ESPN.com - Page2 - Darth Vader of G'Town
Darth Vader of G'Town
By Ralph Wiley
Page 2 columnist
Admit it. In your all-time favorite moments of college basketball, John
Thompson was there. Wasn't he?
Sure he was. And in your worse nightmares, he was there.
John Thompson was the great Father Villain of the great Jesuit university
of Georgetown. He turned a village of lawyers into Georgetown by John
Thompson. As Evil Empires go, he made the Soviets look like the Smurfs.
He was Dark Vader. And some of you still can't admit to yourself the (to
you) horrible truth. Amid the celebrations of when the villain was
vanquished, one simple truth.
I'm your father, Luke...
What was your moment, Luke? Was it 1982, when Michael Jordan became the
Michael Jordan, by hitting that game-winner from the left wing to give
Carolina and Dean Smith his first national title, in front of, what, over
62,000 fans, the most ever assembled for a college game?
Remember when you first heard it, in the late '70s, early '80s, when you
heard the train coming ... bam-bam, bambambam, Let's Go Hoyas,
bam-bam-bambambam, Let's Go Hoyas ... remember how it made the hair on the
back of your neck stand up, remember how you almost panicked, then adapted
it?
Remember how it became Let's Go Redmen, Let's Go Wildcats, Let's Go
Whoever?
Remember John Williams' theme for Darth Vader? Remember how the pep band played it? Remember how well that fit John Thompson, Dark Vader, and his Imperial Storm Troopers applying their vise of full-court pressure?
Remember how completely you despised him and didn't care why or how or how
many? Remember how he gave you a reason to care about a college basketball
game?
Remember how a nothing college game and a nowhere fledgling basketball
conference called the Big East took what Bird and Magic had started in
1979 and ran with it?
Remember how precious a victory over Georgetown was?
Unless you were with Georgetown.
Remember how it felt like your team (the team G'town was playing) was
defending the honor of ancient Rome against Hannibal's elephants, named
Ewing, Mourning, Mutombo?
Remember 1985, when the Big East dominated college basketball? Remember
when Georgetown had won five of the first six Big East tournaments, until
Thompson eased off on the tourniquet, let the blood flow to your brain?
Remember how you stopped thinking just to hate him?
Did you thank him for that later? No. You curse him still.
(So did I, sometimes.) Why? Fun, I guess.
John Thompson touched people, inside, like Robin Hood, like Malcolm X,
like William Munny, like Muhammad Ali, and I went to see him about it,
back then, because it seemed to me to be satisfying and profitable work.
He yelled at me, the very first thing. He embraced his villany. "Why'd
they send you? Because you're black?" "No," I said, "because I wanted to
come." I neglected to add, "and everyone else was either too scared, too
intimidated, or didn't want to."
The good villain makes you reach higher, deeper within.
Remember 1985, when the Big East sent three teams to the Final Four, and
could've sent four? Ask Jim Boeheim, who just won his national
championship. Ask who built the fire up under him in the first place. Ask
Villanova what was its finest hour. Ask St. John's what they remember
most. Ask yourself why you can't seem to work up a good hatred for
Georgetown anymore. Ask yourself why that makes you just a little bit sad
and nostalgic maybe. Oh, you want to keep up that good hatred for G'Town.
Somehow, you can't, because He isn't there. What's "Star Wars" without
Lord Vader? I'll tell you what. Not the same. Good. Episode IV, and all
that. And still a great university. Just not the same.
Remember 1985? Is it not said to be the greatest "upset" in the history of
college basketball, if not all sports history?
Why? Because of the players? Well, Ewing was a great college player, but
he won no NBA titles. Reggie Williams was a superb college player, but he
had no impact on the pros. Mike Jackson was a great kid, but only got a
cup of coffee. David Wingate stayed around the league forever, but mostly
as a spear carrier, practice fodder. For 'Nova, Eddie Pinckney and Harold
Pressley and Dwayne McClain were all pro material, too, and Villanova had
that limber jump shooter, that Harold Jensen, and that clownish point
guard, Gary McLain, who had no game to speak of and who later bragged to
SI that he was on yayo the whole time. Check this out. 'Nova shot 90
percent for the second half, nine of ten in the pre-shot clock era, 90
percent, and guess what? 'Nova won by two, 66-64. By two!
John Thompson, Dark Vader, architect of "Hoya Paranoia" and one of the
great defensive traditions in all sports, let alone college basketball,
was the Great Villain of Life.
The color component is in there, too. We didn't invent the dictionary. No,
we just live by it. Look up "black." Look up "white." See what I mean? But
it can work in many ways.
See, I know how John Thompson came to be a villain, and came to not care.
I know it was another Father, a Catholic priest, who told the young black
Catholic boy (whose family had to wait to take communion until the good
"heroic" people were done), that he might grow up to be a murderer one
day. I knew he had ducked his head in shame when the priest said that. I
knew he had trouble reading. I knew his father couldn't get the white dust
from the marble out of his hands, he worked so long and hard at the stone
cutting business. I knew his mother had died too young, from overwork and
not enough preventative health care. I know that John Thompson was a
teacher of defense first, last and always, because he had heard time and
time and time again back them, how black players were too lazy to play
defense. Thompson told me these things himself, in time, once he learned
that I didn't care if he was a villain or not. Villains have stories too.
Sometimes they are as good as a hero's story. And I know for all the boos
and catcalls and emotion and hatred -- nobody ever said anything about
being lazy to John Thompson or any Georgetown team.
So the villain is the one who makes the drama work in the first place.
There's no hero without him. John Thompson made more heroes out of other
men than anybody else I can think of -- and, hell, you could make an
argument that defense in hoop came into vogue behind the suffocating
stance of the Let's Go Hoyas, when they shut down everybody, including
Kentucky for nearly the entire second half in the Final Four semifinal en
route to the NCAA title in 1984. Defense is still in vogue today. Quite
so.
Rick Pitino first came into vogue, was first authenticated, because his
Providence team beat John Thompson and the Hoyas in the 1987 NCAA
tournament. Rick Pitino liked to play 11 too, like John Thompson. The Big
East Conference, Michael Jordan, Dean Smith, James Worthy going "Gah!"
when Fred Brown mysteriously threw him that ball, Sam Perkins, Matt
Doherty, Villanova, Harold Jensen, Eddie Pinckney, Dwayne McClain, Rick
Pitino, Billy Donovan, Looie, Chris Mullin, Pete Gillen and Tyrone Hill at
Xavier in '89, Arvydas Sabonis and Sharunus Marcheloinus and that Soviet
Olympic basketball team that many red-blooded Americans (like you?) rooted
for in the '88 Olympics, the last Olympics for the U.S. college-age kids
in basketball, because they'd have no chance, not against men, as we first
saw then. Maybe we rooted for Russia out of habit, because Russia was
going against John Thompson. John Thompson was an even greater villain
than Cold War Russia!
That's off the villain chart, right there. That's impressive.
How many heroes can dance on the head of one villain? How many heroes can
one villain make?
Apparently, plenty.
Ralph Wiley spent nine years at Sports Illustrated and wrote 28 cover
stories on celebrity athletes. He is the author of several books,
including "Best Seat in the House," with Spike Lee, "Born to Play: The
Eric Davis Story," and "Serenity, A Boxing Memoir."
