Per GoBearcats
The Cincinnati men’s basketball team’s Nov. 15 game against Nicholls will be yet another festive Fifth Third Arena atmosphere, but there will be an even bigger purpose on display.
The game is part of the greater Twyman-Stokes Classic multi-team event shared with Northern Kentucky and Nicholls. Cincinnati Athletics is partnering with the university’s
Barrett Cancer Center and Ride Cincinnati in support of their annual fundraising campaigns, a connection rooted deep within the Twyman and Barrett families for decades in the Queen City.
The game will retell the story of the immaculate bond between Cincinnati men’s basketball legend Jack Twyman and his Rochester/Cincinnati Royals teammate Maurice Stokes.
After Stokes was tragically injured in a game and became a quadriplegic in 1958, Twyman never left his friend’s side both figuratively and literally, first organizing countless fundraisers with his NBA peers for Stokes’ around-the-clock care and, later, adopting Stokes.
"As I learned of this story after becoming the head coach at Cincinnati, I was amazed that it is not more well-known across the country,” Wes Miller said. “Regardless of your loyalty or interest in basketball, this is a story that can enrich us all. As Jack Twyman is one of UC's own, it's only right that we use our platform to bring light to this incredible story of teammates."
This is a story of an immaculate bond, forged first in Rochester, New York, then Cincinnati and later New York’s Catskills Mountains before sweeping across the nation, that sent shockwaves throughout the NBA on player unionization and an immortalized, annual award for the league’s Teammate of the Year.
