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Indiana University Sports
- I have a hunch that
one of these days we'll see Indiana University athletic director
Clarabelle Doninger resign and be replaced by Coach, who
will retain the head coaching position. After a suitable interval
Knight will resign as head basketball coach and name his son Pat
to replace him. We'll live to see the day when Coach is AD and
Pat is Coach. Son of Mentor--Part II, The Sequel, the movie
marquees and billboards will read. This will be The Final Master
Stroke in Coach's Quest To Get Even With His Enemies. (February
20, 1999)
- Indiana basketball
coach Bob Knight was quoted in the papers in late February just
before his team went on the road to play Illinois saying, "This
is not a real smart basketball team. . .we play hard and we try
hard but we really don't think the game that well. Right now,
our team does not need any more ability. It doesn't need any
more shooters. It just needs to be smart". This is apparently
code for: if the lads we had on our roster today could just play
smart IU would be national champions. Anyone who watches this
team can tell you it desperately needs more talent. The problem
isn't "smartness", it's talent. Yet Knight will
never, never admit this. He is one of the few coaches in America
who gets away with trashing the very players he personally recruits.
"They don't understand what it takes to win at this level,"
or "They lack the competitive instinct you need to win in
this league," or "They just lack the toughness necessary
to win," have been Knight's mantra for the past five or so
years as the quality of his recruiting has dropped off dramatically.
Oh, Man--Rumors Are
Flying
- Within hours of Indiana's
humiliating second-round loss to St. John's in the NCAA tournament,
rumors that had been whispered during the season appeared in print.
Is A.J. Guyton going to leave school to play professionally?
Will Luke Recker transfer? Will freshman guard Dane
Fife leave? Will Lynn Washington? The players, of course,
denied all or were suitably circumspect. Guyton, a junior, was
the most forthcoming, hinting broadly that he'll leave. Recker,
as close to a true believer as the team has, insisted he will
stay. A year ago, his coach had to cut short a fishing trip to
return to Bloomington to talk Recker out of leaving school.
Recker spoke today of all the things he wants to accomplish in
his remaining two seasons at IU. I have news for Recker: it's
already too late for IU to surround him with the level of talent
needed to achieve anything other than mid-tier mediocrity. Recker's
four years are--will be--a waste. He can believe it will be
different, but he's a fool to do so. For my part, I hope they
all transfer. IU's basketball "problem" isn't going
to get better as long as Bob Knight is head coach. (March 10,
1999)
- Bob Knight bitched
again this year at NCAA tourney time about games starting as late
as 10:30 at night. But Bob doesn't bitch when he holds "punishment"
practices at all hours of the night and early morning after
certain especially unpleasant defeats. I know, I know, we're not
supposed to notice the hypocrisy. (March 15, 1999)
- Inside Indiana's
post-season basketball wrapup issue featured the grudging admission
of what was obvious to all but the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd--that
this year's team, like those of the past five or six years, was
not up to serious competition. But editor Pete DiPrimio wrote
that things are really going to get better next year. "Those
with cream-and-crimson-colored glasses," he wrote disingenuously,
"see a Big Ten title and Final Four next year. They just
might be right." We can make book right now that Indiana's
basketball team will not be significantly better next year. They'll
finish right around .500 in the Big Ten (fourth or fifth place),
pad their record with a cupcake preseason schedule, get their
20-win season, and be blasted out of the NCAA in the first
or second round, and tell anyone who objects that there are hundreds
of schools who'd be thrilled to have done that well. Denial
remains the major growth industry in Hoosierland. (April
4, 1999)
Knight Loyalists Quick
To Turn On Traitor Recker
- Luke Recker,
a sophomore on Indiana University's basketball team, has upon
reflection come to his senses. He announced April 13 he's leaving
the IU program. No destination is yet announced, but speculation
centers on Iowa, Florida, and several other schools. Recker is
said to have faxed in his "resignation" from DeKalb
High School in his northern Indiana hometown at 1 a.m., though
there are conflicting reports about the exact time. His Coach,
the flaming rectal orifice, Bob Knight, had just left for a coaching
clinic in Cuba and so was safely beyond the reach of reporters
eagerly questing for the truth. Recker's brief statement said
he was "not satisfied with his development as a player"
while at IU. While it is true that Luke hasn't developed much
at IU, few really do, and there is much more which Recker cannot
be blamed for not revealing. A caller to a Fort Wayne radio
station dragged a piece of it into the open that same day when
he told the radio host that a "certain event in the IU
locker room" prior to the game against Illinois in the
Big Ten Tournament in late March is what "triggered"
Recker's decision to leave. The story, which I heard from a late-night
caller while the tournament was still in progress, is that the
team was in the locker room in the final minutes before going
oncourt to play and either Recker or walk-on guard Antwaan Randle-El
was leading the team in a short pre-game prayer (some of the team
members belong to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Knight
had been out of the room, but came back in during the prayer.
Sources say Knight erupted in profanity--showed "disdain"
for the prayer process is how one source describes it--and
angrily shouted that Recker ought to "transfer to Georgia
Tech and go play with your f-ing friend," a reference
to Recker's close friend, Jason Collier, who quit the team
a year ago and transferred to Georgia Tech (where he became the
team's leading scorer). It is also whispered that Anthony Thompson,
an assistant football coach, later learned of the insult to Randle-El
( who is also the starting quarterback on the football team) and
wrote a strongly worded private letter to others in the
athletic department and perhaps to one or more IU trustees in
which he reported and protested Knight's alleged behavior. It
is accurate to point out that we have no facts in this matter,
only rumors. But as in the Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve
Sick Willie, certain presumptions may be safely made on the basis
of decades of life history and documented behavior. This latest
story about Knight has an undeniable ring of truth to it.
If indeed it happened, it's hard to blame Recker for keeping silent,
or for waiting until Coach was outside the country before making
his announcement. Close followers of Knight immediately predicted
that within hours his defenders and acolytes would swing into
what has in recent years been standard operating procedure when
a player leaves IU, namely, they'd begin trashing Recker.
The Indianapolis Star's Bill Benner predicted in his column
the next day that poor Luke would hardly recognize himself when
Knight's band of loyal sycophants were through. Sure enough, a
player (Larry Richardson) was quoted calling Recker "gutless,"
and an assistant coach, Mike Davis, was quoted in the April
16 Louisville Courier-Journal implying that Recker was
selfish and spoiled and didn't adopt coaching instructions.
Davis said that if Recker wasn't developing it was Recker's fault.
"Everyone knows Coach is a great teacher. He's one of the
greatest teachers in the game." Someone strung a banner
from a campus building with the message, "F--- Recker!"
As with the Clintonistas, the stridency of their defense increases
in proportion to the pileup of facts and damaging information.
The Grape Kool-Aid Crowd will have great difficulty spinning
away the Recker Unpleasantness. Luke is Every Mother's Favorite
Son, a clean-limbed, pure, upright, handsome, prayerful Boy Scout
of a Hoosier idol. The extent of the Recker trashing will be a
direct measure of the desperation felt by Knight's supporters.
A post-script not yet noted by the press is that since the fall
of 1994's incoming recruiting class, half (12 of 24) of all
the basketball players Knight has recruited have left the program.
Denial remains the major growth industry in Hoosierfanland. (April,
1999)
- We should be bombing
Assembly Hall instead of Yugoslavia.
- Coach was quoted in
the Indianapolis Star this morning lashing out at the local
county prosecutor for taking too long to decide his case. Coach
said he didn't like being treated any differently than any other
citizen and implied that if he'd been anyone else this (Most Recent
Unpleasantness) matter would have been decided in a much shorter
time. He said he almost wished it were going to trial so people
could learn the truth. He refused to answer questions at his press
conference, however, which might have elicited the truth. The
prosecutor replied that in his office the average time to decide
is eight days and he took nine in Coach's case. Coach,
of course, is lying when he says he wants to be treated like
everyone else. He does not, and he is not. His entire
life is testimony to his belief that he is different and should
be treated differently. If he actually believed such tripe,
he would long ago have turned himself in and gone to jail for
various assaults and indignities heaped on others over the past
several decades. So Chapter 97,508,223 in the saga of this
supernova flamer is closed. Correctly so, I believe. But it
couldn't be over without Coach making himself one all over again.
(June 17, 1999)
- This morning's Indianapolis
Star reports that three former members of the University of
Massachusetts women's basketball team have filed a lawsuit against
the school, claiming their coach's "yelling, insults and
obscenities" made their personal lives unbearable. This
is not good news for Coach. Dare we hope that some former
Indiana players will be emboldened by this legal breakthrough
and seek damages of their own? (October 17, 1999)
- Observations on The
Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach, The One Involving
The Accidental Shooting Of A Hunting Companion. . .Coach apparently
wants us to believe that a man who is famous for (among other
things) a lifetime of hunting and fishing with his famous friends,
and obscure ones as well, did not know he had to have a hunting
license to hunt on private land. This is utterly Clintonesque.
The rest of it--the accidental shooting of a hunting partner--well,
these things happen. And would the average man know that if you
shoot somebody accidentally while hunting you are required to
report it to law enforcement officials? Maybe, maybe not. Let's
give Coach a pass on that one, too. But the license? Sorry,
Coach, guilty as charged. Another in a lifetime of episodes suggesting
Coach believes the rules applying to ordinary people don't
apply to him. And didn't we love that stilted, desperately
awkward statement from the university? You could practically see
them quaking in fear at having to issue it. (October 25, 1999)
- And by the way, a
source close to the basketball program says a highly-placed IU
official recently told a friend that Coach's contract will not
be reviewed in 2002 when it's up for review. Don't bet money on
that. Coach will stay as long as he wants. Bet money on that.
(October 25, 1999)
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