John Thompson Passes Away

Legendary coach passes away

Transcript

00:00 Hall of Fame coach and Georgetown legend John Thompson has died at the age of 78 and for more

00:06 I'm joined by our senior writer John Wertheim and John one thing that stood out to me is the

00:11 Reverence with which some of his former players have spoken about Thompson

00:15 I mean Alan Iverson even credited him for saving his life. Is that something that that stood out to you as well? Oh

00:21 Absolutely. One of the the first stories I covered for Sports Illustrated was Thompson's resignation from Georgetown

00:28 Which came on a cold day in Washington DC in early 1999 and when he made his announcements

00:34 He was surrounded by a span of 20 years of players that he had coached and he stayed in touch with them throughout the years

00:41 You mentioned Iverson and Patrick Ewing and morning

00:43 but there were also players that you and I probably have never heard of where this was an

00:47 Absolutely pivotal figure in their careers and I think about John Thompson

00:52 One thing I think about is that he was so far ahead of the game in terms of some of the social justice issues

00:58 We're talking about now in the summer of 2020 to have somebody, you know of his leadership style, right?

01:04 It was very direct in that in covering those issues

01:08 Yeah, absolutely

01:10 I mean this was a

01:11 Prominent coach who was putting guys in the NBA and he was an Olympic coach in 88

01:16 Did he coach a national title team and the whole time?

01:18 He was about more than basketball and a lot of these issues about representation about systemic unfairness about criminal justice

01:26 He was imparting not just on his players, but to the society at large, you know in the 1980s and here we are

01:33 35 years later and he was he was a man way ahead of his time John Thompson will leave a lasting legacy

01:39 And he will be missed our best go to his family and friends

01:43 You

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