It was the early autumn of 1961 when they first met – this 6-foot-10 African-American chiseled Adonis from the Nation’s Capital and a 6-foot Caucasian from Connecticut. They were both freshmen at Providence College, prospective players on the Friars’ freshman basketball team.
Back then, freshmen were not permitted to play varsity sports, but if it was allowed, then the towering giant from Washington, D.C. certainly would have been a player of instant impact for the legendary coach Joe Mullaney. The kid from Waterbury had a better shot as a baseball player.
But Bill Stein vividly recalls the first time he laid eyes on John Thompson.
“I saw him walking around campus,” Stein said of his long-time friend, who passed away Sunday at the age of 78 after battling an assortment of medical problems. “I never really met him until we started practice.”
Little did Stein realize at the time that it would be the start of a close friendship that lasted six decades.
“I guess we became close because I passed him the ball all the time,” said Stein, now retired after a 30-year stint as the athletic director at St. Peter’s College, now St. Peter’s University. “We became very close then. They kept on the team because they saw the way John and I got along. I learned never to ask John a lot of questions. But we did a lot of things together, not just basketball.”
Also on that team were Jersey City native Vinnie Ernst, who was the Most Valuable Player of the 1961 NIT also won by Providence, and Ray Flynn, the future mayor of Boston.
Thompson and Stein went their different ways after graduating from Providence in 1964 – Thompson went off to play for the Boston Celtics for two seasons as the legendary Hall of Famer Bill Russell’s backup, winning NBA titles both years, and Stein went become a coach at high schools in his native Connecticut.
“But I always stayed in touch with John,” Stein said. “We always kept in touch.”
After his playing days were done, Thompson would eventually go back to his native Washington, D.C. to become a high school coach at St. Anthony’s, while Stein became an assistant athletic director at Bryant College in Rhode Island.
In 1972, Thompson went up to Rhode Island to visit Stein at Bryant.
“We went to have lunch and he said to me, ‘Bill, I’m taking over the head coaching job at Georgetown,’” Stein said. “He said, ‘Do you want to come with me?’”
The year prior, Georgetown was 3-23. Stein was leaving a steady administrative job at Bryant to become an assistant coach with a program that won just three games.
“It was a little bit of a gamble,” Stein said. “But John said that if it didn’t work out, I could always go back to Connecticut to teach. And 3-23? I said, ‘John, we’ll do better than that.’ That’s how I got there. He just trusted me.”
Stein joined his friend at Georgetown for 10 years and was there as the Hoyas went from a mid-major Catholic school program on the East Coast to the NCAA Championship game in 1982, where the Hoyas fell to North Carolina on a last-second jumper from Michael Jordan in the New Orleans Superdome.
Of course, the ascent of the Big East Conference and the recruitment of Patrick Ewing helped the Hoyas tremendously. But Stein was involved with the recruiting of standout Georgetown players like Reggie Williams, Eric “Sleepy” Floyd and David Wingate.
Stein recalled the days of working alongside Thompson.
“He was fair,” Stein said. “He was very demanding, but he was very easy to work with if you worked your tail off. As long as you did what you were supposed to do, that was fine. John ran practice. If you had a question or suggestion, you didn’t do it on the floor during practice. You did it in the office beforehand. But we didn’t have any problems working together.”
And as for Thompson’s image of being a stern, strict disciplinarian, almost a taskmaster?
“If a kid messed up, he’d be the one to deal with it,” Stein said. “He knew how to deal with people. If someone messed up, then he would have to be at practice the next day at 5 a.m. If someone came into practice late or not ready to practice, then they just sat there and watched and he dealt with the kid after practice.”
Stein said that he had no idea that Georgetown would emerge as a frontrunner of the college basketball fabric as it would eventually become.
“We had no clue whatsoever,” Stein said. “The recruiting part was hard, because there was a lot of negative recruiting, with people telling kids that you shouldn’t want to play for a black coach. There were people going after John. We couldn’t make mistakes.”
In terms of recruiting, Thompson used to tell Stein to sit away from him.
“If we went to a high school game, we didn’t sit together,” Stein said. “We would separate when we got into the gym, so we could get different opinions on kids. We didn’t want to influence each other’s opinions.”
Of course, the recruiting game changed when Thompson secured the services of Ewing, one of the all-time greats in college basketball history, who led the Hoyas to three NCAA Finals appearances and the 1984 NCAA title.
“Patrick was the key,” Stein said of the current Georgetown coach and former Knick superstar. “He got us a chance to win every year.”
But after the 1982 season, Stein left Georgetown for Jersey City and the job as the St. Peter’s College athletic director. It was there that I had the chance to work with Stein for five years when I was the Sports Information Director.
“I felt bad that I was leaving, but I felt it was time,” Stein said. “I made up my mind that I didn’t want to travel anymore. My kids were getting bigger and wanted to stay close to home. The travel was brutal. When I got there, the cupboard was bare. When I left, the cupboard was full.”
The 1988 United States Olympic men's basketball team with Bill Stein (front row, second from left) and John Thompson (back row, second from right).
In 1998, Thompson asked Stein to be part of the coaching staff for the United States Olympic men’s basketball team that competed in the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Stein traveled with Team USA all over the globe that year.
Even though the two were at separate schools, Stein kept in constant contact with his old friend.
“We would spend a lot of time on the phone,” Stein said. “We spoke all the time.”
The last time the two friends spoke was three weeks ago.
“We were talking about Providence College and guys we went to school with,” Stein said. “I hadn’t heard that he was sick. John was very private. Even if he was sick, he wouldn’t tell me anything. I didn’t ask questions.”
Stein was asked how he would remember his legendary friend.
“He was a great coach, a great person and a special friend,” Stein said. “He was extremely loyal. You can see how well he took care of me.”
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