Legendary NCAA basketball coach John Thompson has passed away

[Soundscream]

He was 78

Coached notable NBA players Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Morning, Dikembe Mutombo and Allen Iverson.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I know little about the sport but just looking him up he seems like a legend in the sport.

RIP

 

[CountAntonio]

Damn. Absoulute Legend. Rest in peace Coach.

 

[Kill3r7]

Legend. I grew up watching Big East basketball and Thompson was a trailblazer.

 

[Neece]

Legend. Made Georgetown the team of the 80s for Black America. RIP.

 

[DrDarkStryfe]

Legend. He's on that short list of coaches that elevated the sport due to their personality and approach to the game.

 

[The Albatross]

Oh man, too bad. If any coach defined my childhood watching college hoops it was John Thompson. As a big east fan as a kid Thompson was *the* coach.

 

[FTF]

Man, the hits keep coming. RIP.

 

[DirtyLarry]

Damn. RIP Coach Thompson.

 

[Deleted member 5359]

🥺

 

[donkey]

It's been a wild year for basketball, man. Loved the Hoyas back in the day with him at the helm. RIP, Coach.

 

[Soul Skater]

RIP

 

[platocplx]

damn RIP.

 

[CountAntonio]

🥺

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Touching.

 

[Emergency & I]

This hits hard. Guy is an absolute legend.


Rest in Peace.

 

[Deleted member 5359]

Touching.

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It's a touching story. After AI was shunned by college recruiters for football, his mom personally went to visit John Thompson and told him that if AI didn't get out of their hometown that the cops would kill him. Georgetown was her last hope for her son's life.

 

[Superpupperbabysassy]

I posted something in the Black thread. Thompson's run in the 80's Big East built ESPN. Those Georgetown teams were the first teams that embodied hip hop culture.

 

[CountAntonio]

It's a touching story. After AI was shunned by college recruiters for football, his mom personally went to visit John Thompson and told him that if AI didn't get out of their hometown that the cops would kill him. Georgetown was her last hope for her son's life.

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And he became one of the best players of all time. Pretty amazing. What a great man.

 

[jwhit28]

I'll always remember the story between him and Rayful Edmond, one of the countries biggest drug dealers and based in DC.

Friday Non-Sequitur: Why You Never Messed With John Thompson

This bears no relevance to anything that's happening today—look, Joe Torre is stepping down!—but we're going to talk about it anyway, since some folks may not know the story. We were talking about...

www.sbnation.com

A D.C. drug dealer named Rayful Edmond III began knocking on [Alonzo] Mourning's door, and the freshman made the foolish, naive decision to befriend him. Edmond didn't want to sell Mourning any drugs; Edmond just wanted a sniff of the exalted Hoya experience. When his drug runners would get murdered, Edmond would bury them in Georgetown jerseys—that's how fanatical he was.

"This is a fast city," said John Duren, one of Thompson's first important players in the late 1970s along with Craig Shelton. "When a young kid comes in this city and he's a star—[Allen] Iverson, Ewing, Alonzo—the top ballplayer is going to meet the thug, the top drug dealer. They shopped for clothes at the same store and ate at the same restaurant, the old Houston's up on Wisconsin [Avenue]. It was just inevitable." Thompson invited Edmond to his office and lit into him. He told the drug dealer to stay away from his players or suffer the consequences. Edmond, it was said, never associated with a Georgetown player again" That's about how it went down," Duren said. "Everybody remembers the day Rayful went to Coach's office."

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