Patrick Ewing is the most prominent athlete to come out of Georgetown University, a player for the ages that helped solidify the Hoyas, along with coach John Thompson, as a national powerhouse in the 1980s.
Now Ewing is giving back to Thompson and Georgetown.
Ewing and longtime agent David Falk are donating $3.3 million to the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Facility, a $60 million, 144,000-square-foot building on Georgetown’s Washington, D.C., campus. It will house practice courts, training facilities, meeting rooms and offices. The facility will serve all 29 of the Hoyas’ scholarship sports.
Georgetown is expected to break ground on the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Facility this summer.
“Coach Thompson was my coach, mentor and friend,” Ewing said in a release. “He guided me through a very formative period in my life and helped me prepare for success on and off the court. Giving back to the university in his honor is special.”
Ewing and Thompson led Georgetown to the 1984 national title and reached the Final Four three times in four years. Falk, a prominent NBA agent who also represented Michael Jordan’s NBA career, once called Thompson “the most influential person in my life — other than my mother.”
“This is a very special opportunity for me to honor a man I love and respect,” Falk said in a release. “To do it together with Patrick Ewing, who was a dominant figure in both John’s basketball program and in my career, makes it even more rewarding.”
The donation amount of $3.3 million is an intentional callback to the No. 33 uniform Ewing made famous at Georgetown. In 2011, Falk, a Syracuse alumnus, pledged $15 million to his alma mater, helping to create the David B. Falk Center for Sports Management.
