Black Champions; Interview with John Thompson

fb it's bush well i think that probably i got interested in education as a result of my interest in basketball on that overlooks was on the first to me until i get to a point of high school and getting into college and realized that moment for me to use the basketball analogy use of them had to do some academic things and i think that basketball led me to an environment that made me more conscience conscious of the benefits of

the education i think that happens with a lot of young people i don't think that they are it matters whether you just in education for so athletic first i think the most important thing is that you get to the point that you realize america appreciate education commissioner well arvin west election promise was primarily particular my mother's interests in the dominican father's i think she had some experiences and washing dc with it with the dominican father's in a probably a lot of my interest with basketball related but at that point in time i began to realize that academics was going to be a very important part of the true simultaneously and i think i wanted to be in an environment where i felt comfortable with the athletic program an academic program and i didn't want to be a real lives through i felt that

i had to get the kind of individual attention of providence provided for me at that time the decision that was the decision that you're going to have this experience and most young people i don't think you make the decision there's a conscious effort though i think most young people particularly young black his field athletics is really only avenues in which you can get into mainstream society and that's a lot of which are so you roam onto heard about jackie robinson you will be heard about boxes like joe louis in most of black people who have done significant things in other disciplines were not recognize four so a young person running washington was only exposed to black athletes who have been successful i think in many other black successful mother feels when i was not privy to that information so i of course wanted to be an athlete and that that's what that's what was my

motivating force of it for me so i think that without a budget the things that influenced me most of probably was my mother father and i think that italy direct influence i think that has allowed indirectly influence and most of those people probably with sports figures but i mean my father was born in southern maryland five to six most awful washington dc i you know went to scrutiny write his own name but he was a tremendous advocate of education he knew and appreciated the value of education always fascinates city if you got an education or something at the white men could not take away from the severity of the day and i think they did really born out of significance to me the fact that because i respected him that must be something to this educational that was a very sweet person and she had gone to mount a teachers college in washington dc

i'm a shia also was american education i think sometimes she patted me rise in this dictation pitted the flu had that she wanted to become a more interested in the next day and i probably wasn't an earlier stage without vitamins desire to please now and so is the fire and started to blow in the fire started to catch up academically i got a great deal of satisfaction out of some of my academic successes because i knew that that please my mother an awful as silas in it my mother probably was the strongest force of inspiration i'm a farmer fb there's only so long you go through the system where when the boston i was in paris with the united states the

best voting for it and i picked up the washington post's ironically in person and was enlisted and that abbas insurgents had dressed to me in the third inning in my mind i said this is something that i've always wanted to do and this is something that i really wanted to try to divide the orphanage up at the airport by goodyear in akron there was a major decision that had to be made at that time because we are dealing with a common a management training program and i said to myself at that point that this is something that i work very hard for something that i want to release final were unable to do that i knew that i couldn't give a total commitment to duty if i didn't at least try so i decided to travel for the celtics wouldn't was to his precious record so i think those first time that i'd ever been put in a situation because up until then basketball had been relatively easy and not as competitive for

me i was exceptionally tall person i had reasonably good skills and i knew pretty much when i went out for a team to make the team just a question of how much of this was one the first time to really get into a situation where i had to make the team in basketball i had expressed that base was a kid because baseball is my first love so a new a competition wasn't as wide make teams in basketball the first time i got in the nba but i saw it as a challenge and i was in omaha nebraska and now a train in those days the celtics whitson trainer for you to tell you that you cut out to carry that you may detain with italian time soon are back so he could tell you that and i remember one night i was watching television with feminine enough and trainer mark i'm going to live in the stone article of the same innocent although he says along this wall that aisle that they can write about war political map the middle and he heard this voice come in in the smoke

filled room because rick was always smoking a cigar in utah minnesota and he said i want to congratulate you said you did a good job the latest thing and i was one of these moments of my life competitively because i really sincerely felt that there was something that you know i had accomplished in a competitive situation that was a goal that i have always strived for this i think most is do that and i think that they most insolent into athletic competition want to be professional athletes so it was really nice oh i think you'd have compared to think that people who were successful in two things for money i think they should assist by getting paid if they're good i think that

now play basketball with the boston celtics at have another option to go daddy's management program so i felt that since i chose to do this that i should do the best that i could regardless of the situation and i felt that it was my responsibility to be ready when the opportunity provided so what was one minute with his fabulous because i was the greatest basketball player ever played again bill russell in i always respected russ but always intimidate them to the ones employed but that book that i had to do this and i called for john thompson said you're not fully invite us to say it but just to know that i have done as well as i could so i saw it as my responsibility to stay in shape and be mentally out and challenge her is two people that were going to try to do the best i could do changing conditions

well gans well i think that they were reducing social mobility as much as any member of the samurai or to get men to move them to do things and to create a sense of pride and dignity among individuals and make that a collective feeling adding most of the people who he gathered around him where people are easily have that limit pride but to make it a cohesive unit and angry about that was an exceptional person and doing it had an unusual ability of recognizing the things that you do to contribute to the same lot of people like him as a starter seymour one individual but if us intervention if i did chair lift when i got into two minute separate assad's i could even acknowledge it and i think all people want recognition so i guess what i'm saying is ever really had an unusual ability to to move men i think probably as well as anybody in my life so this is

a serious issue well apple in boston for two years a sixty four sixty five sixty five sixty six season and i had to make a decision because the nba expanded and chicago bulls came in and when chicago can only get the right to take two players off of each team and i was one of the players that they selected and at their port and panama when i found that out i made a decision that there were some other things that would be really meaningful for me in my life and i thought that now is the time for me that have to do and i did not want to be a journeyman basketball playing in the i think the appetite which i hadn't been any play in the nba do just a be a professional athlete to see what life was like and to see whether i could be successful and it had gone because it was like anything else that a lot of what the anticipation has twice as great as realization united express a realization in newark airport i

liked it but it wasn't what i wanted to spend most of my life and i always had a desire to teach in some form and always enjoyed work with young people and i thought that i wanted to just go back to washington and explore the possibilities of doing some of the things i came back and work for united planning organization in washington which was a part of the poverty program in those days and i worked really would drop out to young people people would drop out of school in his who had been in problem situations with the law who had to get acclimated to work situations are really insincere enjoyed it and i'm still see some of the men who've grown up in when i go to the gym to watch basketball players of that will go up to michigan's it's a legitimate sun remember you know i mean the park service and those really rewarding and it was a different kind of expression it was like well i think

that there wouldn't when one goes to college and only his home and acted in those days us about the decision of your problems there was not a choice in terms of washington to big display first of all at that level because most blacks in america either went to school in new england all way out west now because you're saying university in most of southern universities weren't as willing to receive blacks and a manner which i wanted to be receiving certainly they were just breaking this gottschalks was at that time and so that's going to the women and when i came back to watch it and i think that that allowed a difference at the general transitions that you go to allow the friends a grown up a lot of your friends are getting involved in other things and i had to make an omelet justice that most people make and getting back into the world of work because athletics tends to be offensive at this point in time you have to realize not a manifesto than one m ward time have somebody supervising me and whatever responsibility and padding than those who received this

asserted i've ever encountered simply because it gave me a real by the real world because athletics again it'll put you have a world that tend to be waited on a lot of ways of things tend to be planned for you and your relief program to be unhealthy about the nature of athletics so i think i'm back to washington was a tremendous learning experience for me and having a normal so called jobless rate it's great for what it is well i was actually when i won't go to st anthony is a one night i was at home in a parish priest father believes know monsignor bill in washington called me and he said i'm a standard you a new home in the remote you have a vegetable that would you be interested in coach in the parish house will get them i don't really i hadn't didn't live for two ago i'd like to come around to talk to about saw one directors vocal about you describe the tv medium the mortgages to practice or seven that the sauce and in one of the home relatively early so that

stadium our spinach news without within the senate because he and the challenges in that time you know things he'd been wanting to do but on the same token just have a little funny i say can i come old marcin seem so i came over when i was at lunch time and what the keys to a gymnasium which was also a cafeteria st anthony's and he has landed in line is a straight line and the best of all the cyclists in a politically if the line consists of people from eleven so there were some decisions that that you know i had to make their tissue an ally of the us and do it in about a father wanted my competitive instincts will permit me to be dissatisfied with having an average tenure i want a weapon and so you know we started programming we took out loans in the first year but after that we gave food and i got something good basketball players become the senate the misanthrope and i was watching

tv you see changes with it for years were you looking for that was as certain as it influenced in warsaw and contributor to choose your life i think that probably my goals and objectives were to sue the key is that we would be successful in a college graduate and i realized at that point that will doubtless have done for me and i knew that i'm mostly kids at it saying it is time for him in a position to pay their way through college london blows had to be recorded to get into college and to get them out of college and i was extremely conscious of that they talk about the graduation rate here a jewish center we've heard that we have an extremely high success the graduation

rate from college of a high school chorus a nearby st anthony's so philosophically has been something that i've been interested in owning a lot of the kids went to college and had a nationalist concern about was always talking to him about it uses to go to college because i'd had an intimate show you things you have been doing this work when i was really just to contact in college coaches and saying at bethel got over here that the healthy and weapons division one division to didn't matter to me i wanted to see the players focus willing to separate so that gave me a tremendous the satisfaction unless certain idea that for them to do that for myself i think that in south africa that was something that gave me a tremendous feeling of satisfaction that this possibility is concerned you into a project and people i don't think you can when alone with can hear people talk about character and cactus and you have to have ability people that the physical attributes to perform the functions of the objectives of the daring but if you do not have a character you know that was positive effect you've got to have kids who

have a sense of pride a sense of satisfaction a sense of belonging to a group in a sense of wanting to achieve things together and i think that that's one of the keys to motivation a selection they are interested in succeeding i don't think you change in the professional counselors professional psychologists change people but a good basketball coach is able to identify those people have a desire to change but might not necessarily had been provided the opportunity or the resources to fulfill his innate abilities and that was one of the things i tried to do a job that most people want the head of potential predators are armed for those people didn't have deterred boat designed to counselors professional dancers for professional cyclists irving penn biggest distinction between high

school athletics and the people who work with the nashville and colleges have a kid in high school it's much easier to indoctrinate you know he's looking for direction a lot more ticket and colleges a college person generally things he knows enough about life to be successful and you get thomas convince him that do you know just enough to mess up the rest of your life if you don't learn more and i think that it's a different kind of challenges you have to because he possesses one option you have to be talking with you too because it was i think a lot of things that were so and i think that if a person sees that you've been an order that you have a sense of pride in what you're doing in concert video for lively and learned to respect that that's when the things that we tried to do just that we wanted to definitely and then the fact that the program that mccain and a jury is an avid basketball team but a good basketball program is a much broader concept than a good

basketball team we want to be very certain iraqis understood that the primary goal objective was to get a degree get out of school and to be able to function in the world we're one and also understand that it was very important for us to be successful as a basketball team competitive adding want natalie's to be ashamed and oath to accomplish those goals ahead to be structuring a lot and awesome person that so structurally not that we didn't vote on that i don't believe in the democratic process when we talk about leadership and what we all can decide you know her suggestion boxes in our locker room and i wanted people who wanting to file a directional to take my leadership and i think that again is a part of what you're talking about when you talk about how do find the people you don't find people receptive to order receptive to direction we went to a crisis late sixties and early seventies were what really happened we're paying

to go to higher education institutions were riding out declares description riding out the pro western athletic programs and i think the thousands of young people and what direction they want leadership and want a challenge when the same token i think they respect strong leadership of strong that direction as long as it's positive themselves and identify good several industry or if you talk about the seasons past what kind of things that coaches do not only to keep kids interested in people that have to work with have to live their lives under tremendous pressure and constant work one thing about cars airplanes today is that it's a pot oppression and i think that pressure is a way of life and most

people want to be successful or reach a high level of success anyway and i think that includes an athletics as a great training ground for what we try to do here jewish genesis of outages and discuss situations i think you might go into a gymnasium where a team will do in the nineteen years has been highly criticized for missing a free throw by professionalism i think it is my role as a coach to sit down into the trial explain and walk through that with a playlist and talk about it or to even anticipate effect this will happen and to try to prepare the case for it now i think that what did those is that when a person most of kansas for most of athletics his theory and practice and i think you get a chance to go through the complete package that you express in the real world on mats record with my players a jewish tenant strategist and acclimate important the world we're less than one percent actually play professional basketball and making very much aware that i try to

translate what schrier says they're encountering a massive bell and relate those things to what's going to happen to them to real world work more so than putting emphasis on the fact that this will pay you go for professional athletics as a professional places an accident but you reach a certain level of competence and if you wanted to just after that if you didn't happen to find that you've got to be really prepare yourself other things and the pressures and the expectations people expect you to win when you reprogram idealist and that creates a certain impression but if i go to work for general motors and if i don't work for cole well if i go to work for any corporate structure they don't expect me to be successful also so i don't want my place to look at cafe expectations but to prepare themselves properly to try to reach those and to be able to manage that if it doesn't care in addition we have an opportunity to compete for a national championship for doing nothing but the best decided in one game situation in which we lost a very good villanova

basketball team and i think at that point there was a great deal of disappointment and myself and the team but i think they do learning how to manage failure michalak of success and i think that was my role as a basketball coach of the savannah to try to tell you that with my place because i think that because of our work plus loaning cannibals things in the world the word that you've got to restructure man does the fact that you didn't win and a living so i think that there a lot of similarities and athletics to the real world war when you talk with you i think a lot of them into a firefight that there are a lot of similarities as competitive summer is always trying to make something better a summer has always tried to do that raise some as always trying to get your position or you're trying to get someone else's position as the nature of

athletics and i think it's very important for them to identify characteristics and we're working very similar feel it they feel are very professional and they don't panic when they're being criticized because in them and were aware that maybe sixty thousand people we played for sixty thousand people and you have sixty thousand people of which thirty thousand of booing and thirty thousand sharing a massive mixed emotional phil and so i think when you get out and you know we're working to reshape athletics alliances part of the attitude that goes along the players after the game was not a complete toilets with the fact that state came to label the best we can and it seems to be maybe that's what are you going to play for you

oh definitely i think our objective is to do the best way we can and we say a prayer locker room before we come out on the court mr cohen four we come out it's came out a loan for him because sometimes i think that's more for children's forgotten were things we try to do this to save you know we've not that we went out there we do the best we can and i think that if we do this weekend in somalia us is better than us we walk away from an unknown song reasons why when you saw it in yemen symbolic crying and say about palin need to recognize the fact that somebody had outperformed assert that in you still in southfield heard that and i think that that's a part of the learning experience also it might be a medical and there's at that point but i think it would be translated into a positive learning experience with those people getting rolled were or when they go through

various situations in life and having difficulty with that approach more families are having difficulty when the jobs they've learned to man is there probably not panic or not feel that i have told disappointed because i have a one i think about sixteen point most people in my life that i met who've been successful probably have more failures than most people would not been successful because they attempted to do more things and it employs a team that is very important to understand that if you tried to do things that can travel live life to its fullest you wanna have some failures and if you have those frigid day be imagining continue to try to achieve and to do other things this is weekend edition return the constant chant was kids perhaps who i'm not ready to focus on that particular aspect because all athletic

programs there's a verse distinction between the knowledge i think that the society has its own standards and user that's reflected in basketball school board the team that comes out on top as a team that is considered a champion that i think individually as a coach will allow individual champions watching a substitute do the best we possibly could and work as hard as he possibly could to fulfill his innate ability i think it's i think they're watching a manager serve of the players have worked extremely hard to bring a metallic clinical for staying late at night as a check and i think that that that we turn to our society it's only acknowledged those people who work get public recognition but i think it is the fulfillment of one's potential annoying and realizing that you've done the best that you possibly could with what god has given i reflect that more so than the father john thompson has received a lot of public acknowledgement for what he

has achieved i felt that if i were the rest of my life in which you know everything that extracted to the man my father was but he never received any public acknowledgement and also in mind as he was the greatest champion avenue because he took care of his family he didn't think then a lot of adverse situations maybe that number private way was totally motivated by his inner peace an is an uprising that would be a good incentive the crowd of the newspaper or public knowledge and so having been a champion as an individual but i think their religious riots with public acknowledgment a lot of the public acknowledges the people as champion who won a personality a law degree