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RIP to an NBA legend and humanitarian

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Drip, May 31, 2012.

  1. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    What Jack Twyman did both as a person and player is amazing. RIP
    http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/former-nba-star-jack-twyman-dies-at-78-053112
     
  2. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Amen to this.

    What Twyman did for Maurice Stokes and his family is heartwarming. Great player in 50s and early 60s. Better man for decades.
     
  3. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    EXCELLENT obit column by Paul Newberry of AP.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/31/sports/s161005D56.DTL

    RIP.
     
  4. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    From the NYT Obit:

    "Years after his accident, when Stokes had recovered enough finger flexibility to type, his first message was: “Dear Jack, How can I ever thank you?”
     
  5. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Jack Twyman was a very good player and an unparalleled human being. We could use more details of this story and less of a lot of other crap we see.

    Kudos to Paul Newberry for a strong piece. And RIP, Mr. Twyman and thank you.
     
  6. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    When I was young, I met Jack Twyman outside the original Yankee Stadium. I'm not usually good at recognizing people, but I watched the NBA and recognized him. He was just such a nice person. He was the type of person who were presented as athletes who were good people.
     
  7. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Newberry did an outstanding job.
     
  8. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The first basketball I ever owned was a Jack Twyman Voit model.

    He retired before I really started watching much basketball on teevee (and what little there was in the mid-Sixties seldom featured the Royals) but he had a reputation as a really smooth, consistent player.

    And his relationship with Maurice Stokes will always be one of sports' most inspiring stories.
     
  9. Colton

    Colton Active Member

    Loved Newberry's column.

    This tale would make a wonderful movie.

    RIP to a true superstar of a person.
     
  10. Gold

    Gold Active Member

    A movie (it might have been a television movie) was made about it in the 1970s. I think Bernie Casey, a former pro football player turned actor, played Stokes.
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Twyman's death, and Stokes' paralysis also shows how lousy medical care was for athletes back then. Stokes got knocked out, they gave him some smelling salts, he woke up and stayed in the game. Then he flew with the team and played in a playoff game before feeling awful and ending up in the coma.

    Today, they would have stretchered him out and had him undergo a battery of tests before letting him play.
     
  12. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Not to mention the fact that Twyman even HAD to organize benefit games and file court petitions to become Stokes' legal guardian, to enable him to get medical coverage, which he was not going to get otherwise.
     
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