John Thompson Jr. ’64, center, meets with Robert G. Driscoll Jr., PC vice president and athletics director, left, and Friars’ coach Ed Cooley prior to a PC-Georgetown game in Washington, D.C., a few years ago.
Coach Thompson ’64 ‘a role model’ to Cooley BY BRENDAN MCGAIR ’03
here’s a good reason why Providence College’s Ed Cooley and other college basketball head coaches throughout the country paced the sidelines with a white towel draped over their shoulder last winter. It was done as a tribute to John Thompson Jr. ’64, the Friar star and Georgetown coaching titan who became the first Black coach to win the NCAA tournament in 1984. Coach Thompson died on Aug. 30, 2020. Renowned in his coaching days for slinging a towel over his shoulder, the
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Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee led Georgetown to its first NCAA championship, seven BIG EAST Tournament titles, and a 596-239 record before retiring in 1999. Wearing the towel, said Coach Thompson in his autobiography I Came as a Shadow, was a tribute to his mother. She wore one over her shoulder when she worked in the kitchen. Coach Thompson was regarded as a trailblazer for Black coaches like Cooley, but at the same time he was looked up to by teenage players from inner-city backgrounds. In fact,
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