Maybe even qualify for a slice of postseason affirmation in the National Invitation Tournament. He said, simply and shrewdly, “Yes, sir, I’ll try.”By his second season, the 3-23 team Thompson inherited was .500. A dozen years into Thompson’s Hall of Fame career, he became the first Black coach to win the Division I national title, in 1984. Without much time to recruit for his first Georgetown squad, Thompson brought three players from the small Catholic high school team he was coaching in Washington and two others from that basketball-rich city. All were Black, immediately raising eyebrows and unearthing a measure of grapevine resentment at the mostly white Jesuit bastion of academia.

Source: New York Times August 31, 2020 21:56 UTC