Jack Twyman, 1934–2012

By the time Jack Twyman retired from the NBA in 1966, after an 11-year career, he had amassed a scoring record then second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s. The 6-foot-6 forward for the Cincinnati Royals, an All-Star fixture from the late 1950s onward, was later inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. But Twyman’s claim to real greatness stems less from those achievements than from the giant assist he gave to a teammate in desperate need.

The son of a Pittsburgh steel company foreman, Twyman was a standout player for the University of Cincinnati, said The Washington Post. Named All-American in 1955, he was drafted that same year by the Royals along with Maurice Stokes, a brilliant forward he’d played against in Pittsburgh summer leagues and during a college tournament.

In the final game of the Royals’ 1958 season, Stokes fell and slammed his head hard into the floorboards. Knocked out cold, he was revived with smelling salts. He soldiered on to play that game and the next, but fell ill on the flight back to Cincinnati and soon went into a coma. When he awoke, Stokes could neither walk nor talk. That’s when Twyman stepped in. “It was 1958,” said Sporting News. “A 23-year-old white guy basically adopted a paralyzed 24-year-old black man.”

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Twyman did more than become Stokes’s legal guardian, said The Cincinnati Enquirer. Even though he was “just starting his own career, family, and life, Twyman gave himself to a fallen teammate.” He arranged for Stokes to get workers’ compensation, and organized benefit basketball games to finance his care. He was a regular presence at Stokes’s hospital bed, communicating by painstakingly going through the alphabet until his friend blinked to spell words. Stokes spent years in the hospital, regularly visited by Twyman and his family, and finally died in 1970.

Twyman went on to prosper as a basketball commentator and food wholesaler, said Newsday. He always insisted Stokes had been the generous one in their partnership. Whenever Twyman had a setback, “I would selfishly figure a way to go see Maurice,” he later said. “He would figure out a way to pick me up. He never believed he was trapped.”