This is a story of fathers and sons. Or, rather, it’s a string
of anecdotes about fathers and sons, with a highly personal take on
the stories only because that personal take on them may help
elucidate some themes that are not personal but universal. Or
nearly so.
That anticipatory disclaimer is necessary to explain why it is
worthy of note that Monday night I found myself musing that I have
been privileged to witness at closer-than-usual range the nation’s
two most striking stories of big-name sports fathers whose
footsteps are followed not just by one son each, but two. (More on
my connection to all this a bit later.) Almost every sports fan in
the country, and even many non-fans, knows the story of quarterback
Archie Manning and his two quarterback sons, Peyton and Eli. Less
known nationwide, but growing in public consciousness, is the story
of former Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson and his sons
John III, now the GU head coach, and Ronny, the first-year head
coach at Ball State University.
Monday night, JTIII coached against Ronny in the Verizon Center
in Washington D.C., while the elder Thompson watched from
courtside. To add to the father-son aura of the event, JTIII’s team
features Patrick Ewing Jr., whose namesake father led the elder
Thompson’s Hoyas to the national championship in 1984. The current
Hoyas also feature point guard Jeremiah Rivers, whose father “Doc”
Rivers is a former NBA all-star who now coaches the Boston Celtics
— the team for which the elder Thompson played.
At the press table, radio man Rich Chvotkin was earning public
recognition that very night for serving his 1,000th game (exactly)
as announcer for the Hoyas, an inspired avocation for him rather
than vocation. His son, Evan, sits by his side and assists with the
broadcasts.
A bit dizzying, isn’t it?
Evan Chvotkin also happens to be my MRI technician, whose
excellent MRI work showed the tear in my rotator cuff that will
necessitate shoulder surgery next week. He’s the one who told me in
advance about the simultaneity of his father’s 1,000th game and the
Thompson vs. Thompson fest.
And Thompson vs. Thompson, with GU’s John Thompson III coaching
another Patrick Ewing, had particular significance in my own little
world because I was sports editor of the Georgetown HOYA newspaper
during the same year that the elder Thompson and the elder Patrick
Ewing won that national title — which I witnessed, as a
blue-and-gray clad fan truly sleepless in Seattle, from the first
row of that city’s Kingdome, over the head of CBS’s Brent
Musberger. Until my wedding, that national championship night laid
claim to being the most joyous celebration of my life.
Sometimes it happens that a son follows his father into big-time
sports. Rarer is it that two sons do so, and rarer still that both
sons assume the same position in the same sport as their dad.
Rarest of all is for all three to achieve success at the highest
level — the sort of success JTII began enjoying last year when the
Hoyas advanced to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Give
both JTIII and Ronny Thompson another year or three, and they might
each be knocking on the championship door their father once kicked
down.
IN FOOTBALL, MEANWHILE, the Manning boys are both setting NFL marks
(such as playoff appearances) that their father Archie, superb but
star-crossed as he was, never achieved.
The Mannings grew up across the street from my closest friend
(whose mother was my godmother). Archie used to take his sons to my
friend’s yard to toss the football around — videos of which
(including my friend’s little brother) are still seen somewhat
regularly on ESPN. When Mardi Gras parades passed by, my friend and
I always stood near the Mannings, so we could make off with all the
excess beads and doubloons that every rider on every parade float
showered on the ever-popular Archie.
And once my friend Hugh and I even used Mrs. (Olivia) Manning’s
tickets to take Peyton Manning and older brother Cooper (another
football star until an injury sidelined him), then ages 4 and 6, to
a Saints game during the year the Aints went 1-15 and fans wore
paper sacks on their heads to hide their embarrassment. A moron
behind us, with one of those weird Brooklyn-like accents that is at
least as common to New Orleans as Southern accents are, kept
yelling insults at the Aints quarterback, not knowing that it was
the quarterback’s sons who sat two rows in front of him. No matter:
Young Peyton knew who “Archie” was, but Olivia’s melodious,
Mississippi-sounding “Arrrrchie” was so different from the moron’s
Brooklyn-like “Ahh-chee” that young Peyton had no idea, whatsoever,
that the moron was blasting Peyton’s own father. Around the end of
the third quarter, then, after one more outburst from the moron,
Peyton stood up and, trying to be helpful, yelled, “Yeah, Boo
Ahh-chee!”
Cooper covered Peyton’s mouth and loudly whispered: “Stop, that,
Peyton: Ahh-chee is Daddy!”
Peyton looked stricken. But he’s been “doing Archie proud” ever
since. As a sports reporter for the Times-Picayune, I
covered the game in which Peyton threw his first-ever varsity
touchdown pass. Archie, as he exited the stands, jokingly worried
that the milestone would make Peyton’s helmet size grow. But his
smile made his pleasure clear nonetheless.
NOW IT IS TRUE THAT NOBODY would find much in common, in terms of
personalities or backgrounds, between the black, Northeastern
Thompsons and the white, Southern Mannings. But they are both, in
their very different ways, among the most admirable families anyone
will ever come across — admirable not merely because of their
athletic prowess, but because of their character.
Archie Manning is beloved in New Orleans not because he won
games (surrounded either by bad offensive lines or by bad defenses,
he didn’t win many), but because of the way he handled his very
public citizenship. He didn’t just lend his name to charitable
endeavors galore; he actually showed up. He gave, and gives, back
to the community in so many ways, almost innumerable ways, and with
such good cheer and approachability, that he is the very model of
the athlete-turned civic icon — for all the right reasons. And
like father, like son: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Peyton and
Eli showed they share the same ethos by chartering a cargo plane
for relief supplies, on their own initiative, that arrived faster
than even some of the FEMA assistance.
As for the elder Thompson, his character is of a different sort.
Far less approachable by strangers, far more intimidating not just
in height (6’10”) but often in demeanor, his integrity remains far
too little appreciated by the nation’s sports fans. In an age where
college sports headlines far too often involve cheating, payoffs,
and educational fraud, Thompson never forgot his role as educator.
I can attest, from first-hand experience, that unless his players
were at a road game, they always, always attended class —
or else Thompson kicked them off the team.
His first-hire as head coach was of a former nun as tutor for
his players — to make sure they studied, and eventually
graduated.
So respected was he that when he heard one of his players who
grew up here in D.C. was still being seen in company with childhood
friends who had gone bad — associates of one of the city’s top
known drug kingpins — Thompson sent word out on the street that he
wanted to see that kingpin. Sure enough, the kingpin showed up at
Thompson’s office as instructed. And, as the story was reported,
Thompson ordered him to leave Thompson’s players alone.
And the kingpin said “yes, sir.” Or words to that effect. And
the problem was solved.
Meanwhile, Thompson’s freshmen players didn’t live in separate
athletic dormitories — they shared the dorms with other students
(on my own freshman dorm floor), and wrestled and goofed off and
studied with all the rest of us.
Like father, like son: When JTIII arrived from Princeton to take
over the Hoya program in 2004, among his first gestures were to
make various overtures to the Georgetown student body.
And the sentiment once known as “Hoya-motion” is back on campus.
The winning is back, and the program’s integrity never
disappeared.
FORGIVE, THEN, THESE rambling vignettes. Fathers and sons, sons and
fathers. Fathers and sons and sports — at high levels, or
decidedly low ones. Watching the three Thompson’s at the Verizon
Center Monday night (while wishing I had a radio to listen to the
Chvotkins describe the game), after watching Peyton Manning win yet
another game on TV the day before, I could not help but think of
how fathers and sons and sports and good examples are so often tied
together.
I remember the long, long autumn afternoons in the park throwing
the football with my own father. And the summer afternoons where he
took huge baskets of used tennis balls to pitch to me for baseball
batting practice, always at my behest, so his undersized son could
learn how to hit the singles and occasional doubles I wanted to hit
in order to be more asset than hindrance to my Little League teams.
Good memories, those. Among the best I have.
Which leads us….where, exactly?
Perhaps it leads us in the neighborhood of an essay that is
somewhat inelegantly organized. But certainly it leads us somewhere
in the realm of gratitude.
Gratitude to the Thompsons and the Mannings. Gratitude for their
good examples. And gratitude to all good fathers, most especially
my own.
To honor all good fathers, may the sons also rise.
