I Came As a Shadow
by John Thompson
2020-12-29 23:47:13
The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown Universityâs legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court threw Americaâs unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief. John Thompson was never just a basketball coa...
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The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown Universityâs legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court threw Americaâs unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief. John Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As A Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography. After five decades at the center of race and sports in America, Thompsonâthe iconic NCAA champion, Black activist, and educatorâwas ready to make the private public at last, and he completed this autobiography shortly before his death in the historically tumultuous summer of 2020. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (three Final Fours, four-time national coach of the year, seven Big East championships, 97 percent graduation rate), Thompsonâs book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning. We experience riding shotgun with Celtics icon Red Auerbach and coaching NBA Hall of Famers like Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson. What were the origins of the the phrase âHoya Paranoiaâ? Youâll see. And parting his veil of secrecy, Thompson brings us into his negotiation with a D.C. drug kingpin in his playersâ orbit in the 1980s, as well as behind the scenes of his years on the Nike board. Thompsonâs mother was a teacher who had to clean houses because of racism in the nation's capital. His father could not read or write. Their son grew up to be a man with his own larger-than-life statue in a building that bears his familyâs name on a campus once kept afloat by the selling of 272 enslaved Black people. This is a great American story, and John Thompsonâs experience sheds light on many of the issues roiling our nation. In these pages, he proves himself to be the elder statesman whose final words college basketball and the country need to hear. I Came As A Shadow is not a swan song, but a bullhorn blast from one of Americaâs most prominent sons.
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