By Bill Koch
One summer while I was working at the Enquirer I wrote a story about the history of Fifth Third Arena and mentioned the excitement surrounding its opening as Shoemaker Center in 1989.
Then I wondered what it was like when the Bearcats moved into the Armory-Fieldhouse, where they played their home games from 1954-1976.
Who better to talk to for that story than former UC star Jack Twyman, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and one of three UC players to have their numbers retired?
When I called Twyman and identified myself, he said, “Are you the guy who wrote that story about UC’s Top 50 players?”
I told him I was.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Where do you get off ranking me No. 2 behind Oscar Robertson?”
He had taken me by surprise. I didn’t know what to say. There were plenty of things to quibble about in my rankings, but I felt pretty confident that ranking Robertson and Twyman one-two was indisputable. My first thought was, “Does this guy really think he was better than the Big O? Is he this much of a jerk that he’s going to challenge me on this?”
Before I could respond, I heard laughter on the other end of the phone.
“I was just messing with you,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
Twyman passed away on May 30, 2012, at the age of 78. Today would have been his 87th birthday.
I had one other encounter with Twyman. I was asked to be a member of the selection committee for UC’s James P. Kelly Athletics Hall of Fame. When I showed up for the first meeting, I found that Twyman and Bill Keating, a former U.C. Congressman and Bearcats swimming star, were also on the committee. In fact, Twyman was sitting right across from me. I remember thinking how cool it was to be serving on the same committee with Jack Twyman, a player I had followed as a kid when he played for the Cincinnati Royals.
As we waited for the meeting to start, I laughed as Twyman and Keating verbally jousted with each other, joking around the way they might have in their younger days.
Twyman, a Pittsburgh native who played at UC from 1951-55, finished his college career as the Bearcats’ all-time leading scorer (1,589 points) and rebounder. He still ranks 11th on UC’s career scoring list and second in career rebounding with 1,242. He was an All-American forward in 1955 when he averaged 24.6 points and 16.5 rebounds.
After he died, I was assigned to write his obituary for the Enquirer. One of the first people I called was Keating.
“That was when basketball at UC took off,” Keating said. “He was a wonderful friend. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for another person.”
What Twyman, who was white, did for former Royals teammate Maurice Stokes, who was black, is a testament to what kind of person he was. After Stokes was left a paraplegic, as the result of a head injury he sustained on the final days of the 1958 season, became Stokes’ legal guardian to help him receive medical benefits. He also organized an exhibition game with NBA players to raise money for Stokes, who died in 1970.
Robertson, who first met Twyman on his recruiting visit to UC, called Twyman’s work with Stokes “heroic.”
“Very few people will go out of their way to do a thing like that,” Robertson said.
As a player, Twyman was known for his sweet shooting touch.
“That was his forte,” said Robertson, who played with Twyman for six years on the Royals. “Jack was a great shooter. If he had a shot, he’d take it, which was fine. Jack knew how to play the game of basketball.”
As I discovered, Keating said that Twyman had a sharp sense of humor and enjoyed kidding people, especially Keating, who loved to tell the story of Twyman’s last visit to Philadelphia as he neared his retirement from the Royals.
There was a fan who sat in the floor seats and heckled Twyman mercilessly on every trip. During Twyman’s last game there, he asked a teammate to throw him a pass in the vicinity of the fan, but to throw it too high for him to reach. The teammate obliged and Twyman went crashing into the fan in pursuit of the ball, spilling his beer and popcorn. Apparently, those who were seated nearby weren’t very fond of the fan either, because when Twyman collided with him, there were cheers throughout the arena.
“He always didn’t want me to tell that story,” Keating said, “but when I did, he always added to it.”
On June 4, a few days after my story appeared in the Enquirer, my friend and former colleague, long-time Enquirer columnist Cliff Radel, walked back to the sports department to tell me I had a call from civil rights activist and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson, who wanted to talk to me about Twyman.
I certainly hadn’t expected to talk to Jesse Jackson when I woke up that day, but the call was transferred to me and sure enough, there was Jackson. Before I could say anything, Jackson started to talk, and didn’t stop until he said what he had called to say.
“The NBA would do itself a favor to name a Jack Twyman-Maurice Stokes award,” Jackson said. Twyman’s sense of humanity, he said, transcended his achievements as an athlete.
“Jack Twyman deserves huge respect high in the annals of sports history as a social transformer,” Jackson said. “In a way, the Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes story deserves a much higher level than it’s ever received because what Jack Twyman did in 1958 was three years after Martin Luther King came on the scene, five years before the March on Washington, and six years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He is a guy who embraces and adopts a black brother. Jack Twyman-Maurice Stokes is a huge story of justice and decency and dignity.”
A year later, in 2013, Chauncey Billups of the Los Angeles Clippers received the NBA's first Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award.
“This story is the most unbelievable story I’ve heard in sports,” Billups said upon receiving the award. “For my name to be mentioned with (Twyman’s), I almost don’t feel worthy.”
One summer while I was working at the Enquirer I wrote a story about the history of Fifth Third Arena and mentioned the excitement surrounding its opening as Shoemaker Center in 1989.
Then I wondered what it was like when the Bearcats moved into the Armory-Fieldhouse, where they played their home games from 1954-1976.
Who better to talk to for that story than former UC star Jack Twyman, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and one of three UC players to have their numbers retired?
When I called Twyman and identified myself, he said, “Are you the guy who wrote that story about UC’s Top 50 players?”
I told him I was.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Where do you get off ranking me No. 2 behind Oscar Robertson?”
He had taken me by surprise. I didn’t know what to say. There were plenty of things to quibble about in my rankings, but I felt pretty confident that ranking Robertson and Twyman one-two was indisputable. My first thought was, “Does this guy really think he was better than the Big O? Is he this much of a jerk that he’s going to challenge me on this?”
Before I could respond, I heard laughter on the other end of the phone.
“I was just messing with you,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
Twyman passed away on May 30, 2012, at the age of 78. Today would have been his 87th birthday.
I had one other encounter with Twyman. I was asked to be a member of the selection committee for UC’s James P. Kelly Athletics Hall of Fame. When I showed up for the first meeting, I found that Twyman and Bill Keating, a former U.C. Congressman and Bearcats swimming star, were also on the committee. In fact, Twyman was sitting right across from me. I remember thinking how cool it was to be serving on the same committee with Jack Twyman, a player I had followed as a kid when he played for the Cincinnati Royals.
As we waited for the meeting to start, I laughed as Twyman and Keating verbally jousted with each other, joking around the way they might have in their younger days.
Twyman, a Pittsburgh native who played at UC from 1951-55, finished his college career as the Bearcats’ all-time leading scorer (1,589 points) and rebounder. He still ranks 11th on UC’s career scoring list and second in career rebounding with 1,242. He was an All-American forward in 1955 when he averaged 24.6 points and 16.5 rebounds.
After he died, I was assigned to write his obituary for the Enquirer. One of the first people I called was Keating.
“That was when basketball at UC took off,” Keating said. “He was a wonderful friend. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for another person.”
What Twyman, who was white, did for former Royals teammate Maurice Stokes, who was black, is a testament to what kind of person he was. After Stokes was left a paraplegic, as the result of a head injury he sustained on the final days of the 1958 season, became Stokes’ legal guardian to help him receive medical benefits. He also organized an exhibition game with NBA players to raise money for Stokes, who died in 1970.
Robertson, who first met Twyman on his recruiting visit to UC, called Twyman’s work with Stokes “heroic.”
“Very few people will go out of their way to do a thing like that,” Robertson said.
As a player, Twyman was known for his sweet shooting touch.
“That was his forte,” said Robertson, who played with Twyman for six years on the Royals. “Jack was a great shooter. If he had a shot, he’d take it, which was fine. Jack knew how to play the game of basketball.”
As I discovered, Keating said that Twyman had a sharp sense of humor and enjoyed kidding people, especially Keating, who loved to tell the story of Twyman’s last visit to Philadelphia as he neared his retirement from the Royals.
There was a fan who sat in the floor seats and heckled Twyman mercilessly on every trip. During Twyman’s last game there, he asked a teammate to throw him a pass in the vicinity of the fan, but to throw it too high for him to reach. The teammate obliged and Twyman went crashing into the fan in pursuit of the ball, spilling his beer and popcorn. Apparently, those who were seated nearby weren’t very fond of the fan either, because when Twyman collided with him, there were cheers throughout the arena.
“He always didn’t want me to tell that story,” Keating said, “but when I did, he always added to it.”
On June 4, a few days after my story appeared in the Enquirer, my friend and former colleague, long-time Enquirer columnist Cliff Radel, walked back to the sports department to tell me I had a call from civil rights activist and former presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson, who wanted to talk to me about Twyman.
I certainly hadn’t expected to talk to Jesse Jackson when I woke up that day, but the call was transferred to me and sure enough, there was Jackson. Before I could say anything, Jackson started to talk, and didn’t stop until he said what he had called to say.
“The NBA would do itself a favor to name a Jack Twyman-Maurice Stokes award,” Jackson said. Twyman’s sense of humanity, he said, transcended his achievements as an athlete.
“Jack Twyman deserves huge respect high in the annals of sports history as a social transformer,” Jackson said. “In a way, the Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes story deserves a much higher level than it’s ever received because what Jack Twyman did in 1958 was three years after Martin Luther King came on the scene, five years before the March on Washington, and six years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He is a guy who embraces and adopts a black brother. Jack Twyman-Maurice Stokes is a huge story of justice and decency and dignity.”
A year later, in 2013, Chauncey Billups of the Los Angeles Clippers received the NBA's first Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award.
“This story is the most unbelievable story I’ve heard in sports,” Billups said upon receiving the award. “For my name to be mentioned with (Twyman’s), I almost don’t feel worthy.”
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