The NYTimes June 1st had a lengthy obituary for Jack Twyman a talented NBA basketball player for the Cincinnati ROYALS in the 1950s. He was not only great on the court but also off. When his teammate Maurice Stokes suffered a paralyzing brain injury Twyman stepped up and became his legal guardian. As such he raised thousands of dollars for medical care and organized a charity game every year to augment funds. Stokes was injured in 1958 in his prime and lived another twelve years while Jack Twyman cared for him. But I thought back to the early 1950s when Maurice Stokes played for a small college in Pennsylvania - St. Francis of Loretto. Each year his team came into the Palestra in Philadelphia to play a local team. This was an era when student athletes stayed in school for four years and I watched him mature from his freshman to senior years. He was silky smooth and an early example of a power forward. He was NBA rookie of the year in 1956 and his career was cut short by his injury. But then entered Jack Twyman and the late Arthur Daley of the NY Times likened him to the biblical good Samaritan. Twyman was white and Stokes was black - two "regal" ROYALS from Cincinnati.
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