John Thompson - I Came As a Shadow: An Autobiography

I always planned to be a teacher, not a basketball coach. I used basketball as an instrument to teach.

My classroom was the court.

When I say teach, Im not talking about how to run 2-2-1 zone press or the fast break, although we did those things quite well. I felt a responsibility to broaden my players perspectives, of the world and of themselves. I had to expose my kids to their own intellects and give them a sense of self-worth beyond their physical attributes. I tried to praise them for their minds as much as for making the quick trap off the inbounds pass. But I always knew the reason I had their attention was basketball. Basketball was my instrument to make them listen to everything else.

Basketball also became a vehicle for me to challenge injustices. I didnt think about it that way when I started coaching Georgetowns team in 1972. I just did what came naturally based on how I was raised by my mother and father, the environments that I lived in, and the amount of time I was exposed to certain things. I reacted based on heredity, environment, and time. It wasnt like I strategized or planned to be an outspoken person. If I thought my team, myself, or people in general were being treated unfairly, I tried to say something about it. Sometimes I did not speak up when I should have. Other times, I should have kept my mouth shut. But as I got further in my career, basketball became a way of kicking down a door that had been closed to Black people. It was a way for me to express that we dont have to act apologetic for obtaining what God intended us to have, and that we should be recognized more for our minds than our bodies. All this came out of the strong responsibility I felt to teach kids more than how to throw a ball through a hoop.

Too many Black kids are conditioned to seek recognition based on physical instead of intellectual attributes. We have to stop thinking about power as being able to dunk on somebody or lay somebody out on the football field. Real power is defined by the capacity to think and excel in various situations. Compared with physical abilities, intelligence places you in a better position for a longer period of time. Far more money is made sitting down than standing up.

These are some of the things I felt it was important to teach. But I have to be honest about my motivations. I also wanted to win basketball games. I wanted to win an awful lot. Lets not act like I was Saint John out there, only concerned with education and uplifting the race. Winning was incredibly important to me, and you best believe I was good at it.

People only listen to you if you win. I intended to be heard.

I knew that my success or failure would influence opportunities not only for other Black coaches, but for Black people in general. I couldnt be just a coach because my cause was not the same as most other coaches. My cause was more serious. I had to win because Black people didnt have the right not to be successful.

Years ago, I read a quote by Mahatma Gandhi that affected me deeply: Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. In other words, to be truly free, we must have the freedom not to be successful, too. When I arrived at Georgetown, I knew of only four other Black head basketball coaches at white colleges. If I didnt win, and win fast, I would have been run out of there and you never would have heard from me again. The next Black coach in line probably wouldnt have gotten hired, either. Most Black people, myself included, did not have the freedom not to be successful.

America is finally realizing that even today, after all that Black people have fought for and achieved, far too many of us are still not free.

As I finish this book, the nation is being torn apart by protests and riots over the death of George Floyd. This man did not have the freedom to make a tiny mistakeallegedly passing a fake twenty-dollar bill. I empathized with Floyd when I heard him cry out Mama! as he died beneath that policemans knee. I was a mamas boy growing up. The safest place I ever felt was in my mothers arms. The protests have forced everyone to confront a lot of deeper injustices, which is something I have always tried to get people to consider. Yes, Black people are being needlessly killed by police, but there are many ways of killing a person. You can kill people by depriving them of opportunity and hope. You can kill people by saying that society is equal, then starting a hundred-yard race with most white people at the fifty-yard line. Discrimination is a lot more complicated today than when I was growing up and they made Black people sit in the back. Trying to fight discrimination today can feel like shooting at ghosts.