College basketball legend Bob Knight passed away this past week. His impact on the sport is undeniable, both good and bad. For more than a decade, he and his teams were quite a force in college sports locally, nationally, and even internationally. The news brought up a few Knight-related memories:
1. On the evening of the 1976 national championship, my newly minted wife and I decided to go over to the downtown Bloomington bars to join in the big celebration. We felt that parking would be hard to find if everyone came out, so we found a spot in the campus main library lot, approximately four blocks from the center of town.
There was quite a fete. The whole campus and town populations it seemed had turned out. Beer and spirits were flying liberally about, poured down gullets, on heads, on shoulders, on pavement, and so on. Naked streakers proliferated mixing and dancing maniacally with students and faculty on the streets amidst dozens of stalled, honking and flashing cars and pickups.
Once we had our fill of the crazed festivities, we turned back towards our car to return home. As we approached, we unhappily discovered that the party had spilled over to the lot. Drunken students were racing and leaping about among the parked vehicles, AND on top. Some were jumping up and down on and crossing over to the hoods, including ours!
Fortunately, this had a happy ending. A friend of a neighbor who worked in a body shop worked out the depressed hood for little charge – a kindness in response to our victory celebration plight.
Welcome to Hoosier Basketball!
2. We were attending the Cream & Crimson Scrimmage, to which faculty and staff are invited to watch the last full-court practice before the start of the 1981-1982 season. My wife, daughter, and I sat on an aisle one row up from the court, on the opposite side from the team bench and coaches. We were closer to one basket, but still had a great view. In March, IU had won its second national championship in Coach Knight’s tenure, and there was naturally great anticipation and much attention being paid by the devoted audience to the prospects for the new season. For the scrimmage, the players were as usual divided into two squads – one sporting Cream-colored jerseys and the other Crimson – the school’s colors. The squads were putting on a good show, not letting up steam. Of course, they were being prodded on by the master himself, the revered Coach Knight, who fully orchestrated the performance, continually barking out commands from the opposite side of the court.
Although it was not a regular season contest, the scene looked and sounded real. It was very noisy, both from the cheers of the crowd and from the action on the court. As the squads thundered toward our direction, there was a sonic boom created by the pounding of feet and the screeching of shoes. The collective sounds roared and oscillated like ocean waves. The din would subsequently subside as the players reversed and drove themselves back down the court. My barely one-year-old daughter was caught up in all the commotion, seemingly entranced by the rhythmic tide. She would stand up as high as she could on my lap whenever the squads approached our area and then let out a small roar of her own. This pattern continued for several minutes.
I sat there fixed, eyes focused on the flow, observing and examining how the players maneuvered for each attack on the basket, or how then raced back into position on defense. Over time as the action continued intensely on court, I started to sense something odd. I briefly spied a small blur in the distance. At first, I paid only passing notice. Next, I detected some movement on the upper periphery of my vision. A figure or sorts began moving slowly towards the left; then picked up pace. Again, I did not make much of it and continued to turn most of my attention to the action on court. But the blur or figure kept getting larger and larger as it continued to the left. But then I lost track, pulled back by a great layup. But there was something that I found strange, no more barking from Coach Knight AND he was no longer standing on the opposite side. Did I miss something?
Suddenly a large looming person appeared out of nowhere. He thundered out, “Get that kid out of here!”
It was Coach Knight towering above us in our seats.
“What what did you say?” I asked, stunned by moment. “What’s going on, Coach?” I tried to laugh, or giggle, or something, but could barely get anything out.
“I want that kid out of here,” he shouted again.
I was blown away. Incredulous. My wife sat dumb-founded.
“What had we, our daughter done to merit this treatment?” I thought.
We were not given much time to think or react. A coaching assistant who had accompanied Knight into the stands said, “Sorry, you’ll have to leave.”
“But why?”
“Coach says you’re disturbing our practice and have to leave.”
We reluctantly packed up, grabbed my daughter, and exited. It made little sense. Surely, he and the team encounter great volumes of noise and disruption during a game; and we were on the opposite side of the court. I wonder to this day how one small infant could so profoundly disturb the great Coach Knight.
Of course, my daughter has no memory of this incident, and it did not at all affect her love of playing basketball.
3. One afternoon, my wife and I were playing tennis on the university’s varsity courts when were joined in the next court by Coach Knight and another person. Seeing who it was, we did not bother to stop our play, We still held a grudge from the time he had kicked us out of the stadium six years earlier because our year-old daughter’s impassioned yells were apparently too much for the coach’s ears.
As continued our play, we began to hear the Coach raise his voice in discussion with his partner. We couldn’t discern what he was talking about, but soon several of their balls started ending up on our court. This is very normal for action on adjacent courts, so we had no issue about hitting their balls back whenever there’s the need. However, the heated talk turned to yelling, louder and louder; and the stray balls, particularly those off the coach’s racket, grew more and more frequent.
In the past, I had seen Knight play tennis. He was a decent player, so I didn’t understand the lack of control. His opponent did not seem to be extraordinarily formidable. I paused and approached my wife to whisper a question.
“What’s going on with Knight?”
“Who cares. He’s a jerk and probably a sore loser.”
“Perhaps, but it still seems odd. He has some bee in his bonnet.”
Soon we wrapped up our play. As we exited, Knight continued fuming on court.
The next day, we got the answer. It was reported in Herald-Times, Bloomington’s local paper, that Knight had been approached by one of the paper’s reporters on a downtown street. As the reporter was trying to pose a question, Knight had allegedly pushed the hapless fellow back through a hedgerow. Well, what can you say?
******
Dear Hoosierland,
I must remind you that according to our contract if you had wanted to continue to have championships in Indiana, you needed to provide Ken’s family the necessary financial support. They held up their end of the bargain through their major family events: 1) When they got hitched in 1976, Indiana went undefeated and won its first championship right after they had arrived on campus. 2) In 1981, when their daughter was born, Indiana achieved its second national championship. 3) In the year that their son was born, Indiana again attained the championship; however, you subsequently stopped giving them financial aid support. A contract is a contract. With no more support, they of course consequently stopped producing offspring – resulting, as you very well know, in no further championships for you (even for the major pro sports), even if you cried about it.
BTW: As a signing bonus, I did throw in Mike Pence. Oh, he just dropped out, you say. Well, tant pis!
– Meph
© 2023, Kenneth Koziol. All rights reserved.
