MIAMI (June 10, 2013) – One of the greatest stories in the history of sport once again found its way into the limelight Sunday when the inaugural Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award was made before Game 2 of the 2013 NBA Finals at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The new annual award designating the league's 'ideal teammate' is named in honor of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes and Twyman's selfless commitment to Stokes after a debilitating injury.

"The relationship shared by Jack and Maurice is as profound an illustration of compassionate and unconditional fellowship between two teammates that the NBA has ever seen," NBA commissioner David Stern said at the presentation ceremony an hour before Game 2 of The Finals Sunday.
"We will get the opportunity to retell the story of Maurice Stokes and Jack Twyman on each occasion of the award's being given."

Twyman and Stokes started out on different teams, too, growing up and playing for separate high schools in Pittsburgh. Twyman then matriculated to Cincinnati while Stokes enrolled to play for Dr. Skip Hughes at Saint Francis U and went on to become the Red Flash's greatest player.  But the two became friends and, as it turned out, rookies together with the Cincinnati Royals in 1955-56.

Both became All-Stars, too, but the Royals were wrapping up a 33-39 season when Stokes fell during a game in Minneapolis. His head injury (post-traumatic encephalopathy) caused him to lapse into a coma days later and left him permanently paralyzed.

Stokes' family couldn't provide the care or money he needed, so Twyman took over as his legal guardian. It was Twyman who argued successfully for work-injury compensation to cover some of Stokes' initial medical bills.

It was Twyman, too, with the assistance of a Kutsher's hotel and resort in the Catskills (N.Y.), who organized a charity basketball event in his friend's name, raising $10,000 for more of Stokes' expenses. He lobbied the league's biggest stars — Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor — to play in the annual exhibitions. Funds raised after Stokes' death in 1970 at age 36 were used to help other players in need.

Twyman, while attending to his own family, spent hundreds of hours with Stokes, helping him regain small bits of his speech and limited mobility. Later, he took Stokes, in a wheelchair, to some of the benefit games. In 2004, after years of lobbying by Twyman, Stokes gained his enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. Twyman, who was enshrined in 1983, died in 2012 at age 78.

The trophy, which depicts Twyman helping up Stokes, was sculpted by Marc Mellon, who also crafted the NBA's Maurice Podoloff Trophy award to the league's Most Valuable Player.

Chauncey Billups of the Los Angeles Clippers, the 2013 Twyman-Stokes recipient, directed some of his remarks upon accepting the award to son Jay Twyman and other members of Twyman's family who attended the event at AmericanAirlines Arena. "I think even older players like myself to the younger guys need to know the story," he said. "The story is the most unbelievable story I've ever heard in sports. And I'm just glad that my name could be mentioned alongside Mr. Twyman."


Twyman, who along with his wife Carol attended the 2000 retirement ceremony of Stokes' number 26 jersey at DeGol Arena, and is remembered in several ways in the Stokes Athletics Center.  His portrait, along with Stokes', hangs in DeGol Arena adjacent to the Stokes-Twyman Room – a multipurpose room, which serves as a club dining room during home basketball games.

For the past year, the student-athletes of Saint Francis University have honored the friendship between Stokes and Twyman with the "Become That Someone" theme.

The theme was derived from a 2008 interview Twyman gave with the New York Post.  "Maurice was on this own," Twyman said.  "Something had to be done and someone had to do it.  I was the only one there, so I became that someone."

A biography exploring Stokes' life and his relationship with Twyman will be released later this year.  The book, titled "The Rise and Fall and Rise of Maurice Stokes," will be published by St. Johann Press in Haworth, New Jersey.  It is written by Pat Farabaugh, an assistant professor in Saint Francis' communications department.  Farabaugh served as the sports information director at the University from 1999 to 2005.