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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on May 31, 2018 12:58:46 GMT -5
"We're like a military unit that has been through a lot of fire together. Mr. Thompson is the fire." Love it! It's time the coach is respected again.
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drquigley
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Post by drquigley on May 31, 2018 19:13:50 GMT -5
I loved the comment that the Hoyas shunned black players because it was felt that they couldn't handle the academic workload. Those of us old enough to remember those all white teams of the mid 60's can attest to the fact that we had some guys on those teams who were, shall we say, "academically challenged".
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Jun 1, 2018 7:11:22 GMT -5
Just from a basketball perspective, he was a pretty good coach.
The irony of it all, is that aspect gets lost in all of what he did off the court during his coaching career.
Not only could he coach, he knew how to build a roster too.
He is ability to coach and win, gave him that platform to speak on issues that weren't addressed often.
He was a pretty good basketball player too at Providence and backed-up Bill Russell with the Celtics.
He is just a very sharp, intelligent guy in general. He was right there in the beginning with the Big East. He was there in the beginning with Nike. He is on their board of directors.
JT2 is one of a kind.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 2, 2018 19:03:04 GMT -5
As a bit newer Hoya, I am wondering how the Georgetown basketball persona of the 1980s of "tough, African-American, social warrior" was developed in stark contrast to the Georgetown academic persona of "elite, Catholic, white"? If you look at Duke, its academic persona and athletic personas are mirror images of one another. How did Georgetown head in the opposite direction? I realize JT played a big part in it, but are there any other reasons? There's an important thread to be pulled between the original comment and this one: I loved the comment that the Hoyas shunned black players because it was felt that they couldn't handle the academic workload. Those of us old enough to remember those all white teams of the mid 60's can attest to the fact that we had some guys on those teams who were, shall we say, "academically challenged". For students of Georgetown history, and the history of American higher education more broadly (and I will admit to being a novice in the latter, although my mom does have a PhD in the subject...), it is crucial to note that "elite" and "Catholic" were in no way synonymous in the pre-JT2 era, or even during the first part of it. Certainly not as far as Georgetown was concerned. While the School of Foreign Service has been a well-regarded institution since its inception, and the Washington DC location has always brought the school some added cachet (certainly more so than fellow Jesuit institutions in Worcester, Wheeling, or Scranton), it was largely considered a regional school not dissimilar from the Villanovas and Loyola-Baltimores of the world well into the second half of the 20th century. When the first two U.S. News rankings were released in 1983 and 1985, Georgetown was nowhere to be found. A couple of years of basketball success later, in 1988, suddenly Georgetown was #17 in the country. As Charlie Deacon will tell you, that is not a coincidence. Forget "stark contrast" - in some meaningful and tangible ways, John Thompson Jr. is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university, certainly insofar as both admissions rate and endowment play a role in how such things are adjudged.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 2, 2018 20:27:33 GMT -5
For students of Georgetown history, and the history of American higher education more broadly (and I will admit to being a novice in the latter, although my mom does have a PhD in the subject...), it is crucial to note that "elite" and "Catholic" were in no way synonymous in the pre-JT2 era, or even during the first part of it. Certainly not as far as Georgetown was concerned. While the School of Foreign Service has been a well-regarded institution since its inception, and the Washington DC location has always brought the school some added cachet (certainly more so than fellow Jesuit institutions in Worcester, Wheeling, or Scranton), it was largely considered a regional school not dissimilar from the Villanovas and Loyola-Baltimores of the world well into the second half of the 20th century. When the first two U.S. News rankings were released in 1983 and 1985, Georgetown was nowhere to be found. A couple of years of basketball success later, in 1988, suddenly Georgetown was #17 in the country. We're among friends, but I have to disagree. Georgetown was never the regional school that Villanova or Loyola is portrayed. Villanova was the commuter school for the kids in the suburbs, while St. Joe's and LaSalle got the Catholic kids from the city. Penn was the elite school, Drexel had the co-op program, Temple was the working man's school. Likewise, a kid in Baltimore going to Loyola wasn't choosing nationally, it was the Catholic option to stay in town and a good one at that. For many years, it was either Hopkins or Loyola, given that Towson and UMBC were in their infancy. That was the story in a lot of northern cities. New York had St. John's and Manhattan, Boston had BC, Detroit had the U. of Detroit, and so on. Good schools, but not meant to be elite. Since the Church avoided evangelization of the South, the Jesuits focused on the industrial north, which is why there are no Catholic universities in places like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix. The four schools which were deemed a step above were Holy Cross, Fordham, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The older HC alumni remember when their college was considered the best of the Jesuit schools, with Fordham a close second. While they had regions of strength, it's not like every ND kid came from Indianapolis or every Georgetown kid was from the District--these schools drew heavily from the Northeast and from Chicago, where the populations of Catholic high school kids were a growth market. The law school also drew a more national mix even as many of these grads came from the Villanovas and Loyolas of the world and returned to their home towns. Into the early 1970's, the accept rate at Georgetown was just above 50 percent, which reflected a step above from those other Catholic schools to whom a C average and a phone call from the pastor would open doors. You are correct that the 1983 rankings did not include Georgetown...but neither did it include Duke, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Rice, or Johns Hopkins either, due to methodology which favored larger schools with heavy applied sciences; hence, Illinois was at #8 and Wisconsin tied with Cal Tech at #13. As Charlie Deacon will tell you, that is not a coincidence. Forget "stark contrast" - in some meaningful and tangible ways, John Thompson Jr. is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university, certainly insofar as both admissions rate and endowment play a role in how such things are adjudged. No. Mr. Thompson is not directly responsible, not even close. Rev. Timothy Healy is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university due to the decision to pursue a need based aid program in 1978 and joining the COFHE group in 1981. These decisions did what Healy was not able to do as an EVP at Fordham--bring a Catholic school into the inner circle of elite universities who competed for faculty, students and thought leadership. Georgetown was the first school so invited, and the decision to open to need based, full need financial aid paralleled what students could get at Ivy and major liberal arts colleges and allowed Georgetown (to consternation in some ecclesial quarters) to state that they were not just a great Catholic university but a great national one as well. Basketball provided a door to what the University was becoming. It manifested in a three to five year rise in applications but it did not drive Georgetown's ordinal reputation growth in higher education. Any school can go to the Final Four or the Sugar Bowl and get a bump in interest (e.g., Loyola-Chicago) but they are not suddenly elite. Villanova has moved from the US News "regional" universities to #44 nationally, but they're still not going to give Penn a run for its money. And if basketball was responsible for Georgetown's reputation, wouldn't that reputation have visibly slipped in the intervening years? Georgetown's move into the Top 25 was a direct result of Tim Healy's vision for a University that was more than a home for the Catholic intelligentsia that Fordham sought, or a tight-knit Jesuit academy that made Holy Cross what it was. Healy's vision, and Jack DeGioia's delivery of that vision, is the driver for Georgetown's standing at a place in higher education held by no other Catholic university worldwide.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Jun 2, 2018 20:38:38 GMT -5
For students of Georgetown history, and the history of American higher education more broadly (and I will admit to being a novice in the latter, although my mom does have a PhD in the subject...), it is crucial to note that "elite" and "Catholic" were in no way synonymous in the pre-JT2 era, or even during the first part of it. Certainly not as far as Georgetown was concerned. While the School of Foreign Service has been a well-regarded institution since its inception, and the Washington DC location has always brought the school some added cachet (certainly more so than fellow Jesuit institutions in Worcester, Wheeling, or Scranton), it was largely considered a regional school not dissimilar from the Villanovas and Loyola-Baltimores of the world well into the second half of the 20th century. When the first two U.S. News rankings were released in 1983 and 1985, Georgetown was nowhere to be found. A couple of years of basketball success later, in 1988, suddenly Georgetown was #17 in the country. We're among friends, but I have to disagree. Georgetown was never the regional school that Villanova or Loyola is portrayed. Villanova was the commuter school for the kids in the suburbs, while St. Joe's and LaSalle got the Catholic kids from the city. Penn was the elite school, Drexel had the co-op program, Temple was the working man's school. Likewise, a kid in Baltimore going to Loyola wasn't choosing nationally, it was the Catholic option to stay in town and a good one at that. For many years, it was either Hopkins or Loyola, given that Towson and UMBC were in their infancy. That was the story in a lot of northern cities. New York had St. John's and Manhattan, Boston had BC, Detroit had the U. of Detroit, and so on. Good schools, but not meant to be elite. Since the Church avoided evangelization of the South, the Jesuits focused on the industrial north, which is why there are no Catholic universities in places like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix. The four schools which were deemed a step above were Holy Cross, Fordham, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The older HC alumni remember when their college was considered the best of the Jesuit schools, with Fordham a close second. While they had regions of strength, it's not like every ND kid came from Indianapolis or every Georgetown kid was from the District--these schools drew heavily from the Northeast and from Chicago, where the populations of Catholic high school kids were a growth market. The law school also drew a more national mix even as many of these grads came from the Villanovas and Loyolas of the world and returned to their home towns. Into the early 1970's, the accept rate at Georgetown was just above 50 percent, which reflected a step above from those other Catholic schools to whom a C average and a phone call from the pastor would open doors. You are correct that the 1983 rankings did not include Georgetown...but neither did it include Duke, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Rice, or Johns Hopkins either, due to methodology which favored larger schools with heavy applied sciences; hence, Illinois was at #8 and Wisconsin tied with Cal Tech at #13. As Charlie Deacon will tell you, that is not a coincidence. Forget "stark contrast" - in some meaningful and tangible ways, John Thompson Jr. is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university, certainly insofar as both admissions rate and endowment play a role in how such things are adjudged. No. Mr. Thompson is not directly responsible, not even close. Rev. Timothy Healy is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university due to the decision to pursue a need based aid program in 1978 and joining the COFHE group in 1981. These decisions did what Healy was not able to do as an EVP at Fordham--bring a Catholic school into the inner circle of elite universities who competed for faculty, students and thought leadership. Georgetown was the first school so invited, and the decision to open to need based, full need financial aid paralleled what students could get at Ivy and major liberal arts colleges and allowed Georgetown (to consternation in some ecclesial quarters) to state that they were not just a great Catholic university but a great national one as well. Basketball provided a door to what the University was becoming. It manifested in a three to five year rise in applications but it did not drive Georgetown's ordinal reputation growth in higher education. Any school can go to the Final Four or the Sugar Bowl and get a bump in interest (e.g., Loyola-Chicago) but they are not suddenly elite. Villanova has moved from the US News "regional" universities to #44 nationally, but they're still not going to give Penn a run for its money. And if basketball was responsible for Georgetown's reputation, wouldn't that reputation have visibly slipped in the intervening years? Georgetown's move into the Top 25 was a direct result of Tim Healy's vision for a University that was more than a home for the Catholic intelligentsia that Fordham sought, or a tight-knit Jesuit academy that made Holy Cross what it was. Healy's vision, and Jack DeGioia's delivery of that vision, is the driver for Georgetown's standing at a place in higher education held by no other Catholic university worldwide. As always, our founder is the wise old head around here. That said, I am glad I got accepted pre-1982 and the explosion in interest/applications sparked by the Hoyas’ golden era.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jun 2, 2018 21:05:22 GMT -5
You guys, and your memory of history put me to shame. I guess that's why I went into the liberal arts.
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smokeyjack
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Post by smokeyjack on Jun 3, 2018 11:07:53 GMT -5
I really wish I had known JT circa 1981. The shell I was allowed to know in the 90s was an extremely coarse tyrant. I know that wasn’t the man who players or select folks inside the program knew and loved. But he was absolutely unreasonably irascible from the early 90s forward with the overwhelming majority of the public and media.
I loved his son as a person, not necessarily as a coach. I never saw the side of JTJr that was absolutely required to help produce a man of JT3’s class and character.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jun 3, 2018 12:14:30 GMT -5
Let's just say that JT2 was bold, a slight chip on his shoulder, and easily irritated by what he deemed stupid questions. Loved his players like a father.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jun 3, 2018 13:36:04 GMT -5
We're among friends, but I have to disagree. Georgetown was never the regional school that Villanova or Loyola is portrayed. Villanova was the commuter school for the kids in the suburbs, while St. Joe's and LaSalle got the Catholic kids from the city. Penn was the elite school, Drexel had the co-op program, Temple was the working man's school. Likewise, a kid in Baltimore going to Loyola wasn't choosing nationally, it was the Catholic option to stay in town and a good one at that. For many years, it was either Hopkins or Loyola, given that Towson and UMBC were in their infancy. That was the story in a lot of northern cities. New York had St. John's and Manhattan, Boston had BC, Detroit had the U. of Detroit, and so on. Good schools, but not meant to be elite. Since the Church avoided evangelization of the South, the Jesuits focused on the industrial north, which is why there are no Catholic universities in places like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix. The four schools which were deemed a step above were Holy Cross, Fordham, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The older HC alumni remember when their college was considered the best of the Jesuit schools, with Fordham a close second. While they had regions of strength, it's not like every ND kid came from Indianapolis or every Georgetown kid was from the District--these schools drew heavily from the Northeast and from Chicago, where the populations of Catholic high school kids were a growth market. The law school also drew a more national mix even as many of these grads came from the Villanovas and Loyolas of the world and returned to their home towns. Into the early 1970's, the accept rate at Georgetown was just above 50 percent, which reflected a step above from those other Catholic schools to whom a C average and a phone call from the pastor would open doors. You are correct that the 1983 rankings did not include Georgetown...but neither did it include Duke, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Rice, or Johns Hopkins either, due to methodology which favored larger schools with heavy applied sciences; hence, Illinois was at #8 and Wisconsin tied with Cal Tech at #13. What's the point of this board if not to disagree among friends?! As you say, there were a handful of Catholic schools that were considered more selective and 'elite' than their peers - but that just meant they drew students from a handful of Catholic metro areas, rather than just their own. To the extent that there were schools that were elite enough to draw students from across the nation in meaningful numbers, it was a handful of elite Ivy types and some of the more well-endowed flagship state universities that had enough room on top of their in-state allotments. The presence of Illinois and Wisconsin so high in the rankings at that point in time (also Michigan at 7 and Berkeley at 5 in the very first set), while certainly a product of the specific methodology used, also reflected a time when major state financial support and plentiful Federal funds powered the large state institutions in a way that only a much smaller handful of private institutions could match, relative to today. Philanthropy then was not what it is now - and not just at Georgetown. Some of those flagship state schools have fallen off, while a handful have stayed in the top 25 or nearby. Anyway, while you're right about the major tweakings of methodology that took place during that time (although the dataset I reference has Duke coming in at #6 in the 1985 edition), it wasn't simply about overweighting schools that were big (the Ivies aren't that big; certainly Dartmouth and UChicago aren't) and/or applied science focused (you cite Hopkins and Rice, for whom those are distinctive strengths). My point remains: contra to how the original poster was describing it, "Catholic" and "elite" were decidedly *not* synonymous at the time. That Georgetown of the immediate post-Ewing era showed up higher than Notre Dame and (with the exception of 1990) remained there until 1995 - while Holy Cross and Fordham were nowhere to be found - is a testament to that. Lastly, while they’re not exactly big names, our friends at St. Thomas in Houston and Barry in Miami would be saddened to hear that they don’t exist. Maybe I’m just sensitive to that because I grew up in Mobile, Alabama – can’t get much more Southern than that – less than two miles down the road from a Jesuit college. And I’m not even Catholic! No. Mr. Thompson is not directly responsible, not even close. Rev. Timothy Healy is directly responsible for Georgetown's reputation as a premier national (and global) university due to the decision to pursue a need based aid program in 1978 and joining the COFHE group in 1981. These decisions did what Healy was not able to do as an EVP at Fordham--bring a Catholic school into the inner circle of elite universities who competed for faculty, students and thought leadership. Georgetown was the first school so invited, and the decision to open to need based, full need financial aid paralleled what students could get at Ivy and major liberal arts colleges and allowed Georgetown (to consternation in some ecclesial quarters) to state that they were not just a great Catholic university but a great national one as well. Basketball provided a door to what the University was becoming. It manifested in a three to five year rise in applications but it did not drive Georgetown's ordinal reputation growth in higher education. Any school can go to the Final Four or the Sugar Bowl and get a bump in interest (e.g., Loyola-Chicago) but they are not suddenly elite. Villanova has moved from the US News "regional" universities to #44 nationally, but they're still not going to give Penn a run for its money. And if basketball was responsible for Georgetown's reputation, wouldn't that reputation have visibly slipped in the intervening years? Georgetown's move into the Top 25 was a direct result of Tim Healy's vision for a University that was more than a home for the Catholic intelligentsia that Fordham sought, or a tight-knit Jesuit academy that made Holy Cross what it was. Healy's vision, and Jack DeGioia's delivery of that vision, is the driver for Georgetown's standing at a place in higher education held by no other Catholic university worldwide. You’ll certainly get no argument from me regarding the importance of Healy’s vision and decisions, chief among them being need-blind/full-need admissions. But that would not have been enough by itself – and, indeed, schools have risen to elite prominence without such a commitment – any more than basketball success would have. It required a combination of factors, one of which was a major boost in national presence and brand awareness. To me, it is incontrovertible that Georgetown’s basketball success just as ESPN and college sports generally were emerging as major national holds on the American public was to a great extent responsible for that elevation in name recognition. Sure, some of it came with vilification of Pops or a mistaken belief that Georgetown was an HBCU. But the name was out there, and at a time when schools outside the small elite core (or those who bore than name and standard of big, prominent states) were beginning to pursue national recruiting and promotion for the first time, that was a huge step up. I see parallels with another Catholic school, one you notably did not include in your elite four of old – Boston College. Yet today, it is third in the pecking order at #32 (Nova is now next at #46 – another school absent from your four that has been riding athletic prominence to national academic stature). I dare say that being a founding member of the Big East and Doug Flutie had a lot to do with that. Begrudgingly, the move to the ACC has probably helped a bit as well. In point of fact, Georgetown has never gotten below #20 since 1994, so you could say that the reputation did visibly slip. Certainly that can't all or even mostly be laid at the doorstep of the basketball program, but the boost in national prominence that allowed the school to punch above its weight class in the second half of the 80s and first part of the 90s did peter out a bit. For what it’s worth, Villanova’s acceptance rate has dropped from 43.5% in 2016 to 35.9% in 2017 to 29% in 2018. Ya think basketball mighta had something to do with that?
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jun 3, 2018 15:09:11 GMT -5
That was the story in a lot of northern cities. New York had St. John's and Manhattan, Boston had BC, Detroit had the U. of Detroit, and so on. Good schools, but not meant to be elite. Since the Church avoided evangelization of the South, the Jesuits focused on the industrial north, which is why there are no Catholic universities in places like Miami, Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix. Barry University in Miami, University of Dallas in Dallas, TX.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jun 3, 2018 15:13:57 GMT -5
I really wish I had known JT circa 1981. The shell I was allowed to know in the 90s was an extremely coarse tyrant. I know that wasn’t the man who players or select folks inside the program knew and loved. But he was absolutely unreasonably irascible from the early 90s forward with the overwhelming majority of the public and media. I loved his son as a person, not necessarily as a coach. I never saw the side of JTJr that was absolutely required to help produce a man of JT3’s class and character. At the John Carroll Awards weekend in 2006, which was in Las Vegas, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting both JTII and JTIII. JTII was an absolute gentleman; when he met my wife, he apologized for not getting up, as his knees were failing him (as would most people 6'10" about 300 pounds after years of playing bball).
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miracles87
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Post by miracles87 on Jun 3, 2018 15:42:52 GMT -5
Just from a basketball perspective, he was a pretty good coach. The irony of it all, is that aspect gets lost in all of what he did off the court during his coaching career. Not only could he coach, he knew how to build a roster too. He is ability to coach and win, gave him that platform to speak on issues that weren't addressed often. He was a pretty good basketball player too at Providence and backed-up Bill Russell with the Celtics. He is just a very sharp, intelligent guy in general. He was right there in the beginning with the Big East. He was there in the beginning with Nike. He is on their board of directors. JT2 is one of a kind. Yup, and his radio show was an utter delight. People would come on that show and bare their souls, very unique, and all due the respect given to him, and which he demanded with the way he lived his life. He still does NCAA Tourney radio, and is great there. too.
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drquigley
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Post by drquigley on Jun 3, 2018 20:52:49 GMT -5
I always felt that JT2 lost interest in coaching after AI became his first two and done. JT2 loved to be able to mold the man not just be a basketball coach. But once AI announced he was leaving JT2 realized that you can't accomplish what he wanted with his players if they can take the money and run after a year or two. While he didn't begrudge them for leaving, JT2 understood the power and benefits of $$$, he saw the handwriting on the wall and realized his vision of what a college coach should accomplish couldn't be realized in the modern one and done era.
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Jun 4, 2018 9:41:54 GMT -5
I always felt that JT2 lost interest in coaching after AI became his first two and done. JT2 loved to be able to mold the man not just be a basketball coach. But once AI announced he was leaving JT2 realized that you can't accomplish what he wanted with his players if they can take the money and run after a year or two. While he didn't begrudge them for leaving, JT2 understood the power and benefits of $$$, he saw the handwriting on the wall and realized his vision of what a college coach should accomplish couldn't be realized in the modern one and done era. He had lost interest before AI. AI kinda gave him a little boost for 2 years. He was on slight cruise control after he won the National title. I really think the loss at the Olympics soured him and burned him out. That was tough to deal with. Changes were coming in international play down the line regardless, but he knew the ramifications of losing the Olympics with him as the coach. After that, he was on complete auto-pilot and you could see it with some of the teams we had (and recruiting) before Iverson. He really took a liking to Iverson and it gave him a little boost. Yes, JT2 was $$$ man himself. With his ego and all that he accomplished, JT2 wasn't about kissing a young recruit's butt just to come to Georgetown anymore. Plus, he never had the luxury of being just a basketball coach. Just x's and o's. It takes a lot to run a clean program. After close to the 30 years, he was tired. He wasn't a basketball lifer. He wanted to finally enjoy life.
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Jun 4, 2018 10:54:59 GMT -5
I always felt that JT2 lost interest in coaching after AI became his first two and done. JT2 loved to be able to mold the man not just be a basketball coach. But once AI announced he was leaving JT2 realized that you can't accomplish what he wanted with his players if they can take the money and run after a year or two. While he didn't begrudge them for leaving, JT2 understood the power and benefits of $$$, he saw the handwriting on the wall and realized his vision of what a college coach should accomplish couldn't be realized in the modern one and done era. He had lost interest before AI. AI kinda gave him a little boost for 2 years. He was on slight cruise control after he won the National title. I really think the loss at the Olympics soured him and burned him out. That was tough to deal with. Changes were coming in international play down the line regardless, but he knew the ramifications of losing the Olympics with him as the coach. After that, he was on complete auto-pilot and you could see it with some of the teams we had (and recruiting) before Iverson. He really took a liking to Iverson and it gave him a little boost. Yes, JT2 was $$$ man himself. With his ego and all that he accomplished, JT2 wasn't about kissing a young recruit's butt just to come to Georgetown anymore. Plus, he never had the luxury of being just a basketball coach. Just x's and o's. It takes a lot to run a clean program. After close to the 30 years, he was tired. He wasn't a basketball lifer. He wanted to finally enjoy life. Well said. Put another way, Big John never suffered fools gladly. With the explosion in media coverage and media access came a concomitant explosion in the presence of fools with whom he had to deal. He didn’t like it and was in aposrion where he didn’t have to take it.
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Post by HoyaRejuveNation85 on Jun 4, 2018 11:09:26 GMT -5
The Way nailed it.
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Jun 5, 2018 12:07:12 GMT -5
If you can get ahold of a copy, I highly recommend reading Big Man on Campus by Leonard Shapiro, which is a biography of John Thompson Jr that was published in 1991. It does a good job of showing what he overcame and what he was able to accomplish. www.amazon.com/Big-Man-Campus-Thompson-Georgetown/dp/0805011250Also, I think one issue our alumni base has always had is that Georgetown basketball is not a culture people grow up in, and there isn’t any process set up to educate students and younger alums. It’s important not to jump on people asking about our history in good faith because there isn’t anywhere else for them to have learned it, and not only did they not necessarily grow up in a Georgetown family, they weren’t alive during JT2’s heyday. The Hoyas celebrating their fifth year reunion this year were born after JT2’s last BET title. Most of this year’s rising seniors had not been born when Allen Iverson was at Georgetown. How are they supposed to know about JT2? The national media?
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Jun 5, 2018 18:52:23 GMT -5
If you can get ahold of a copy, I highly recommend reading Big Man on Campus by Leonard Shapiro, which is a biography of John Thompson Jr that was published in 1991. It does a good job of showing what he overcame and what he was able to accomplish. www.amazon.com/Big-Man-Campus-Thompson-Georgetown/dp/0805011250Also, I think one issue our alumni base has always had is that Georgetown basketball is not a culture people grow up in, and there isn’t any process set up to educate students and younger alums. It’s important not to jump on people asking about our history in good faith because there isn’t anywhere else for them to have learned it, and not only did they not necessarily grow up in a Georgetown family, they weren’t alive during JT2’s heyday. The Hoyas celebrating their fifth year reunion this year were born after JT2’s last BET title. Most of this year’s rising seniors had not been born when Allen Iverson was at Georgetown. How are they supposed to know about JT2? The national media? And I am an age, when I saw JTII play in HS. Geez. My cousins and I came down from NY to see anther cousin (All NYC) play in the Knights of Columbus tournament at McD, where the best team was Carroll with JTII and Lefkowitz Leftwich.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 5, 2018 20:03:51 GMT -5
Also, I think one issue our alumni base has always had is that Georgetown basketball is not a culture people grow up in, and there isn’t any process set up to educate students and younger alums. It’s important not to jump on people asking about our history in good faith because there isn’t anywhere else for them to have learned it, and not only did they not necessarily grow up in a Georgetown family, they weren’t alive during JT2’s heyday. The Hoyas celebrating their fifth year reunion this year were born after JT2’s last BET title. Most of this year’s rising seniors had not been born when Allen Iverson was at Georgetown. How are they supposed to know about JT2? The national media? Colleges don't maintain that culture you speak of, at least as much as one would think. Today's Duke students wouldn't know Art Heyman from Paul Heyman, and I get that. And the average Villanova fan under the age of 25 has no knowledge of Howard Porter or Chris Ford or Stuart Granger, much less Kerry Kittles or Scottie Reynolds, either. How do students graduating in the 20's (that's the 2020's) appreciate the past? Georgetown could start by introducing students to names beyond Ewing, Iverson, Mutombo, and Mourning. This upcoming season marks the 35th anniversary of the 1983-84 team, and to my memory they've never been introduced as a group at a game. It's well understood that John Thompson avoids public recognition like this (he even passed on his halftime induction to having his number retired at Providence). Would this not be the time to call back Fred and Gene, Bill, Ralph, Michael and David, Horace, Reggie, Michael G., Victor and Clifton to stand beside their teammate and now coach, to be duly honored while they're all still here, and frankly, to bury the hatchet and get Craig Esherick and Mike Riley back as well? The nature of the Georgetown bureaucracy suggests that getting this group together will be a stretch. OK, how about the 30th anniversary of the 1989 team? Charles, Jaren, Bobby, Johnathan, Anthony, Sam, Ronnie, Mark and Dwayne, Alonzo and Dikembe, and who knows, maybe Johnny Jones, John Turner or Milton Bell shows up? That's how today's students learn--by seeing it in person. And it's great for the alumni to be remembered. North Carolina has always understood the power of collective memory. Those jerseys at the Dean Dome are not only a nod to the past but an invitation to students to know why those names are there. It's also a not so subtle message to those players and recruits that walk through the tunnel-- you could be up there too. They're not just reserved for those who got an NBA contract, but those that achieved the highest honors for the school, and are recognized appropriately. Top row: only national players of the year. The rest: Limited to 1st or 2nd team All-America, ACC Player of the Year, Final Four MVP, or an Olympic gold medalist. It's more impressive than the national title banners.
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