If John Thompson III wanted to escape his family legacy - and he does not - he would have a hard time in his first NCAA Tournament game as Princeton's head coach.
When the 15th-seeded Tigers take on North Carolina in New Orleans on Friday, the symbolism will be wafting through the air like gumbo.
It was from a front row Superdome seat and against the Tar Heels at the '82 Final Four that a 15-year-old Thompson witnessed his father turn one of his most agonizing defeats into one of his finest moments. Georgetown guard Sleepy Floyd threw away the Hoyas' national championship hopes with a bad pass to the Tar Heels' James Worthy. Then in the aftermath, Thompson threw his big arms around the crestfallen Floyd and consoled his player in an example of what coaching really is. Another life lesson for the budding coach.
"He's been preparing for this without ever being cognizant of it," said Thompson the elder, now an NBA analyst for Turner Sports. "He's been around it at its highest level. Every experience he's going to encounter, he's been around . . . the joys, the disappointments. It's just his life. It's like a fish in water. That's how he's lived."
"I've had 34 years of on-the-job training," added Thompson III. "I've been living and seeing it all my life, the good and the bad. I've said time and time again that I've learned so much this year but not that many things have happened that I haven't seen, been a part of or heard about."
Good thing because few other coaches have started their careers under such turbulent circumstances.
Bill Carmody left abruptly to take the Northwestern job, center Chris Young signed a baseball contract with Pittsburgh and sophomore guard Spencer Gloger, the best shooter in an offense that relies on the three-pointer, transferred to UCLA.
Thompson had six weeks to get ready for the season opener at Duke.
"Maybe that helped," he said. "I didn't have time to consider the ways of the world. We had to get to work, quickly."
His father had three words of advice "get a center."
Thompson, whose Hoyas did win it all in 1984, couldn't have expected his son to lead the Tigers to their first NCAA appearance in three seasons.
But last week, after Princeton thumped archrival Penn to win the Ivy league and finish the regular season at 16-10, Thompson said, "Now that it's over I can tell the truth. The cupboard wasn't as bare as some people thought."
The Tigers were helped by the development of three freshmen - forward Konrad Wysocki, guard Andre Logan and guard Ed Persia - and sophomore Kyle Wente. But it was senior Nate Walton, another son of a Hall of Fame father, who solidified things by moving from small forward to fill the void at center.
According to Walton, there were two defining moments for Thompson when he "stepped up as a coach.
"The first was right at the first team meeting after he took over," Walton said. "He said, 'Listen, you've got one day to feel there's no doubt in my mind that the players in this room can win the Ivy league title. It just depends on how hard you work for it.' He let us know right away that the goal hadn't changed and that he expected no less. The guys believed him."
The second was after Princeton dropped back-to-back road games to Columbia and Cornell, with five games left in the season.
"We played just awful and he ripped into us after both games," Walton said. "We were all sitting on the bus with a four-hour bus trip ahead of us. We were there for about 10 minutes when he walked on and said, 'You can still win this league. You have one day to feel sorry for yourselves. After that, it's time to get back to work.'"
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