LOUISVILLE, Ky (WDRB)- A true giant of college basketball, John Thompson died overnight at 78 years old. The cause of death was not immediately known.
He was the first Black head coach to win a major collegiate championship when his Hoyas, led by Patrick Ewing, won the 1984 National Championship.
Including 1984, Thompson took Georgetown to the Final Four three times. They nearly repeated as champions in 1985 but fell to underdog Villanova in the final.
Coach John Thompson passed away last night. The Hall of Fame coach was a life changer for so many. He was a great coach who built some of the best college teams of all time. His players were a who’s who of college basketball. Truly an icon in his time.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) August 31, 2020
As good as he was on the court, Thompson may have been better off of it. He fought for his players and while taking a stand for social justice is a major news story today, Thompson was doing it more than 30 years ago.
In 1989, he walked off the court in protest before a basketball game over the NCAA-backed bill which would have barred scholarship athletes from playing their freshman years if they didn’t qualify academically. Thompson believed the bill disproportionately impacted Black athletes.
Thompson also reportedly confronted a Washington D.C. drug kingpin that had befriended multiple Hoyas players.
Known as "Big John", Thompson was a college coach at Georgetown and Georgetown only. He resigned in 1999 with a career record of 596-239. He is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
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