Jack Twyman

Lore & Background

Twyman was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he attended Central Catholic High School. After being cut three times from his high school team, he practiced daily and made the team as a senior, earning All-State honors. He attended the University of Cincinnati, averaging 24.6 points and 16.5 rebounds in his Bearcat career, and led Cincinnati to 3rd place in the 1955 National Invitation Tournament. Twyman spent his entire 11-season NBA career with the Rochester/Cincinnati Royals (later the Sacramento Kings). He and Wilt Chamberlain both averaged more than 30 points per game in the 1959–60 season. Twyman scored a career-high 59 points that season. He was named to the All-NBA Second Team in 1960 and 1962, and appeared in six NBA All-Star Games. After his playing career, he worked as an analyst for The NBA on ABC and famously called Willis Reed's emergence from the tunnel before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals. Twyman became the legal guardian of his paralyzed teammate Maurice Stokes, organized the Maurice Stokes Memorial Basketball Game to raise funds, and taught Stokes to communicate by blinking. He remained Stokes' guardian until Stokes' death in 1970. Twyman later became a food company executive and died on May 31, 2012, in Cincinnati from complications of blood cancer.

Reader's Guide

Twyman's #27 is retired by the Sacramento Kings and by the University of Cincinnati. He is a namesake of the NBA's Twyman–Stokes Teammate of the Year Award and the Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning at the University of Cincinnati. He was inducted into the Central Catholic High School Hall of Fame, the University of Cincinnati James P. Kelly Athletics Hall Of Fame (charter member, 1976), the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (1983), and the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame (charter member, 2006).

Did You Know?

• Twyman scored 15,840 points in his NBA career, ranking 20th on the all-time scoring list at retirement.
• He averaged 19.3 points and 8.7 rebounds over 823 regular-season games.
• He taught Maurice Stokes to communicate by blinking his eyes to denote letters; Stokes' first typed message was: 'Dear Jack, How can I ever thank you?'