My personal Stevie Thompson memory:
Four of my fraternity brothers and I took a 1 credit skiing class our senior year at Mount Labrador. This meant that we had to drive to the mountain 2 times a week at @1:00. We'd make it back to campus at about 4:00 or 5:00.
So one day we were driving back and it was snowing. We got to campus and we were driving on University Place, I think. In front of us was a station wagon and the driving conditions had become fairly treacherous at that point. My friend Mike was driving our car. Suddenly, for seemingly no reason the wagon in front of us stopped short very nearly causing us to smack into it. We didn't hit them but Mike got really pissed and started honking, Rob joined in, rolling down his window and yelling obscenities (so unlike him). Well all of a sudden all four doors on the wagon flew open and out jumped the whole basketball team! I'm talking Derrick Coleman, Stevie Thompson, Earl Duncan, Matt Roe, Greg Monroe, Howard Triche, etc. (you really get a sense of how big they are when they are five feet from you and ready to kick your ass). They were not getting out of their car to apologize either. We were momentarily stunned (think deer in headlights) by this sight and had no idea what to do. Someone yelled 'DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!' Mike took off, swerving around their car.
They all jumped back into their car and started chasing us. We were flying around campus sliding all over the road trying to lose them, Rob still had his window down was hanging out of the car and giving them the bird the whole time. Finally we decided our best bet is to go to our fraternity house. We figured if we pulled into our fraternity driveway they'd just blow us off and keep driving. Wrong.
So we careened into the driveway and they pull in right behind us. I think I ran into the house and said something like 'The basketball team is gonna kick our ass!' So everybody emptied out into the driveway. We had 20-30 guys ready to face off against the team that was about to embark on a Final Four run. Someone from the house said to them 'What's the problem?' This was answered by Stevie Thompson who got in Rob's face and said "I want you, !" Our house was on a hill and we were standing on the upslope looking down at the team. A guy in my house named Trent who was eternally stoned/drunk, took advantage of his position on the hill to walk right up to Derrick Coleman and get right in DC's face (what is Coleman, like 6'10", 6'11"? and Trent was maybe 6'3") Trent didn't say anything, instead he took a drag of his cigarette, never breaking eye contact with Coleman and blew the smoke right into DC's face.
The silence was deafening. I think right about then, the players realized how many guys we're standing there, backed off, got back in their car and left.
I will never forget that. I remember as the team was playing in the Final Four later that month, that I thought if anyone of the team had gotten hurt the night of the altercation, that my fraternity would not have been the most popular house on campus the next day.
All that notwithstanding - I loved Stevie Thompson, definitely one of my all-time faves as well.
