'Pops Don't Run No Democracy'

In a rare light moment, John Thompson displays an extra-large version of Looie Carnesecca's gamer sweater. Their teams battled, but Looie and Big John seemed to like each other.

The above quotation came from Ronny Thompson, a Georgetown basketball player back in the day, describing the leadership style of his coach, that is to say, his father.

John Thompson, Jr., the long-time basketball coach at Georgetown University, died Sunday night at 78.

He did things his way, defying any definition imposed by others. If you praised some aspect of his leadership or coaching, he bristled, blustered, maybe even dropped an epithet.

I got a first-hand view of his bombast in 1984, days before Georgetown won the national Division I basketball championship.

I had called the president of Georgetown, Father Tim Healy, to assess the impact of Thompson on his players, almost all of whom were Black. 

''This is a man from the Washington area who is taking kids who don't have two coins to rub together and is literally teaching some of them how to use a knife and fork,” Father Healy said in my column before the Final Four.
“He knows just what he's doing, “ Father Healy continued. “And we at Georgetown support him in what he's doing.''

At the press conference before the Final Four in Seattle, Big John went off, loud and clear.

I distinctly remember him denying that he ever taught anybody to eat properly and I distinctly remember him saying: “I ain’t no Jesus Christ.”
He did not mention Fr. Healy or The New York Times (or me) but it was clear he had read the column and was not amused.

John Thompson surely had a powerful role in the lives of many of his players. Of the players who stayed with the program,  the graduation rate was said to be 97 percent.
Some left early, to be sure, but while they were there, they all had to play relentlessly, without any frills to their game. Thompson once said a certain player would be all right as soon as he dropped “the old Boogaloo” from his game – meaning, fancy moves, fancy passes. He expected people to know what he meant by “the old Boogaloo.” No definitions.

In Thompson’s time, Georgetown had an academic advisor, Mary Fenlon, a former nun, on the bench. Fenlon, who passed in late 2019, was said to be witty and sociable, but in public she was as inscrutable as Thompson.

His model player was Ronnie Highsmith, an Army vet who was four years older than the stars and would lend physicality on the court and discipline off the court.

The players succeeded, under Thompson's model of discipline and education.

As it happens, I am currently catching up with the biography, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” by David W. Blight, published in 2018. (I believe that I went through grade school through college without ever hearing a mention of Douglass.)

The book tells how Douglass, the escaped slave, educated himself to become a writer and speechmaker and caustic critic of Abraham Lincoln when he saw fit. His larger-than-life persona pushed America toward the Emancipation Proclamation.

America has gained from black critics and activists. Early in my career, I ran into powerful figures like Harry Edwards, the academic, and Jim Brown, the football player, and Bill Russell, the basketball winner (for whom Thompson was an understudy for two years.) 

Nowadays, athletes like LeBron James and Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery are setting a tone, just as John Thompson did once as a protest. My friend and colleague, Harvey Araton, AKA The Rebbe of Roundball, has a knowing column on Thompson, the activist, in the Tuesday NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/sports/ncaabasketball/john-thompson-georgetown-ewing.html?searchResultPosition=2

Like Frederick Douglass, John Thompson did not talk about his feelings, his inner reactions. He had a posture and he stuck to it.
Ronny Thompson’s evaluation of his father was perfect. 
                       *       *     *
My column quoting Father Healy:  
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/26/sports/john-thompson-s-wall.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/19/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-coaches-get-some-sympathy.html
 
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/11/sports/sports-of-the-times-the-rookie-has-earned-his-minutes.html?searchResultPosition=1
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/sports/ncaabasketball/john-thompson-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1