John Thompson, the trailblazing Georgetown coach who became the first Black coach to win an NCAA championship, has died at 78. Washington, DC news station WJLA reported the news on Monday morning, citing Thompson’s family and friends.

Thompson is an enormous figure in sports, an athlete who went on to break barriers as a Hall of Fame basketball coach. A native of Washington, DC, Thompson went to college at Providence and was part of the team that won the 1963 NIT championship. In 1964 he helped Providence reach the NCAA tournament for the very first time, and was also an All-American.

He graduated in 1964 and played two seasons for the Boston Celtics, backing up Bill Russell and winning two championships before retiring in 1966 and becoming the coach at St. Anthony High School in DC.

Then Georgetown came calling in 1972. Within three years that 3-23 team had made the NCAA tournament, the first of 20 times they’d participate over Thompson’s 27 years as coach. Georgetown made it to the Final Four in 1982, and in 1984 he became the first Black coach to win the NCAA tournament. The following year they were defeated in the national championship game by Villanova.

Thompson amassed a 596-239 record at Georgetown, and 97 percent of his athletes stayed in college for all four years to earn a college degree — but that doesn’t mean he didn’t coach a ton of amazing NBA players. Hall of Famers Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson were both first overall picks. Alonzo Mourning was a second overall pick and Dikembe Mutombo was picked fourth. All told, 26 players were selected for the NBA draft during Thompson’s tenure.

He resigned from Georgetown in 1999, the same year he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He stayed involved with the team for the rest of his life, and was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. Thompson has an autobiography scheduled to be released in January 2021.

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