All Things Basketball with GD - 2022-23 Season, Player Spotlight on John Thompson (Archbishop Carroll HS, Providence, Boston Celtics, St Anthony's HS, Georgetown)

Show notes:

Intro (00:00 - 00:45)

Preview of our player spotlight on the great coach John Thompson Jr (00:46 -01:37)

Early life including his upbringing with his parents, living in a segregated Washington DC area and his introduction to the game of basketball (01:38 - 06:13)

His time at Archbishop Carroll HS where he won 3 Catholic league championships and once had a 55 game winning streak (06:14 - 07:25)

Attended Providence University where he excelled as a student-athlete leading the school to the NIT and its first NCAA tournament appearance ever as well as earning a bachelor's degree in economics (07:26 - 10:31)

Drafted the third round and 27th overall in the 1964 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics where he played for two years and won two NBA championships (10:32 - 12:42)

Upon being left exposed and available in the 1966 expansion draft he decided to return to Washington DC to coach St Anthony's HS basketball team as well as have a position as a guidance counselor to the students thanks to his Masters degree in counseling from the University of DC (12:43 - 15:03)

In the running for the head coaching job at Georgetown University along with Morgan Wooten and George Raveling with the university rolling the dice in hiring John; the stipulations which included the hire of Mary Fenlon serving as academic coordinator and later assistant head coach as well as the rules he put in place upon getting the head coaching job (15:04 - 21:03)

After a rocky 2 year start he gets his third year team to its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1943 while facing a racial taunt and call for his resignation (21:04 - 23:03)

The next 4 seasons which included two more NCAA tournament appearances, two NIT tournament appearances and a revolutionary hire of Lorry Michel as his athletic trainer (23:04 - 26:29)

Georgetown joins the newly formed Big East Conference and that's where the team's success begin to take off; John's recruitment of a young center named Patrick Ewing (26:30 - 30:08)

1982-83 season which began the Patrick Ewing era at Georgetown where the school made three NCAA Finals losing to North Carolina and Villanova by a mere three points combined and their triumphant season beating Houston to win John's only NCAA championship (30:09 - 45:37)

Call to action (45:38 - 46:56)

https://www.allthingsbasketballwithgd.com/

--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/allthingsbasketballwithgd/support

or https://www.buymeacoffee.com/allthingsbbgd