![]() It was one of the last Catholic schools in the country not to recruit Black athletes. When Big John arrived at Georgetown in 1972, after brief stints in the NBA and coaching high school basketball in Washington, D.C., the school had enjoyed little success as an independent, reaching just one NCAA tournament. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Thompson created Georgetown basketball - and Big East basketball - as we know it. He won 596 games and coached four Hall of Famers in Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and Allen Iverson. Thompson’s Hoyas, tenacious on defense, came to embody the rough and gritty Big East Conference of the 1980s, and Thompson was at the center of it all. But as with every discussion of Thompson’s legacy, the hardwood is only a part of how “Big John” cast such a long shadow on his sport. ![]() It remembered the iconic towel draped over his shoulder, how his Hoyas shut down Manley Field House, how - with an all-Black starting five - he became the first Black coach to win an NCAA championship. ![]() When news broke of the death of John Thompson Jr., the longtime Georgetown men’s basketball coach, the college basketball world eulogized a titan of a bygone, halcyon era of the sport. ![]()
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