Several years ago, Williams had completed a nine-year NBA playing career, delivered New Orleans to the playoffs as a head coach, and found himself at Georgetown on a scouting assignment for the San Antonio Spurs. The old coach was long retired, but still sat on the court in a chair and watched his son, John Thompson III, conduct Hoyas practices. “He put his arms around me, and he knew how I grew up, that I was a kid from his area, and had gotten into coaching, and he told me stuff that I knew he wasn’t telling everybody,” Williams said. “It was like talking to some figure from the Bible who I wanted to meet. Around there, a lot of people called him Big John, but I could never bring myself to do that. I always called him Coach Thompson. I just knew that I didn’t have his kind of backbone, and I wish I did. He was like Moses to me.”