Common Word Community Read: An Evening with NBA All-Star and Georgetown Hoya Eric “Sleepy” Floyd

Join Wiley Cash for a conversation with NBA All Star Eric “Sleepy” Floyd on Thursday, November 16 at 7 p.m. in UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center in the Manheimer Room.

Eric Floyd, a man who Coach John Thompson wrote about as being “such a phenomenal scorer, if he missed shots, he thought it was the rims and not him.” Cash and Floyd will discuss what it was like to play under Coach John Thompson as Georgetown basketball was on the rise, what it was like to face hometown rival James Worthy and UNC in the National Championship in 1982, and what Coach Thompson’s mentorship meant to him both during and after his 14-year NBA career. 

This event is part of the Common Word Community Read series, a set of lectures and discussions centered around a shared text with the goal of engaging a collective educational experience. The program is curated by Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author, alumnus of the class of 2000, and UNC Asheville’s Executive Director of Literary Arts. The selection for fall 2023 is “I Came As a Shadow” an autobiography by the late John Thompson, the head basketball coach at Georgetown University from 1972 to 1999, where he won the NCAA championship in 1984.