of a coach who understood his players better. JA Adande mentioned on Twitter today that the Georgetown Starter jacket wasn't a basketball coat, it was a political statement. A decade before the Fab Five got credit for ushering in the inner-city vibe to college basketball, Georgetown pioneered a team built on tough, aggressive play coupled with an inner-city swagger that could not be faked. When I talk to college basketball fans who were around during that era, they almost all talk about how they HATED Georgetown and John Thompson. The playing style was disciplined and ugly, they relied on a 2-3 zone or the 1-3-1 zone, centered around a big man (Ewing, Mutombo, Mourning) in the middle protecting the rim. A team that was built on dominant, predominantly African-American giants playing a physical style of basketball, all led by a giant coach who wasn't afraid to speak his mind to the press or use his size and attitude to intimidate referees, they were a new kind of team to college basketball and they threatened traditionalists.

The bullshit was everywhere. People know about the "Patrick Ewing can't read this" sign, but there are countless incidents. He pulled his team off the floor in 1983 when that sign was held up, but what about the "missing link" banner that unfurled, picture various stages of human evolution with Patrick Ewing placed between apes and man? What about when a Syracuse fan threw an orange onto the court when Ewing attempted a free throw in 1985? Villanova fans holding up a bedsheet that read Ewing is an ape? Thompson is memorialized today as the first black head coach to win the NCAA title, but I can't think about when in a post-game news conference he eviscerated a reporter who asked him what it felt like to be the first black coach to win a championship:

"I am not interested in being the first black to do anything, because that is a very misleading thing. It implies that in 1984, a black man finally became intelligent enough to win the NCAA title, and that is a very misleading thing."

Anyway, there a million great Thompson stories out there and as someone who was not around for his coaching career, I have found him a particularly fascinating character, although I'm sure some older fans may disagree. The 20 minute segment from the documentary can be found on ESPN+, titled "Georgetown Culture: John Thompson's America." I also caught Michael Wilbon on First Take today talking about him and it was really emotional.

View: https://twitter.com/RealMikeWilbon/status/1300451274572341255?s=20
 

benhogan

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RIP Big John

What about when a Syracuse fan threw an orange onto the court when Ewing attempted a free throw in 1985?
doubt it had anything to do with race if that's what you are implying?

Probably due to the groves of orange trees indigenous to Central NY
 
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Dummy Hoy

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I didn’t like John Thompson when I was younger, I followed the Iverson high school saga (I think SI had a great piece on it) and Thompson's handling of that made me follow him with a new awareness. He was a very bright and thoughtful man who dedicated his life to helping black men improve their station in life.

This is another kick in the teeth.
 

LeoCarrillo

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Original Big East was the best. Thompson, Carnasecca, young Jimmy B in some plaid blazer, Rollie. Conference did some damage and those coaches recruited the hell out of the East Coast.
 

patinorange

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Original Big East was the best. Thompson, Carnasecca, young Jimmy B in some plaid blazer, Rollie. Conference did some damage and those coaches recruited the hell out of the East Coast.
I moved to California a long time ago, so I kind of lost track of what happened to the Big East. But in its day, it was wonderful. Full of great teams and coaches and Big John was among the best.
It really was weekday must see TV when two Big East teams went at it.
 

Soxy

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I didn’t like John Thompson when I was younger, I followed the Iverson high school saga (I think SI had a great piece on it) and Thompson's handling of that made me follow him with a new awareness. He was a very bright and thoughtful man who dedicated his life to helping black men improve their station in life.

This is another kick in the teeth.
Before reading the thread, I had a post loaded up about how this was another kick in the teeth from 2020. Seems like an appropriate choice of words.

This one hits me where it always hurts the most: my youth. John Thompson was an institution in the Big East.

I've always loved Ralph Wiley's essay on John Thompson in "Why Black People Tend to Shout." John Thompson did not tolerate bullshit.

When I asked Thompson about some white people who had questions about how many white players he would have on the U.S. Olympic team in 1988, he smiled and said:

"I personally feel that when you ask a black person that question, it is intended to make the victim the criminal. That's a very tactless question. What it implies is that I am committing a criminal act against someone else and it is very misleading. To my knowledge, black people never held anyone in slavery in this country. The question is used to turn that part of your life around in which you were the victim, making you appear to be the person who committed the crime. The crime was committed against black folks. So I don't feel the need to explain to anybody what the racial makeup of my team will be. I feel I'm fair enough as an individual to know those people, regardless of who is white or black, best capable of bringing home the Olympic gold medal to the United States. Although it would be a lot easier if I had Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan. I do feel those questions are ploys to turn your role in society around.

"That's what I feel. I will not have a quota. No one picks my team or gives me quotas. Nobody has ever gone to my son and asked him how he feels to be the only black player on the Princeton basketball team. I refuse to be manipulated"
 

BroodsSexton

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I remember watching that Villanova upset of Georgetown, lying on my stomach, head propped on my hands, on a shag rug in my parents’ bedroom. I remember everyone hated Georgetown, but—in that manner you only come to recognize much later, when you have some distance from your perception of events—I suppressed the feeling that they were awesome and that John Thompson, in particular, was just larger than life. In retrospect, it probably was racist. It’s interesting to recognize that as a moment, when it was obvious and intuitive that what those guys were doing was sick, but society was pushing back—for what reason? Well, now we can call it out as an expression of what it was, at least in part (and yes, everyone hates Duke and the Yankees, too. But it was more than just that.)

I’d like to read more about him. I bet a biography would be interesting.
 

tbrown_01923

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Sep 29, 2006
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I "hated" them because of their awesomeness. Through the late 80s -> 90s their continuous stream of good players and dominance of the Big East (over that period) supressed some of my fun (with them).

I put my cheering resources behind the BC's, Seton Halls, Villanovas, Pitts.... There were a lot of good teams in the big east, but the teams I was rooting for were the ones sneaking into the field of 64, not the ones doiminating the league day in and day out. Dana Barros never had a shot at defeating Gtown :)
 

loshjott

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I moved to DC a year after the Villanova upset so near the end of Thompson's coaching career and I listened to his drive time sports radio show for a long time. To say he was a towering figure in DC sports is a huge understatement.

Two very different anecdotes that are not directly basketball related:

When Tom Boswell was an intern/cub reporter for the Post he lived with his mother and Thompson (who was a HS coach in DC then) used to return Boswell's calls late at night Boz's mother would often answer and she'd chat with Thompson about various things before giving the phone to Tom. That was the beginning of their professional friendship/relationship.

The other story involves Rayful Edmunds III, who was the DC drug kingpin at the height of the crack epidemic of the 1980s. Thompson heard that Edmunds was sniffing around his players and arranging meet ups. Thompson called Edmunds to his office and told him to stay the f away from his players.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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I worked at the Big East in 1983-84, which was either “the Pearl Washington year” or “the Michael Graham year”, depending how you look at it. (The year before the supernova three-teams-in-the-Final-Four year. It was a wonderful experience, and I know I’ve shared a few of my experiences here. The line up of coaches was hyper-legendary for their x-and-o’s, the personalities: Boeheim, Carnesecca, Rollie, Carlesimo and Gary Williams were quite a group, and Joe Mullaney and Dom Perno could certainly tell a story as well. Not to mention the broadcasters who covered our games weekly: Gorman, Vitale, Heinsohn...

John Thompson stood alone. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say everyone was afraid of him, but it was respect to the nth degree. The other coaches (and Gavitt for that matter) joked about everything, but they didn’t joke about “Jackie T”. (Well, maybe Looie did once in a while). Kind of like a classic war movie hero — in the moment you feared him, but on reflection you knew his judgment was great, he saw the big picture, he loved his troops, and when it was all over you understood the enormity of his heart.

RIP, Jackie T
 
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cornwalls@6

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I didn’t like John Thompson when I was younger, I followed the Iverson high school saga (I think SI had a great piece on it) and Thompson's handling of that made me follow him with a new awareness. He was a very bright and thoughtful man who dedicated his life to helping black men improve their station in life.

This is another kick in the teeth.
Was texting with a friend about this last night . We were both college hoop fanatics the 80's, in particular the Big East. Neither one of us could stand Big John back then, and we were both sort of cringing/laughing at ourselves for that now. The outspokenness on racial issues, the pulling of his team off the floor after the disgusting signs about Ewing, that our young, stupid, oblivious selves took issue with, are now things we very much admire about him. He was major force for progress and awareness on these issues. And a damn good coach. RIP.
 

bigq

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Thanks all for sharing. I knew very little about Thompson however from what I’ve learned in this thread he was great man. RIP.
 

OCST

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Original Big East was the best. Thompson, Carnasecca, young Jimmy B in some plaid blazer, Rollie. Conference did some damage and those coaches recruited the hell out of the East Coast.
This.

I grew up in central CT. In the mid-80's, UConn was still mediocre, but BE hoops were still huge. Remember that players stayed the full 4 years then, not really that much shorter than the average stay of a pro player with a single team, and these teams had real identities. Georgetown with Ewing, St. John's with Mullin, Syracuse with Pearl.

I vividly remember my whole school buzzing the day of big games.

My 10th grade Spanish teacher was old, senile, couldn't hear very well, and had a wooden arm on top of it all. She had no control of the class whatsoever. She would write the next day's assignment on the board. One day she wrote QUIZ (ie quiz tomorrow) and one of my friends jumped up and screamed at her

"SENORA! NO QUEEZE! NO QUEEZE MANANA! HAY UN JUEGO MUY IMPORTANTE ESTA NOCHE! SAN JUAN Y JORGE-PUEBLO! CRISTOBAL MOOOLIN Y PATRICIO UUUUWING! NO QUEEZE!