2000 | Indiana University Sports

An Associated Press report in the January 4 Chicago Tribune notes that Japanese researchers "have grown frog eyes and ears in a lab using the animal's own embryo cells." Call me when they can grow assholes. Then I'll know Bob Knight's patent has expired.

Something quite odd happened at the January 14 high school basketball game between Bloomington North and Bloomington South, the No. 2 and 3-ranked teams in the state. Just before the game began, the public address announcer urged the crowd to show good behavior and warned that anyone who used profanity would be immediately evicted from the building. Such a contrast with Indiana University, only a mile or two away, where Assembly Hall is in its 30th year of reverberating from the torrents of profanity unleashed by its icon coach, Bob Knight, and no P.A. announcer or administrator can be found within a thousand miles of the place who'll insist that it be stopped. (January 15, 2000)

Indiana University's athletic department continues its relentless quest for excellence. A story in the March 6 Indianapolis Star had IU officials denying a report that its women's basketball coach was going to be fired. Within hours, he was fired. The March 7 edition then quoted an assistant athletic department officials saying the search was already underway for a replacement coach who can take the program into "the top third of the Big Ten" and win a league title "our share of the time." Anything better, one deduces, would be unfair. (March 7, 2000)

The Indianapolis Star published five letters in this morning's paper about The Most Recent Bob Knight Unpleasantness, This One Said To Involve The Mentor Choking Another Human Being, To Wit: Neil Reed. Four of the five--eighty percent--strongly supported Coach. That's about right. That's about the way the American population breaks down for those who support Sick Willie as well. All hail! (March 19, 2000)

Even one of my favorite people, Steve Alford, seems to have been infected by America's national pastime--spinning. One of his former IU teammates, Rick Calloway, last week told reporters in Houston he'd seen Indiana Coach Bob Knight hit Steve in the stomach. A few days later University of Iowa PR flacks issued a statement attributed to Alford quoting him saying "Nothing along those lines ever occurred." Sorry, this is not good enough. The Sick Administration has taught all Americans the value of exquisitely careful reading of every last jot and tittle, every period, comma, letter, and word--and the absence of them, too--in a public statement. What does "along those lines" mean? I think we're still waiting for Steve to confirm or deny the precise allegation, that Coach hit him in the stomach. Until he does that, he hasn't answered anything. More than likely, nobody in the press even noticed.

Big Rally For The Mentor

Supporters of Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight are holding a rally April 9 on the steps of Assembly Hall in Bloomington. All true IU fans are invited to show up and protest the unfair and biased media reporting that plagues Coach even after 29 years of His tenure. The parallels between the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd that so ardently supports Coach and the Clintonistas who serve Sick are striking. Both groups use the same techniques and mantra: demonize all critics; swarm to attack the messenger; deny, deny, deny, no matter what the evidence. The same blind loyalty animates both groups. Both are wonderful illustrations of Modern Man and the moral relativism that makes it all possible. (April 8, 2000)

They can rally and whoop and bellow all they want but they can't change the fact that Coach is a world-class flaming asshole.

Red Meat For The Troops

Jason Shaw's Rally for Coach drew a crowd to the steps of Assembly Hall. The Indianapolis Star reported that one apostle after another trooped to the microphone to excoriate the press and other godless infidels who lie, make things up, distort the real truth, ignore all the good things Coach does, and are engaged ceaselessly in a vast conspiracy to destroy a good and decent man, his family, his fellow professionals and support staff, and indeed the entire Indiana University basketball program and all those even remotely associated with it. "Hang Neil Reed!" one sign screamed. "Send Reed to Cuba In Place of Elian," bellowed another. "We Support Coach Knight," chanted many others. Rally organizers called for a global boycott of the Indianapolis Star, CNN and Sports Illustrated. Larry Richardson, a member of last year's basketball team, chose odd phrasing when he told the pulsating throng, "It is very hard to have to be here to support Him." A former player, Damon Bailey, told the press--rather cryptically, it seemed--that former players would be holding their own rally soon, but refused to comment further. Graduating senior Michael Lewis, a Gene Cato legacy in the program, angrily told a TV cameraman to get out of the way because "this is a fan event, not a media event." The Star did not provide an estimate of crowd size. An exact count will be available as soon as our satellite photos are analyzed in labs deep in the bowels of the earth below Lake Greebus and Tillie's Family Restaurant. Coach did not attend the event, according to the Star. But you know He was there in spirit. (April 10, 2000)

Uh-Oh, They've Got Tape!

By golly, no sooner do they swarm to deny everything than somebody comes up with film to show otherwise. CNN has broadcast a tape smuggled out of the IU basketball film vaults showing The Mentor placing a hand around a player's neck during a practice. A co-worker of mine said he saw the show and it proves Coach's innocence because it shows He was not choking Reed and that Reed was lying about everything because no one is shown separating Coach and the player, as Reed claimed had happened.

WIBC radio was taking calls this morning from the public. I heard four of them. All four strongly backed Coach.

Former Indiana University assistant basketball coach Kohn Smith, quoted in the Indianapolis Star this morning, offers a truly Clintonian perspective of The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach. Smith told eager reporters that Coach would never harm anyone and that he, Smith, dearly loved Him (Coach) and would defend Him to the death. Smith added that film showing Coach with his hands on another person's throat meant nothing, really--the key issue is "did He (Coach) apply pressure to the throat." I am not making this up.

This morning's Indianapolis Star printed a large picture of a crucial frame from the Felling videotape. In it can be seen a dozen or so players and coaches. All of them are looking at Coach, who has his hand on Reed's throat. Yet only two people in the picture--Reed and Felling--the latter by setting free the evidence, the tape--have so far told the truth, that they indeed witnessed This Alleged Most Recent Unpleasantness happen. All the rest have either outright boldly and angrily denied that what we can see before our eyes ever occurred, or they have said nothing. Where is all this character and integrity that Coach is said to build, nurture, and insist upon in all who come under his tutelage?

A minor surprise in the Choking Unpleasantness: the demonization of Ron Felling has not been near-instantaneous as it normally is for anyone betraying The Mentor. Oh, there were a couple snotty remarks dropped by Pat Knight (Dad feels betrayed, that sort of thing) in this morning's newspaper, and Vice President for Shilling, Chris Simpson, dropped a couple of barbs. Otherwise silence. Where are players rushing forth to tell us what a rotten coach Ron was? Where are Coach's friends, letting it scurrilously slip that Ron "had--ahem--an alcohol problem" or some other character disorder? Typically, they swarm within 24-48 hours of a betrayal. My guess is the surfacing of the tape has the Kool-Aid Crowd temporarily stunned, off balance, not quite sure of how to proceed. They'll recover, though, and escalate the Felling Trashing soon. (April 13, 2000)

It's worth noting, too, that the University has changed its position on Felling's departure. Originally it was described--by even Bob Hammel at halftime of the IU-Kentucky game--as a resignation "to pursue other interests." IU is now telling eager reporters Felling was fired. Why? Well, no one will say, but we are free, IU knows, to assume that there sure must have been a reason, and an unsavory one at that. Neither of these versions squares with the one well-circulated among "insiders" at the time--that Knight had been eavesdropping from another room on a telephone conversation Felling was having (on a Thursday several days after IU's game against Notre Dame, and a couple days before its scheduled game against Kentucky) from his office with former IU assistant Coach Dan Dakich, now head coach at Bowling Green University; that Knight stormed angrily into Felling's office to confront him and accuse Felling of disloyalty; that Knight went postal, shoved Felling backwards into his desk and screamed "I'll kill you" at Felling, who walked out of his office never to return, and who announced his resignation the next day.

Peculiar Halftime Broadcast

And nowhere have I seen a word in the press about Hammel's comments during the halftime radio show with lead broadcaster Don Fischer at the Kentucky game, among the very weirdest of broadcast remarks ever heard, anywhere. Hammel expressed relief that Felling had resigned because, Hammel said, there had been a lot of concern (on the part, presumably, of the university, or the athletic department) that Felling was going to get them into trouble for violation of an NCAA rule strictly prohibiting the administrative assistant from engaging in any coaching activity whatsoever. Hammel clearly implied that Felling had been "crossing the line" and had been doing things the NCAA could interpret as "coaching." Hammel suggested that Ron had been very unhappy in the "administrative position" to which he'd been assigned several years ago. Felling loved coaching so much, Hammel implied, that he had just been unable to prevent himself from doing some "coaching" here and there. Whatever the truth may be, the fact that Hammel or any university representative anywhere would publicly discuss the topic--on a radio broadcast, no less--is utterly astonishing, the equivalent of taking out a full-page newspaper ad to hint that you've violated NCAA rules. It's just not done. My recollection is that Fischer said little to nothing in response that day. One interpretation, admittedly deeply cynical, is that Hammel was laying down, either at someone's suggestion or on his own initiative, a basis for Felling's dismissal that would favor the university and Coach. If an eager reporter could find a tape of that show he could have a field day.

Number 1 on a List of Things Indiana University Should Do But Won't: begin construction today on a larger-than-life statue of Ron Felling in front of Assembly Hall. Where do I send my contribution?

Word arrived April 21 that Ron Felling is planning a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Indiana University for wrongful dismissal and that a big Indianapolis law firm has taken the case. Felling is the assistant basketball coach who resigned suddenly under odd circumstances in December, 1999. Though it's not come out in the press, the story is that Felling was physically assaulted by his boss, Coach Bob Knight, during a confrontation in Felling's office on Thursday, before Indiana's Saturday game against Kentucky. Knight, the story goes, screamed and threatened to kill Felling. The lawsuit, if it's true, will pucker a lot of rectal orifices in the university administration, long noted for its utter cowardice in dealing with Knight. The prospect of lengthy court testimony about the icon god and his behavior may prove difficult for the university to endure. It could even lead--pray tell--to private negotiations to get Knight to resign. Like Sick, Knight has an uncanny way of getting away scot-free, so there's no cause to believe this will be any different. Still, this is a cause worth keeping an eye on, and praying for.

Rumor floated just before Easter that The Mentor has now been privately asked to resign by a representative of the IU board of trustees. He is said to have declined to do so. Aside from the sheer preposterousness of the idea of anyone in the university administration having the courage to confront the monster it's created, the timing allowed for flights of fancy. Suppose Coach was fired on Friday--Good Friday in this case. There would immediately be worldwide protest marches, with Grape Kool-Aiders storming American embassies abroad, seizing radio and TV stations. Back home, they would surge in great howling mobs across the campus and onto Myles Brand's lawn demanding justice, demanding vengeance, denying everything, blaming Coach's enemies, who are everywhere, demanding that their King rise again. And on Easter, Coach would be resurrected. All would hail. He is Risen!

Another former Indiana basketball player, Andre Patterson, has confirmed Neil Reed's account of being choked in practice by Coach. Patterson was emphatic about remembering the incident. Another guy for the Kool-Aid Crowd to demonize. (April 30, 2000)

IU Surges To Early Lead In Dopey Commencement Derby

Rock singer John Cougar Mellenkamp was Indiana University's commencement speaker over the weekend. Mimicking Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Saint Augustine, Mellenkamp waited till the night before to write his speech. He mounted the podium in full academic regalia, chewing gum and wearing sunglasses. Once introduced, he tossed his gum wad away, and began counseling the thronging masses. The Indianapolis Star had a breathless reporter present, and he wrote that the crowd roared its approval when Mellenkamp suddenly declared it was too danged hot to be wearing academic garb, then tossed aside his robe and mortar board and delivered the rest of his address in grizzled splendor wearing black jeans, work boots, and black sleeveless T-shirt, his tattoos pulsating in the southern Indiana sun. He used profanity, snickered and slouched, told his audience that "Life is about getting exactly what you want." He said people--"you guys," actually--should not spend their lives doing something they hated doing. When some impertinent prick wondered why the University allowed such a sleazeball to sully the occasion, an IU spokesperson quickly pointed out that students voted to have Mellenkamp. All this--and Bob Knight, too--friends, from a university which actually claims it is serious about its mission of taking the quest for truth and knowledge to higher planes. There is one universal truth about this, however: The Cougster has donated over $6 million to Indiana University, and that offers a clue about the price of respectability in its eyes. (May 5, 2000)

Davis On The Attack To Defend Coach

IU's assistant basketball coach, Mike Davis, was interviewed on WNDE-AM radio in Indianapolis Friday, May 12, and it was downright amazing. Davis trashed Ron Felling at a surprisingly hostile level, said if Felling had remained on IU's staff, he (Davis) would have quit. Davis hinted darkly of many other things about Felling that have never been made public, but never clarified a one of them. He accused Felling of disloyalty, treason, lying, the works, said that he had seen the famous videotape and, "You cannot tell if Coach's hand is on Neil Reed's shoulder or his throat." (Either Davis isn't watching the same tape millions of other Americans have seen, or he is now certifiably insane. Knight's hand IS on Reed's throat. Period.). Davis trashed Reed, trashed everyone who is trying to destroy Coach and His Program. He said that, "In Alabama where I come from, we would never treat a living legend like this. We would never allow Bear Bryant to be treated this way." What the interviewer, the weak-kneed Tim Bragg, should have immediately pointed out was that there is a difference, Mike: Bear Bryant would never have acted this way. But Tim let every last syllable of Davis's blather go unchallenged. Davis added that if Knight was forced out he, too, would leave IU. Davis said that Coach's Enemies--all the people who are telling lies, leaking stories, making things up--have one motive--they do not want Coach to win any more national championships or any more Big Ten championships. They want to destroy His program, prevent it and Coach from having success. Mike's been to Clintonista training school and earned a Ph. D. (May 13, 2000)

Local news channels are breathlessly reporting that the Indiana University board of trustees has just concluded a two-hour and 20-minute meeting and left the decision about Bob Knight's future up to that tower of courage, university president Myles Brand. Brand, it is said, will announce his decision Sunday the 15th at 3 p.m. The "investigation" commissioned by the university of The Mentor's various capers, which was scheduled to be concluded in June, has been wrapped up a month early and the report given to the trustees. IU Spokeslackey and Chief Spinner Chris Simpson gave scant details after the trustees finished their huddle. He fended off every question, and gave no hints. Word is out that Coach did see fit to fly back from a big fishing trip to Canada to meet with Myles for two hours last night at Brand's home. We can safely assume Coach set Brand straight on what should be done. History--over a quarter century of it--tells us nothing will be done. I'm heading to St. Paul's to light a candle. (May 14, 2000)

Coach has launched his recovery strategy. Tonight the TV screens were ablaze with a rambling, artfully-worded fake mea culpa issued by Knight. He is apologizing--well, sort of--for "mistakes" he's made, admitting that his temper has been a problem he's "had to battle" (now he's a victim) all his life but pointing out that everyone (this is called "deflection") has things he or she has to struggle with in his or her life, or lives, and that He, Coach, is no different (this is called baloney, since he is different from almost everyone) than the rest of us. He's always been too "confrontational," he admits, and so on and on, ad nauseum, actually. This is Classic Knight. When Coach is backed into a corner and can't bully his way out he always resorts to these pseudo-apologies laced with big dollops of sarcasm. He's an absolute master at this, and of taking crises to the very cliff's edge, then backing off. He knows--as we do--that his persecutors are utterly desperate to find an excuse to drop this, have it--oh, please, please, dear God--go away. This "apology" gives them precisely what they need to now be able to say, "See, Coach has admitted his problems and regrets them, and now it's time to move on." The university has its excuse. Coach has handed them an exit ticket, and the door is wide open for them to cut and run. I'll be the most surprised person on the planet if they don't.

The sudden and surprising (recall that when it was announced, the Walda-Eichorn Tribunal was to report back around mid-June) conclusion in mid-May to Indiana University's "investigation" of the Most Recent Unpleasantnesses Involving Coach Knight had to be motivated primarily by the university's desperate desire to stanch the flow of stories coming out. It reached near avalanche proportions as emboldened victims and witnesses began stepping forth. They absolutely had to be stopped. (May 18, 2000)

Myles Brand went to great but inadvertent lengths to tell us what Coach had done that wouldn't result in getting Him fired. I'd rather have had Brand asked the question turned around: Just what would it have taken to make Brand do his duty and fire Him?

An impeccable source tells me the IU trustees voted 7-0 (with two Knight lackeys on the board, Steve Ferguson and Pete Obremsky, abstaining) to fire Knight last weekend, but Brand personally overrode their decision.

Patrick Knight, Soothsayer

In post-investigation penance, the Star gave Coach's son, Pat, free rein to vent his own anger in its May 19 edition. Young Knight said he is still angry and always will be angry at the way his family name was attacked during The Most Recent Unpleasantness Involving His Father. "This isn't over. This will never be over for any of us," Patrick told the Star, vowing never to forget how people tried to destroy his father and the entire family. Pat remains a chip off the old asshole, a tedious, surly, vicious, insulting, arrogant turd of a man, just like his father. (May 19, 2000)

This morning's Indianapolis Star carried a brief report of still another Unpleasantness involving Coach. The paper reported that former IU basketball center Chris Lawson was quoted in the Nashville Tennesseean saying he recalled Coach punching another player in the head during halftime in the IU locker room at Iowa State in December, 1990. Lawson declined to identify the player, saying he was afraid to come forward because of fear he would be vilified by the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd. Somehow, the Tennesseean put two and two together, though, and contacted Matt Nover, who acknowledged a "heated situation" at halftime between himself and Knight. Nover, in finest Clintonista form, offered a cagey, carefully crafted answer when he told the newspaper that Knight "never struck me with his fist." (May 22, 2000)

One of the luckier people in the Most Recent Unpleasantness is former IU player Steve Alford, now head coach at Iowa. Alford was allowed to cleverly deflect a report that Knight had punched him in the stomach with the disingenuous and unchallenged reply that "nothing along those lines ever occurred," and he was never drawn any further into the mess. Alford issued a carefully worded statement a week after the verdict saying he was really happy Coach will continue to be in charge at Indiana. And that may be true, for increasingly we hear that opposing coaches are plenty happy to have Knight stay right where he is, leading Indiana to fifth-place finishes and early exits from the NCAA tourney and not being a serious factor when the schools bump heads recruiting.

Richardson Blistered On Rome Show

There are a few ornery journalists left. Jim Rome, host of a nationally syndicated radio and TV sports talk program, and John Feinstein of the Washington Post teamed up during the last week of May to scourge Indiana University trustee Ray Richardson over the Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach. Richardson was coerced into admitting that the secret vote of the trustees was 7-0 to fire Coach, but that IU president Myles Brand decided to retain The Mentor anyway. Feinstein said that Coach told a national ESPN audience that He did not apologize to President Brand when He, Knight, met with the president the night before a press conference was held to announce the school's decision. But the next day Brand told a press conference that Knight had indeed apologized during his Saturday night meeting with Coach. Feinstein asked Richardson if the rationale Brand gave to the trustees for his decision not to fire Knight included the fact of a Knight apology. Richardson said, yes, that's what the trustees were told. Feinstein then pointed out that somebody was lying--either Knight or Brand--and would he, Richardson, have any speculation about which it could be? Richardson backed and filled furiously and somehow escaped alive. This was a Kodak Moment, though. How I wish I coulda been there. The big mystery is how Richardson could be stupid enough to have gone on such a show in the first place. (May 23, 2000)

Zero = One Step Beyond

An Indianapolis pundit offered a succinct view of how Indiana University's freshly-minted "zero tolerance" policy for its basketball coach will be interpreted by those charged with enforcing it: zero tolerance will be "one step beyond whatever Bob Knight does." You can bet money on this.

Must Be Something In That Bloomington Water

Northeastern University has fired Joy Malchodi, its women's basketball coach "in the wake of an internal investigation into her conduct," according to USA Today. She's been given an administrative position in the athletic department. USA Today's account notes that Malchodi came to Northeastern from none other than Indiana University, where she "was known for yelling and swearing on the sideline."

At The Head Of The Table. . .

A friend is utterly despondent that The Mentor again slipped off the hook down in Bloomington. He believed Knight's 29-year record of ugliness and abuse of others warranted a firing. He is correct. But his mistake is believing there is justice in the world. Seldom is this true. Sensing he was near-suicidal, I gave him this advice. In all your dealings with other human beings, expect the worst from them. You will seldom be shocked or disappointed. Despair will no longer buffet you. And when humans do step out of character and behave nobly, you'll be delighted and pleased and grateful. Every day of your life will be easier once you lower your expectations to coincide with reality. Now, please, take the small handgun out of your mouth, return it to its nesting place in the bottom right-hand drawer of your desk, walk out of the room and join your loving family for whatever remains of your life. And never, never again look at the head table, because that's where the rogues and scoundrels will always be sitting.

The wire services reported this nugget over the weekend: Professor Bob Knight won't be teaching classes this fall at Indiana University. He informed the University in June that he would not be teaching a class about coaching basketball which meets during the first eight weeks of the fall semester. Athletics Department spokeslackey Todd Starowitz said Knight "would not be available to answer questions about his decision." The athletic department issued a statement on behalf of Knight which said "the nebulous guidelines of the 'zero toleraance' policy imposed on Knight by IU President Myles Brand have forced Knight to refrain from teaching." So. Knight remains a world-class asshole. What else is new? And how will Brand react to this thinly disguised and typically juvenile insult? (September 4, 2000)

After months of radio silence, Coach is emerging from the bunkers. This morning's Indianapolis Star reports that He is studying His options under the zero tolerance policy, trying to ascertain what it allows Him to do. IU's Vice President for Shilling, Chris Simpson, told eager reporters that he, Simpson, had actually talked to The Mentor recently, and that The Mentor felt that teaching the class on coaching was just too much of a risk, given the nebulousness of things (suppose some student "wanted to make an issue of something" was one of the examples given to illustrate the dangers that would lurk for Coach in the classroom) and that Coach was making a sincere effort to weave His (tortured) way through the fuzzy guidelines to calm seas where He can continue to be the highly successful Coach He has always been and plans to continue to be. Today's story will be a huge relief to the millions of The Faithful who've been tortured by His silence and gnawed at by pervasive anxiety in the Bleak Period Following His Excoriation and Then Redemption. I think we can all breathe easier now. (September 6, 2000)

Uh-Oh, An 'Inappropriate Touching'

Wait! Wait! Here's another one! Coach is unjustly alleged to have grabbed a 19-year-old freshman by the arm outside Assembly Hall yesterday after the lad greeted Coach with a "Hey, Knight, what's up?" Coach, always at home with paradox, is said to have sternly lectured the lad about topics such as manners, civility, and showing respect. Coach is even said to have used profanity while doing so. Could this be an "inappropriate touching" by Coach? Coach and His supporters are denying everything. But better wait. Someone may have this on tape. (September 8, 2000)

All Hail! The Deed Is Done!

Myles Brand dipped down in there today, found two the size of grapefruits, and fired The Mentor. I never thought I'd live to see this. I'd given up all hope. (September 10, 2000)

Borrowing an old LBJ coonskin metaphor, let's nail that ugly red sweater up on the wall! He's toast!

Almost As Good As Impeachment Day

September 10, 2000, is the second happiest non-family related day of my life, trailing only Sick's Impeachment by the House of Representatives Dec. 19, 1998. One of the all-time greats!

Only one thing could have improved Myles's announcement Sunday. That would have been if he'd paused meaningfully at the end, then added, ". . .and just to cap off a glorious day and cut out some more of the cancer, I'm firing Patrick Knight as of this moment, too." (September 11, 2000)

Maybe Pat will spare us Further Unpleasantness and just resign. Preferably today.

But don't be surprised if Patrick stays on. That would serve the cause of family vengeance much more than a resignation. And force IU's hand, too.

Worst Nightmare Department: Athletic director Clarence Doninger resigns, and IU names Pat Knight the new head coach and athletic director. Is there anyone who'll say this isn't possible?

Here's the solution, either short-term or long-term, for IU: Larry Bird. (September 11, 2000)

Little Missy Frobish, one of TV Channel 6's breathless reporters on-scene in Bloomington last night--and for all we know, permanently--offered this comforting breaking news around 10:30 p.m., telling viewers that while she couldn't get a word out of Coach when His plane landed in Bloomington, she had learned that Bob Hammel was "with Coach on the plane" and Hammel told Missy that Coach was "doing all right."

Film of last night's student ruckuses in Bloomington is living proof that the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd has teeming millions of adolescent acolytes to carry on The Cause and keep Coach's name and grievances alive for future generations.

The youthful buffoons marauding IU's campus last night are confused. They should be burning The Mentor in effigy. (September 11, 2000)

Author and Washington Post writer John Feinstein was interviewed on local radio this morning and offered a nostalgic anecdote related to the mid-1980s when he spent a year traveling and living with the IU basketball team in preparation for writing his factual account of Certain Unpleasantnesses (his best-selling book, Season on the Brink). He was asked, during a road trip to Iowa and Minnesota, what he was going to do that day. Feinstein said he answered in a self-effacing way that "I'm going to do what I do every day--follow Knight around." Coach, hovering nearby, overheard this and, according to Feinstein, "was in my face" in an instant, screaming angrily, that he, Feinstein, had no right to address Him as "Knight". . .and so on and so on. Feinstein chuckled this morning and said that when he heard the allegation of Last Week's Unpleasantness Said to Have Involved a Student Who Rudely Used the Word 'Knight' to Address The Mentor, it had a certain ring of veracity to it. Where Coach is involved, doesn't everything?

Crackpot Pete

Add longtime Knight friend and now apologist Pete Newell to the list of those who've relinquished all contact with reality. Monday's Chicago Tribune quotes Newell predicting (and I fully agree) that Knight will be swamped with coaching offers "from some of the biggest schools in the country next year" but then following up, in a remarkable flight of self-delusion and denial, with the ridiculous claim that he believes IU fired Knight just to ruin His career. "Indiana," Newell is quoted, "thinks they're ruining a career in coaching. I think they're wrong." (September 11, 2000)

Pretty much lost in the firing furor was Knight's cartoonish press conference last Friday in which he denied all allegations and offered eager reporters a detailed blackboard drawing to support His version of things. He told the press he'd merely wanted to instruct the lad who'd so rudely addressed him as "Knight" on matters of good manners and civility. Inexplicably, no one burst out laughing at this point.

You'd have to look far and wide on this planet to find anything more preposterous than Coach lecturing anyone on good manners and civility.

Athletic director Clarence Doninger still holds that ultimate trump card. He could name Ron Felling the new head coach.

The avalanche of support for Coach has begun. Monday's Indianapolis Star featured a full page of letters to the editor, about 20 of them. They overwhelmingly support Knight. The Grape Kool-Aid Crowd's loose on the Internet and roaming Bloomington's streets. Fraternities have hung out effigies of the 19-year-old Kent Harvey. Signs are stuck in yards, banners hung from buildings, generally calling for the deaths of Harvey, Myles Brand, and anyone else deemed a Traitor. Brand and other IU officials report getting not hundreds of e-mails but thousands, many of them profanity-filled and bristling with threats. All this is emblematic of where our society stands today. Does this sound like Mao's Red Guard or the Khmer Rouge? Indeed it does. I hear few voices despairing over it, though.

Everyone's following the script. Coaches around America are defending Coach, saying He didn't deserve to lose his job. Present players are rushing forward to Praise Him and Proclaim the End of the World. Former players are defending Him. Kool-Aiders are sick with anger and blindly lashing out at The Enemy with their big trump card, death threats. Coach's critics are in hiding. And a few of us--Antichrists all--are basking in the deep, warm, golden glow of satisfaction of a lifetime's wait finally rewarded.

USA Today reports that its Internet survey finds 67 percent of the respondents agree with Indiana's firing of Knight. An Indianapolis Star poll found 52 percent backing the decision. You'd never guess it by listening to the media, though. Apparently those in favor are in hiding now. Wisely, I suspect. There's a murderous mentality out there, as Knight supporters struggle in a losing battle to keep their world intact.

Incoming freshman recruit Andre Owens offered this precious jewel of Aristotelian analysis to a breathless TV-6 reporter last night: "Every other coach in the NCAA does the same things (as Coach is unjustly alleged to have done) and they don't do nothing to them." Owens said it was completely unfair to punish Coach for things that everyone else did. I did not make this up.

TV cameras numerous times Sunday night showed us closeups of boisterous young people holding up a Wanted--Dead or Alive poster, which bore the name, description and a picture of the wanted criminal--in this case the lad (Kent Harvey) the Kool-Aid Crowd accuses of destroying Bob Knight's career. Given the highly inflammable environment and the general agitation present among the mob, does this sort of thing border on a crime of some sort? Inciting to riot, maybe? May we have a legal opinion on this, counselor? (September 11, 2000)

Basketball player George Leach angrily told reporters that they (the IU big-shots who'd fired Coach) had deprived him of his lifelong dream to play for Coach Knight. Sorry, George, you're confused, too. Bob Knight deprived you of that opportunity, not Myles Brand.

Does Coach get to continue using university property (Assembly Hall, the IU Auditorium, for example) now that he's no longer an employee, in order to conduct His various rants, offer His convoluted explanations of "His side of the story" to howling mobs of the faithful, continue his snide insults and attacks on school officials and the vast conspiracy out to destroy Him, His family, His friends, His goldfish, His reputation, His dog, His personal belongings? Has the university escorted Him to His office under armed guard and told Him to pack his crap and get the frigg out of there by dusk, as it should? Just wondering.

The Star quoted Greg Garrett, an Indianapolis fireman at Station No. 7, saying, "We think that guy (the student involved in The Most Recent Unpleasantness) set Knight up."

Case Closed Department

"I would have to be an absolute moron, an absolute moron, with things that have been laid down on me, to grab a kid in public and curse a kid in public." --The Mentor, addressing reporters at His press conference September 8 to explain His version of the event.

O.K., So He Is An Absolute Moron Department

Police in Bloomington on September 11 announced they'd closed their investigation of The Unpleasantness and that while witnesses had different interpretations of the severity of the "grabbing" there was no doubt that the grabbing occurred. No formal charges will be filed against Coach.

See, This Wasn't Brain Surgery Department

"All it (IU's 'zero tolerance' behavior code for Coach) basically required was for Bob Knight to be a decent human being, and he couldn't hold up to that standard" --Indiana University Trustee Ray Richardson.

Crackpot Pete--The Sequel

"This was never meant to be an edict anyone could follow. Not even God could follow it."--Pete Newell, longtime friend of The Mentor, quoted Sept. 11 in the Chicago Tribune while claiming the university set up Coach to be fired when it established a "zero tolerance" policy for his future behavior.

"Bob Knight is out of a job today not because the university wanted to do the right thing, but because it no longer had a choice." --USA Today, in its lead editorial Sept. 12, 2000.

Pat Knight has been quoted in the press saying he's resigning his assistant coaching position. Good!

A Great Leader In The Making Department

"Whatever Coach (Knight) tells me to do, whatever the players say, I'm going to do." --Mike Davis, assistant basketball coach at Indiana University, asked about whether he'd stay at Indiana now that The Mentor has been fired. (Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 12, 2000.)

Yeah, But They're Our Stupid, Stinking Bonfires

"The truest measure of the Bobby Knight era is the putrid odor emanating from the bonfires still smoldering in Bloomington." --Columnist Melissa Anderson, the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 12, 2000.

"Everybody's thrown furniture." --A. J. Moye, freshman basketball recruit at Indiana University, joining his teammates in refusing to assign Knight any blame for his firing. (USA Today, Sept. 12, 2000)

"Kool-Aid, anyone? But of course. Thousands of Bob Knight fans remain at the vat, lapping up Coach's brew of poison, even as they burn their Indiana University shirts, march on the home of President Myles Brand and rethink alumni donations" --Columnist Ruth Holladay, Indianapolis Star, Sept. 12, 2000.

If you listen carefully to what players and others are saying, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that what Indiana University has is a cult, not a basketball team.

Junior guard Dane Fife has been threatening to transfer to protest Coach's firing. Won't somebody please, pleeease help Dane pack his bags and hand him a bus ticket out of town?

"There have been university officials who have lied to Him and deceived Him." --Dane Fife, no doubt wearing his baseball cap indoors and backwards, quoted in the Sept. 11 Indianapolis Star angrily defending Coach.

"How could you expect them to return? They've lost their father figure." --Pat Knight, son of The Mentor and an assistant coach at Indiana University, replying to a reporter's question about whether the players would transfer in protest.

An ESPN Classic

Coach's 40-minute appearance Sept. 12 on ESPN was classic Knight. He was arrogant, sarcastic, bullying, manipulative, insulting, and evasive. He repeatedly tried to embarrass young Jeremy Schaap, the interviewer. He spun long artful non-answers where it suited Him. He told the breathless nation watching that every charge against Him was made up out of thin air and a lie. So, what did we learn? Nothing new. We saw again, though, that Knight is a world-class asshole. Back in the studio, host Bob Ley offered what he inaccurately described as "some perspective" on Knight's harangue by having as guests Dane Fife, a junior on IU's basketball team, and Gary Williams, former Ohio State assistant coach in the mid-1980s and now head coach at the University of Maryland. Williams, true above all to the coaching brotherhood, minced carefully with every answer, obviously afraid to say anything judgmental. He kept referring to facts as "perceptions" and said that everyone had their own perception of what they had seen or heard or experienced. Fife wore his baseball cap indoors and opined that the whole team felt The Mentor had been set up by the university. Why does ESPN or any media outlet waste its time with things like this? (September 12, 2000)

Schaap, for his part, remained remarkably cool under persistent bullying from Knight. Afterwards, Schaap said he wasn't particularly upset, that this was merely Knight "reacting to a line of questioning he didn't like." Well said.

When Knight got really snotty with young Schaap toward the end of the interview, I said to my wife that what this situation called for was for Schaap to unfasten his microphone, turn it off, and walk out of the room without saying a word, leaving Coach there by Himself. But she, the only voice of sanity, reason, or moderation in our family, correctly pointed out that Schaap's bosses would have fired him for that. Schapp's job, she counseled me, was to show the nation what Bob Knight was, and he had done that.

It's axiomatic that witnesses sometimes offer different accounts of an event. Last night The Mentor told ESPN that both Neil Reed and Jeanette Hartgraves were lying in their accounts of what Coach did to them. Reed is the former IU player who accused Knight of choking him during a practice. Hartgraves is the former IU secretary who reported that Knight threatened, screamed and cursed at her during a February, 1998, tantrum in an IU athletic department office, and in an another outburst in the late 1980s Coach threw a potted plant or vase against a wall near Hartgraves. Their versions of these Unpleasantnesses were confirmed by an IU trustee investigation last spring. Knight claims they are lying even though there is videotape of Knight with his hands on Reed's throat during a practice, and there were at least 12 players and assistant coaches who witnessed this (though only one or two would ever admit they saw it, the film shows them all standing there watching). There was at least one witness (Clarence Doninger) to the Hartgraves Unpleasantness. Knight's preposterous claim is the technique of sociopaths everywhere: deny the facts, deny all evidence, accuse all witnesses of lying. The technique was raised to an art form by Sick and the Clintonistas during the Plague of Unpleasantnesses Said to Have Involved The President and His Family and Friends since the 1992 election. Knight's wild statements drew only a one-paragraph mention deep in the Indianapolis Star's coverage of the ESPN fiasco.

Another tiny, subtle lie told by Coach in his ESPN interview was hardly noted at all in press coverage. Midway through the ordeal, he told Schaap that Patrick Knight (Coach's son) had been the real "victim" in This Most Recent Unpleasantness, having been fired from his assistant coaching job at IU. Schaap challenged the "victim" claim by pointing out that Patrick was out of a job because of things his father had done, but missed the lie. Young Patrick was quoted in the press Monday or Tuesday saying he was resigning his job at IU. So unless we've missed something, he was not fired as Coach alleged.

The Mentor also told His ESPN audience that the University lied about all seven instances cited by President Myles Brand in his Sept. 10 press conference as factors in the decision to fire Knight. What Knight is asking us to believe is that all the university's top administrators and trustees, up to and including the school president, were sufficiently consumed by their desire to destroy Knight that they were willing to go on national television twice and risk their careers and reputations by lying extensively about numerous Unpleasantnesses, many of which could be independently verified by a salivating press. Sorry, Coach, this one doesn't pass the smell test.

For approximately 29 years, Indiana University athletic officials, trustees, top administrators and school presidents lied, covered up, spun, deceived, and denied reality, facts and the truth to protect Bob Knight or explain Him away. Now that they've stopped lying, and begun telling the truth, Knight is accusing them of lying. Isn't self-delusion a beautiful thing?

Gotcha!

Knight also told Schaap that no one ever told him what the zero tolerance policy guidelines were and so he never had any idea what they were, what the term meant. Schaap repeatedly asked Coach if He'd ever asked President Brand what the guidelines meant and Knight each time declined to answer the question. Within 48 hours the University released a statement signed by Knight on May 15 in which he acknowledged "receiving " the guidelines from President Brand and stating that He, Coach had "absolutely no problem with guidelines." This revelation was met by complete silence from Knight, and no one from the press, so far as I know, has bothered to confront Knight with the lie. No matter. This was a supremely satisfying and beautiful little Gotcha! Moment.

Just about anyone with a functioning brain knows what the guidelines meant. They meant the university expected Knight to be a decent human being. Nothing complicated about it, really. But far too complicated for the disingenous Mentor to understand, and far too tough a standard for Him to live up to.

There was a telling if inadvertent contrast on last night's TV news. On the one hand you had a clever, dissembling Bob Knight in denial on ESPN, and from down in Florida came news film clips showing former New York Yankees and Mets outfielder Daryll Strawberry standing before a judge freely admitting guilt and accepting responsibility in an automobile accident and fleeing-the-scene episode. (September 12, 2000)

Call The Orkin Man

The University is in a bind. The Big Tumor is out, but many Knight loyalists still infest the place, particularly in the athletic department. What to do about them is the challenge. If I'm Indiana University, I fumigate, disinfect. I clean 'em out and send 'em packing. For if we think this is over with the firing of Knight, we're mistaken. Knight and His acolytes will work assiduously for the rest of their lives to gain the vengeance they so sorely crave. Those left behind can be counted upon to undermine and subvert the new regime when it's named. I doubt if IU has the will to be this harsh. This is academe, after all, and the place where it took the university nearly three decades to acknowledge the cancer in its midst.

The basketball players themselves are doing a lot of yapping and sabre-rattling, making demands, threatening to transfer if they don't get their way. In the short term they'll probably have to be accommodated.

After a couple days of deliberation, IU named assistant coach Mike Davis to a new Interim Head Coach position. That will pacify the players and avert a mass mutiny. It was stressed loudly and repeatedly that this is an interim appointment only, and that the University will begin a search immediately to locate and hire a new head coach by next spring. (September 12, 2000)

Davis was an ardent supporter of Knight through the Niagara of Unpleasant Allegations made against the Mentor last spring. Davis was so enthusiastic that he made extensive radio station appearances around the Midwest defending Coach, trashing His accusers, and denying all charges. On May 12, for example, when he was interviewed on WNDE-AM in Indianapolis, Davis told the station's nasal-voiced sports anchor, Tim Bragg, that if Knight was forced out he, Davis, would leave, too. Guess he's changed his mind on that one, now that the opportunity of a lifetime's been dangled. Giving a Kool-Aider such as this the basketball reins isn't comforting, but as a practical matter the university had little choice.

The Kool-Aid Crowd's in a horrific bind, too. Many of them are straight out of Southern Indiana's racist, Klan-loving sewer. Mike Davis, who loyally defended the Fallen Mentor but now replaces Him, is a black man. What's a Kool-Aider to do now?

Indiana doesn't know it, but it has already hired its permanent coach. Mike Davis. Here's how this will play out. Davis will have a decent if not outstanding season. IU has plenty of talent. The lads will play fiercely to vindicate their commitment to The Mentor. IU will go through a show of considering all applicants. But at decision time it will be made acutely aware that to deny the permanent position to Davis will be seen worldwide as an act of the most despicable racism. IU will face the spectre of a national firestorm of Al Sharpton-Maxine Waters-Jesse Jackson-Ted Kennedy-John Conyers-style demagoguery if it even thinks about hiring a honky. Davis will be their choice. The only thing that could possibly derail this is a poor season--the odds are microscopically low for this--or some astonishing moral turpitude or criminal act on Davis's part. If the latter, he can then run on the Democratic ticket and be elected president of the United States. It's a done deal. Book it!

Author John Feinstein cut through the whimpering, foot-shuffling, nonjudgmental feel-good crap of the Geraldo Live talk show on CNBC last night by saying Knight's claim of ignorance about the meaning of the zero tolerance guidelines was "pure garbage." It's so refreshing to hear something called what it is. (September 13, 2000)

Anybody else see a parallel between The Mentor and Richard Nixon? Both are (were) driven by a powerful anger and hatred of their perceived enemies. Both nursed grievances and a sense of betrayal all their adult lives. Of the two, Nixon seems to have been better able to function in the world than Knight. But of course I could be wrong about every last syllable of this.

This morning's Indianapolis Star reports that among Mike Davis's first acts as the new interim head coach was to declare that he will never, ever go into Coach's old office again. It is a sacred place. It would hurt too much to enter. It would profane the memory of Coach. The office will be left exactly as it was the moment Coach walked out, with all the pictures, plaques and mementoes left hanging on the walls, all the treasures in place, forever and forever, so long as Mike or any of us shall live. (September 14, 2000)

For my part, I'd rather see Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf lead an armored division in there, raze the place, salt it and pave it over.

Adoring thousands filled Dunn Meadow last night to hear Coach "tell my side of the story." Only trouble was, Coach never told them His side of the story. Instead, He reminisced about how wonderful students had been to the team over these many, many years, and how much that support had meant to Coach and His teams. He took half a dozen lame potshots at his Enemies. He surprised us all by calling off the attack dogs from the hapless Kent Harvey, who'd been driven into exile and threatened with death by the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd. Coach didn't do this very emphatically, but what passes for sincerity from Coach is never very emphatic. It was enough that he asked them to lay off the poor fellow and not kill him. One sign in the crowd read: On The 8th Day, God Created Coach. Police were said to be out in force, but inconspicuously. The event seemed to be entirely peaceful. TV sound and satellite trucks were on campus "from all over the country," according to Channel 6's breathless reporter. Coach noted sarcastically that no one among his enemies in the university hierarchy had even wished Him and His family the best for the future. To remedy that, and to obtain what He obviously feels is due Him, Coach asked the students to bow their heads for a minute of silence--a full minute, he instructed them--and wish Him and His family the very best for the future. On that utterly bizarre note, the speech ended and Coach wheeled and strode away. Another beautiful moment for the memory book. (September 14, 2000)

Death Threats Top The List

As we sift through the rubble looking for the one fact or episode which most symbolizes the depths of the sickness infesting Knight's acolytes my choice is the death threats made against the 19-year-old Kent Harvey and, presumably, other Enemies. And Knight to this day has never uttered a strong rebuke of this behavior.

The Rager, The Stalker, The Sneering Duck-Walker. . .

As for the depth of the sickness infesting Coach Himself, the contenders for the absolute worst are many. Would it be Coach duck-walking across the locker room with his pants around his ankles and holding a wad of excrement-smeared toilet paper in His extended hand to show the lads what they'd been playing like? Would it be Coach raging and screaming profanity at Jeanette Hartgraves, then Clarence Doninger's secretary in the athletic department, or throwing a potted plant at her? Would it be Coach publicly humiliating a hapless NCAA underling (Rance Pugmire) at a press conference at a 1995 NCAA basketball tournament press conference? Knight choking Neil Reed? Threatening to kill his assistant coach, Ron Felling? Would it be Coach's long, drawn-out oncourt tirade in March, 1998, against referee Ted Valentine, in which Knight, his face florid and twisted in ugly rage, played matador and stalked a circle around Valentine while the crowd roared, before advancing, still screaming, on the referee and veering off at the final instant to head off the floor after being ejected from the game? Would it be any of Coach's many appearances on his own TV show during which he insulted and humiliated the show's pathetic host and lifelong faithful lapdog, Chuck Marlowe? Or one of many more? My vote goes for a tie between Coach's vile abuse of a woman (Hartgraves) and the Toilet Paper Caper.

President Brand's wife felt compelled to hold a press conference in Bloomington Sept. 14 to ask Knight's worshippers to call off their threats of death and violence. Peg Brand said she and her family felt their lives were in danger. Police have been assigned to guard Mrs. Brand while she teaches a class on campus. The menace she perceived, she told eager reporters, was sufficient that she and Brand had moved out of their on-campus home temporarily, even though police had been guarding it since mobs of students and Kool-Aiders were unleashed last week.

There isn't a school or an institution in the United States or, indeed, the civilized world, where an atmosphere like this would develop over the criticism or firing of a basketball coach. Only in Bloomington, Indiana, and only Bob Knight. Does anyone realize what a searing indictment this is? (September 15, 2000)

Shakespeare Was Right

One more inevitability in This Most Recent Unpleasantness has arrived. Coach's attorney, Russell Yates, is yapping in the Sunday Star about illegal clauses in The Mentor's contract with IU. Particularly, he alleges, the non-compete clause where Knight agreed not to take a job with another Big Ten school or any school in Indiana or Kentucky. There are dark hints that Yates considers the university liable for enormous amounts of lost income Knight won't get from endorsements, running his basketball camps, and God knows what else. "We're going to negotiate that," he thundered, "or we're going to litigate." If I'm Indiana University, I say fine, sue. And we'll call in the Clintonista legal staff and stall and delay and deny for the next 10 years, and we'll see how Coach likes waiting on the sidelines watching his remaining life trickle away while we litigate. As an Indiana taxpayer, I stand ready to pay extra taxes to prevent The Mentor from this extortion. Where do I send my check? (September 17, 2000)

My guess is that before this is over, Coach will sue for other things, too (like wrongful dismissal), and seek millions for his anguish and suffering. I doubt there's any fury more ugly in the universe than Coach betrayed.

This thing is so-o-o-o bad for so-o-o-o many that I can foresee Sick (and Weird Al, of course, so he, too, can get credit for feeling their pain) declaring a national disaster and committing federal funds to set aside and build a sanctuary for Coach and His Vast Flock, a place where they can resign from the evil world to nurse their grievances, their anger, their resentments and their hatreds forever and forever and forever, so long as any of them shall live--for there is no healing possible for them after what they've suffered. I'll vote for that!

Is it time to piss on the fire of 29 years of Bob Knight Unpleasantnesses, call in the dogs, and go home? Can we get Coach to take his pestilential presence elsewhere and leave us alone now?

Shakespeare was right, except he should have added assholes to the list.

The September 18 issue of Sports Illustrated features Coach blazing on the cover and contains an allusion I'd have paid money to have thought of first. In a paragraph referencing the driving into exile by outraged Kool-Aid'ers of English Professor Murray Sperber and the hapless 19-year-old Antichrist, Kent Harvey, SI's writer Alexander Wolff reached for and captured a Napoleonic reference that's perfect for this sad Bloomington spectacle. Wolff refers to Sperber, who is lecturing at a university in Canada while on leave from Indiana, as teaching this fall "at Indiana's Elba campus." (September 18, 2000)

Indiana University, which imagines itself one of the world's great universities, is a second-tier school which does not rank in the country's top 50 schools (five other Big Ten schools did), and ranks below every other Big Ten school except Michigan State in ratings of public universities in U.S. News & World Report magazine's latest study of American colleges and universities. The reaction of IU officials when contacted by the Indianapolis Star for comment, according to an article in the Sept. 17 edition, was to "quickly point out flaws in the rankings" and to note that "the Bloomington campus has a record enrollment this year." This from an institution which took over a quarter of a century to face the Toxic Bob Knight Unpleasantness Festering In Its Midst, which proudly paraded flea-bitten and marginally literate rock idol John Mellenkamp as its 2000 Commencement speaker, and which would have been in suicidal depression had its basketball team finished 10th in the Big Ten. Denial runs deep down there.

Two possibilities for Coach: Northwestern and Notre Dame. Oh sure, you say, He signed a contract with a non-compete clause in it which covers both schools (the Big Ten, and the states of Indiana and Kentucky are prohibited). But what are those but nettlesome nuisances to be Clintonistaed by Coach's stable of attorneys?

Some troublemaking prick noticed that when Indiana University's football team took the field September 16 in Lexington to play Kentucky, there were no longer last names on the backs of IU's jerseys. An eager reporter, obviously clever enough to put several clues together, asked Coach Cam Cameron about this oddity. Cam's reply was quietly reported a few days later in the Indianapolis Star. "Cameron didn't have much to say on the topic," the Star noted, then quoted The Camster saying the no-names policy "will be a week-to-week thing. But there's a good chance it will stay that way for the rest of the season." Seasoned IU observers and cryptologists have already bored through the fluff and smoke to these salient facts; 1) The no-names thing was a sacred issue for The Fallen Mentor, the recently fired (on Sept. 10) basketball coach,Bob Knight; 2) The Camster played for Coach some years ago at IU; 3) The Camster is widely suspected to be a loyal apostle of Coach's yet today. Thus it is suspected that Cam's football team now wearing nameless jerseys is a thinly-encrypted message from The Camster to The World That Destroyed The Only Coach He Ever Loved and Still Does, a bird-flipping cry to Coach's Enemies And All The Traitors Who Betrayed Him, that Cam Still Trusts in Coach, Still Supports Him, Always Will. It seems a safe bet that no one in the athletic department--what's left of it under Clarabelle's disastrous stewardship--will make an issue of this, nor will the press. But we can hope, can't we, that perhaps the Camster already knows--or has decided on his own--that he's toast and outta there at the end of this season?

Coach Confides In Larry

I missed Coach's one-hour special with the buffoonish sleazeball, Larry King, last night. This morning's Star reported that Coach "was civil throughout the entire program." That in itself is news. Beyond that, no new information was revealed, though Coach took the usual potshots at His many Enemies and is said to have told Larry that He did not have to have been fired, that He would have resigned. This is somewhat--well, 100 percent--at odds with the university's version. Coach is just taking his cues from the Clintonistas, however. He knows that spin is all. (September 28, 2000)

I was told a few days later that Coach explained his views to Larry and a grateful nation on showing respect for others, and in particular why he took offense when the young student didn't address him as Mr. or Coach earlier this month. About two minutes later, Coach referred to the man who fired him, Indiana University President Myles Brand, as "Brand" and Larry King let it slide right by without a single comment.

Fans Demand Justice

Outraged fans are threatening to file lawsuits against Indiana University for firing The Mentor. The plaintiffs claim the firing was illegal because President Brand consulted "unofficially" with small groups of IU trustees before announcing the firing. This, the screamers allege, violates Indiana's "open door law" which requires the public be notified when directors or public officials hold official meetings. Brand was clever enough--as most public executives are--to discuss his decision with only four trustees at a time, thus not having a quorum which the law declares would constitute an "official meeting," one that must be open to the public. This looks like the kind of case that will be laughed out of court, but you never know. In our society you can find a judge or jury to agree with any position if you look long enough. I doubt there's a thing illegal about this, but the Grape Kool-Aiders have law degrees, too, so they'll have to have their rant. Their quest for vengeance has only begun. (October 3, 2000)

Coach's critics--negativist destroyers, all--have long maintained that basketball recruiting at Indiana University was significantly limited by what we may politely call His "demanding" methods and persona. This plus Knight's widely known disdain for recruiting in general and His contempt for what He saw as spoiled, selfish, coaching-resistant youngsters meant that large numbers of potential recruits were not even in the pool of talent available to IU. The Grape Kool-Aid Crowd vigorously ridiculed such claims. Now comes a stunning revelation: none other than Mike Davis, the university's new interim head coach, has a different view. The October 7, 2000, edition of Inside Indiana features an article about recruiting by editor Pete DiPrimio in which he quotes Davis saying, "I think me being a head coach here changes things as far as recruiting goes. It widens the range of a recruit we can get. Now we can get top-10 guys. I want to bring in top-10 players here. I can recruit and I will continue to recruit hard." Aside from the heresy of these statements, they hint at intriguing possibilities, among them that Davis may actually be a normal human being who'll subscribe to the notion that practically everyone but Coach did--that ultimately, teams with the most talent tend to win, and that to have talent, you've got to out-recruit the other guy for it; and that perhaps Davis is already beginning to emerge as his own man, one finally free of the The Mentor's suffocating influence. (October 8, 2000)

Revelation No. 2, After Bobby Department: Writing in the October 7 edition, Inside Indiana editor Pete DiPrimio offers a less than sunny view of how things were prior to September 10, 2000. "Under Knight," DiPrimio says, "promoting IU basketball was not a priority. . .the media were treated like pariahs. . .players were only occasionally available after home games, almost never on the road." DiPrimio also noted that iron gates which were installed at The Mentor's orders near the team's Assembly Hall locker room "to keep the media away from players and their families after home games" will be removed now that a new coach is in place. Meantime, the editor related, Coach is "reportedly pitching his autobiography--to be written with former Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel--for at least $2 million." One would have preferred such forthrightness from DiPrimio and the boys at Inside Indiana long ago, but better late than not at all.

Rumor has it that Indiana University president Myles Brand and his wife have been able to move back into their campus home now. Apparently the skulkers and fanatics who've been menacing them on Coach's behalf have found something else to occupy their time.

The Unassailable Logic of The Prophet Isiah

Indiana Pacers Coach Isiah Thomas, who played for two seasons at Indiana University under Coach Bob Knight, told breathless reporters October 7 that he hopes the university rehires Knight next spring when it wraps up its global search for a successor to the fired Mentor. "In sports," Thomas said, "we forgive people for everything and everybody gets second and third chances. . .We allow people to come back from drugs, murder, and everything else. His situation shouldn't be treated any differently."

It's past time somebody said it aloud and new Indianapolis Star sports columnist Bob Kravitz finally did in Sunday's edition: It looks like IU football coach Cam Cameron is in over his head. Time to think about finding another coach. (October 14, 2000)

World Record Negative Yardage In A Four-Down Sequence?

Michigan's 58-0 rout of Indiana October 14 isn't much of an eyebrow-raiser over its long horrifying football history. Veteran IU fans can recall many similar or even worse embarrassments (59-0 to Wisconsin last year, 62-0 to Iowa in 1997, and so on, ad nauseum, actually). But a four-down sequence in the second quarter of this game probably surpasses anything in the 109-year history of Indiana football for pathetic ineptness. See if you don't agree. Indiana had a first- down-and-ten on Michigan's 20-yard line. On first down, quarterback Antwaan Randle-El was sacked for an 11-yard loss. On second down, the center snapped the ball over Randle-El's head. He recovered the ball but IU lost 25 yards on the play. On third down, Randle-El tried a quick kick. But he punted the ball into the back of an IU player. Indiana recovered the "blocked" punt for a four-yard loss but retained possession. On fourth down and 49 yards to go, Indiana punted again. This one was also blocked--by an opponent this time--but caught in mid-air by a Michigan player who ran 41 yards for a touchdown. Thus, IU went 80 yards backwards in four downs and the ball never crossed its own line of scrimmage even on two punts.

The 58-0 debacle for IU football at Ann Arbor--seen on ESPN all across the country-- again raises an issue one of the big foundations ought to fund and research: the linkage between national televised games and the severity of IU defeats. I have no facts to support this, but my gut hunch is that the greater the visibility, the greater the humiliation where IU football is concerned. Getting Indiana University off national television would be an important first step in appeasing the gods who torment us.

What will eventually cost Cameron his job is not his terrible record or obvious coaching deficiencies, but what finally forced IU administrators to fire the last coach, Bill Mallory: economics. Everyone associated with the football program settled decades ago into an easy tolerance for losing games. But Indiana is averaging 31,401 fans for three home games. The value of the empty seats at a conservative $20 per ticket is about $420,000 per game, or over $2 million per season. Football is the main source of income for the entire athletic program. Money will get their attention when nothing else does.

Coach's attorney, Russell Yates, is peppering news outlets with angry letters attacking Myles Brand's recent speeches and press releases touching upon The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve The Flaming Asshole In the Ugly, Pilled Red Sweater. Yates claims, apparently with a straight face, that it's a vicious and unconscionable university campaign of disinformation, lies, and distortions designed to blacken the name and reputation of Coach. Yates's indignation is, as we might expect, selective. He speaks in code as well. What he means is: It's O.K. for Coach to go on his national media tour trashing Brand and IU, but it's not O.K. for Brand to offer an alternate interpretation of events. Yates is demanding meetings with IU's attorneys to discuss The Mentor's non-compete clause, in which Coach agreed to forfeit his remaining deferred compensation if He takes a job in Indiana, Kentucky, or in the Big Ten. Yates alleges this is unfair, illegal, and unjust. This is almost as exciting as the six-year, $53 million taxpayer-financed Whitewater Torment of Sick Willie and his bride! I'm keeping my candles lit. How about you? (October 16, 2000)

Indiana surprised us all Saturday with a wild 51-43 victory over favored Minnesota. Because Indiana's defense ranks 111th out of 114 in Division I football, no lead seemed large enough. Even a 16-point lead with four minutes to play was no comfort. Attendance--for Homecoming, mind you--was reported at 30,882, below the average of 31,401 for three previous home games this year.

The Indianapolis Star's IU beat writer, Terry Hutchens, reported October 19 that although almost five weeks have passed since Coach was fired and replaced--in an interim capacity, IU went to great pains to stress--by his former assistant, Mike Davis, Coach has still not spoken with Davis. Hutchens gave his report perspective by noting that shunning is a standard Knight tactic, employed whenever Coach feels He has been betrayed. Davis, for his part, seemed surprisingly unconcerned about it. "It's not a problem with me," he said. "There's a lot of people I haven't talked to, and a lot of people that I have." But here--in Davis's own words--is what surely caused Coach to cast Davis into the Outer Darkness. Davis failed to commit professional suicide--he didn't fall on his sword and turn down the job. "Coach Knight brought me here and I was loyal to him when he was here," Davis told the eager reporter. And then--the heresy. "Now, I'm remaining loyal to Indiana University. I stayed for the team. I stayed because it was an opportunity for me as a head coach." Coach will never forgive him for this. Davis knows, we can be sure, that a crucial part of his candidacy for a permanent appointment as head coach in Bloomington next spring will be his ability to convince IU's poohbahs that he, Davis, is his own man, not a stinking Knight loyalist in disguise. (October 19, 2000)

Cursing For Kids? Hey, It's Just Coach Still Being Coach

Coach emerged from his den in late October to honor a speaking commitment made before he was fired by Indiana. He spoke at a downtown Indianapolis fund-raiser to an audience that included young children of elementary school age. Coach used profane language in his speech but local TV anchorette Debbie Knox, who arranged the event, said she wasn't offended and feels Knight's message is still "widely appealing." This was a twofer. First, Coach's foul language for the kids proves he still hasn't learned civility and good manners. And second, Debbie Knox proved she remains incapable of judgmentalism.

Is $138 A Case A Bit Stout?

I recently found myself in the Hoosier Dome in downtown Indianapolis watching the Indiana-Penn State football game. Several things stood out. First was the nonstop noise provided by Dome management. Throughout the seemingly interminable three-hour disappointment there was rarely a moment not filled by the Dome's handlers with roaring rock music, advertisements, or other hype screeched at hysterical, near-deafening sound levels. Someone obviously has discovered something essential about the human condition here, and it must have to do with the public's absolutely consuming need to be continuously entertained, stimulated. Second, it is obvious from concession prices that this long ago ceased to be the average man's affordable entertainment. A bottle of beer sells for $5.75 (that's $138 a case). A hot dog, soft drink, and a sack of peanuts go for $2.75 each. Parking runs from $5 to $10 and tickets sold for $25 and up. That mythical American family of four would have to spend a minimum of $100 to get inside the building and another roughly $40 to treat each member to a modest snack and drink. And of course the concourses bulge with kiosks and huts offering NCCA- and NFL-sanctioned clothing and other souvenirs. So it would take a gutty, doggedly determined family of four to escape for less than $200. For my part, I refused to buy anything, even though I was hungry and thirsty. I am not part of anyone's "target audience."

Indiana University's football team drew an average of 31,110 for five home games. That's the lowest since 1964. If we add a game played at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis which drew a crowd of 43,122, the "home" average skyrockets to 33,114, the lowest since 1974. Grim stuff. How long before IU's athletic pooh-bahs notice the approximately two million dollars per year of lost revenue from 20,000 empy seats per game? (November 12, 2000)

Hey! What ever happened to Ron Felling's million-dollar lawsuit against Coach and Indiana University? Not a peep in months about it. (November 15, 2000)

Coach has sued the Converse Shoe Company, maker of the legendary Chuck Taylor All Star basketball shoe brand, claiming He is owed big money for a promotional contract the firm canceled shortly after The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach Down in Bloomington, Indiana. The Indianapolis Star's account noted that the shoe company is rumored to be in "financial difficulty" (code for: headed down the toilet). It will be a sad day, indeed, when there are no more Chuck Taylor sneakers to lace up. Billions and billions of high school basketball players have worn these shoes. They reach back to my childhood on the plains of central Indiana. I wore them as a mentally defective Scorched Corners Mad Hatter in the 1950s. But then this is the Definition of Life, isn't it: everything we know and love falling away and disappearing? (November 28, 2000)

Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievements Awards are out and though their quality is not what it used to be, having them is better than not having any at all. A keynote feature this year is a section entitled "365 Reasons to Kill Yourself." Some very special reasons make the list--no easy task in itself, since there are far more than a mere 365 eminently qualified contenders. Hoosiers may take special pride in the awards, since our Beloved Mentor and Supernova Flamer, Bob Knight, was the only three-time nominee. Coach made the cover as well, as one of the magazine's "Castaways from Hell" (his teammates there were Hillary Clinton, Yasir Arafat, Regis Philbin, Elian Gonzalez and Britney Spears). My personal highlights include (in no particular order of importance) No.88--Cameras at political conventions playing Find The Colored Guy; No. 107--Chelsea Clinton; No. 127--The suggestion that Tiger Woods's success at an exorbitantly expensive game requiring miles of immaculately manicured lawns will help urban black kids living 12 to a room; No. 315--You're not allowed to sell your soul on eBay; No. 316--But selling it on Meet The Press is no problem; No. 314--The joyous reality of a Jewish vice presidential candidate candidate only means that every four years we are going to have to pull out the Ethnicity List and make sure everyone gets a shot, or we are never going to hear the goddamn end of it; No. 350--Bobby Knight; No. 351--Knight; No. 352--Mr. Knight; No. 22--askOJ.com; No. 41--Celebrity-endorsed diseases; No. 176--Victoria's Secret's disturbing report that 40 percent of all sales are thongs. The magazine also reports, under the heading of The Clinton Legacy, that during the year 2000 the average bra purchased in America increased from 36B to 36C. Looks to me like there are Reasons To Go On Living, too.

Now that the season is over, isn't it time for eager reporters to check back with Indiana University football Coach Cam Cameron to solve a mystery which erupted in September when without explanation the players' names were removed from the backs of the school's football jerseys. Cameron's vague non-explanation at the time was of no help to readers and fans. I believe we know what the explanation was, but I'd prefer to have The Camster pressed to confirm it. Surely he'll have time now, in the off-season, to address it.

Confirmed Sighting of Another Bob Knight Acolyte Department: About 2,000 fans stormed out of a Barry White concert in Sydney, Australia, Thanksgiving Day and demanded refunds. USA Today reports the pop singing idol showed up an hour late, then sat for extended periods on a stool with his back to most of the crowd, many of whom paid up to $70 for tickets. There were also complaints of poor sound quality. So what are they angry about? (December 3, 2000)

Log On In Remembrance Of Him . . .

Part of my annual year-end ritual is to be especially alert for reasons to go on living. USA Today columnist Chris Jenkins recently provided one. Chris's December 18 column reported the heartwarming news that Coach has a Website any of us can visit. It looks suspiciously like a Flying Dutchman Website, a ghost ship sailing through cyberspace with no visible crew and trailing only cobwebs, but it is His Own Website. And it still holds the promise of almost infinite enlightenment, for those courageous enough to face and learn the truth. Jenkins learned of Coach's special place from a freelance writer named Steve Baldwin, whose hobby is searching out once-thriving commercial websites that have fallen into neglect and disuse. He chronicles these in his own site called ghostsites.com. Jenkins interviewed Baldwin, then himself visited Coach's site. It is called coachbobknight.com. Jenkins reports that it contains a special "Ask Coach" section where fans may deposit e-mail questions. This is the format so beloved by followers of Coach's famous radio non-talk show, which was conducted by mail or tape recording, with Coach always at some secret, remote location such as a restaurant or his own kitchen, eating and visiting with friends while the show's host, Don Fisher, patiently read edited, screened questions and waited--sometimes for inordinately long periods--for Coach to sarcastically respond to them. But alas, Jenkins reported that "the last batch of questions (at Coach's website) is from 1998." He checked out Coach's "news" page but found nothing there except an invitation to "check back later" for more news. Baldwin told Jenkins the only sign of life he's found at coachbobknight.com was in a "chat" area "where a few lost souls have logged on to talk about Indiana hoops." Jenkins tracked down the Bloomington, Indiana-based advertising firm that apparently operates the site, and was told by an executive, Tom Hirons, that the site is all but dead and "has been inactive for a year." Hirons said this has nothing to do with Coach's September, 2000 dismissal by the university. He said the site was a "spare time project" for a few employees who are IU basketball fans. Hirons added that he is "looking into" having the site dismantled and removed. Time is obviously short, my friends, but we still have a chance to Hear His Word, to Know The Truth, and to Pay Homage and Again Pledge Eternal Fealty to Coach. I'll see you there! (December 31, 2000)

	Scoundrels, Knaves & Fools American Pile Whoops & Squawks Splinters From the Bench Indiana University Sports Lists & Other Minutiae Contact the author	2009 \| 2008 \| 2007 \| 2006 \| 2005 \| 2004 \| 2003 \| 2002 \| 2001 \| 2000 \| 1999 \| 1998 \| 1997 \| 1996 \| 1995 \| Pre-1995 Indiana University Sports An Associated Press report in the January 4 Chicago Tribune notes that Japanese researchers "have grown frog eyes and ears in a lab using the animal's own embryo cells." Call me when they can grow assholes. Then I'll know Bob Knight's patent has expired. Something quite odd happened at the January 14 high school basketball game between Bloomington North and Bloomington South, the No. 2 and 3-ranked teams in the state. Just before the game began, the public address announcer urged the crowd to show good behavior and warned that anyone who used profanity would be immediately evicted from the building. Such a contrast with Indiana University, only a mile or two away, where Assembly Hall is in its 30th year of reverberating from the torrents of profanity unleashed by its icon coach, Bob Knight, and no P.A. announcer or administrator can be found within a thousand miles of the place who'll insist that it be stopped. (January 15, 2000) Indiana University's athletic department continues its relentless quest for excellence. A story in the March 6 Indianapolis Star had IU officials denying a report that its women's basketball coach was going to be fired. Within hours, he was fired. The March 7 edition then quoted an assistant athletic department officials saying the search was already underway for a replacement coach who can take the program into "the top third of the Big Ten" and win a league title "our share of the time." Anything better, one deduces, would be unfair. (March 7, 2000) The Indianapolis Star published five letters in this morning's paper about The Most Recent Bob Knight Unpleasantness, This One Said To Involve The Mentor Choking Another Human Being, To Wit: Neil Reed. Four of the five--eighty percent--strongly supported Coach. That's about right. That's about the way the American population breaks down for those who support Sick Willie as well. All hail! (March 19, 2000) Even one of my favorite people, Steve Alford, seems to have been infected by America's national pastime--spinning. One of his former IU teammates, Rick Calloway, last week told reporters in Houston he'd seen Indiana Coach Bob Knight hit Steve in the stomach. A few days later University of Iowa PR flacks issued a statement attributed to Alford quoting him saying "Nothing along those lines ever occurred." Sorry, this is not good enough. The Sick Administration has taught all Americans the value of exquisitely careful reading of every last jot and tittle, every period, comma, letter, and word--and the absence of them, too--in a public statement. What does "along those lines" mean? I think we're still waiting for Steve to confirm or deny the precise allegation, that Coach hit him in the stomach. Until he does that, he hasn't answered anything. More than likely, nobody in the press even noticed. Big Rally For The Mentor Supporters of Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight are holding a rally April 9 on the steps of Assembly Hall in Bloomington. All true IU fans are invited to show up and protest the unfair and biased media reporting that plagues Coach even after 29 years of His tenure. The parallels between the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd that so ardently supports Coach and the Clintonistas who serve Sick are striking. Both groups use the same techniques and mantra: demonize all critics; swarm to attack the messenger; deny, deny, deny, no matter what the evidence. The same blind loyalty animates both groups. Both are wonderful illustrations of Modern Man and the moral relativism that makes it all possible. (April 8, 2000) They can rally and whoop and bellow all they want but they can't change the fact that Coach is a world-class flaming asshole. Red Meat For The Troops Jason Shaw's Rally for Coach drew a crowd to the steps of Assembly Hall. The Indianapolis Star reported that one apostle after another trooped to the microphone to excoriate the press and other godless infidels who lie, make things up, distort the real truth, ignore all the good things Coach does, and are engaged ceaselessly in a vast conspiracy to destroy a good and decent man, his family, his fellow professionals and support staff, and indeed the entire Indiana University basketball program and all those even remotely associated with it. "Hang Neil Reed!" one sign screamed. "Send Reed to Cuba In Place of Elian," bellowed another. "We Support Coach Knight," chanted many others. Rally organizers called for a global boycott of the Indianapolis Star, CNN and Sports Illustrated. Larry Richardson, a member of last year's basketball team, chose odd phrasing when he told the pulsating throng, "It is very hard to have to be here to support Him." A former player, Damon Bailey, told the press--rather cryptically, it seemed--that former players would be holding their own rally soon, but refused to comment further. Graduating senior Michael Lewis, a Gene Cato legacy in the program, angrily told a TV cameraman to get out of the way because "this is a fan event, not a media event." The Star did not provide an estimate of crowd size. An exact count will be available as soon as our satellite photos are analyzed in labs deep in the bowels of the earth below Lake Greebus and Tillie's Family Restaurant. Coach did not attend the event, according to the Star. But you know He was there in spirit. (April 10, 2000) Uh-Oh, They've Got Tape! By golly, no sooner do they swarm to deny everything than somebody comes up with film to show otherwise. CNN has broadcast a tape smuggled out of the IU basketball film vaults showing The Mentor placing a hand around a player's neck during a practice. A co-worker of mine said he saw the show and it proves Coach's innocence because it shows He was not choking Reed and that Reed was lying about everything because no one is shown separating Coach and the player, as Reed claimed had happened. WIBC radio was taking calls this morning from the public. I heard four of them. All four strongly backed Coach. Former Indiana University assistant basketball coach Kohn Smith, quoted in the Indianapolis Star this morning, offers a truly Clintonian perspective of The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach. Smith told eager reporters that Coach would never harm anyone and that he, Smith, dearly loved Him (Coach) and would defend Him to the death. Smith added that film showing Coach with his hands on another person's throat meant nothing, really--the key issue is "did He (Coach) apply pressure to the throat." I am not making this up. This morning's Indianapolis Star printed a large picture of a crucial frame from the Felling videotape. In it can be seen a dozen or so players and coaches. All of them are looking at Coach, who has his hand on Reed's throat. Yet only two people in the picture--Reed and Felling--the latter by setting free the evidence, the tape--have so far told the truth, that they indeed witnessed This Alleged Most Recent Unpleasantness happen. All the rest have either outright boldly and angrily denied that what we can see before our eyes ever occurred, or they have said nothing. Where is all this character and integrity that Coach is said to build, nurture, and insist upon in all who come under his tutelage? A minor surprise in the Choking Unpleasantness: the demonization of Ron Felling has not been near-instantaneous as it normally is for anyone betraying The Mentor. Oh, there were a couple snotty remarks dropped by Pat Knight (Dad feels betrayed, that sort of thing) in this morning's newspaper, and Vice President for Shilling, Chris Simpson, dropped a couple of barbs. Otherwise silence. Where are players rushing forth to tell us what a rotten coach Ron was? Where are Coach's friends, letting it scurrilously slip that Ron "had--ahem--an alcohol problem" or some other character disorder? Typically, they swarm within 24-48 hours of a betrayal. My guess is the surfacing of the tape has the Kool-Aid Crowd temporarily stunned, off balance, not quite sure of how to proceed. They'll recover, though, and escalate the Felling Trashing soon. (April 13, 2000) It's worth noting, too, that the University has changed its position on Felling's departure. Originally it was described--by even Bob Hammel at halftime of the IU-Kentucky game--as a resignation "to pursue other interests." IU is now telling eager reporters Felling was fired. Why? Well, no one will say, but we are free, IU knows, to assume that there sure must have been a reason, and an unsavory one at that. Neither of these versions squares with the one well-circulated among "insiders" at the time--that Knight had been eavesdropping from another room on a telephone conversation Felling was having (on a Thursday several days after IU's game against Notre Dame, and a couple days before its scheduled game against Kentucky) from his office with former IU assistant Coach Dan Dakich, now head coach at Bowling Green University; that Knight stormed angrily into Felling's office to confront him and accuse Felling of disloyalty; that Knight went postal, shoved Felling backwards into his desk and screamed "I'll kill you" at Felling, who walked out of his office never to return, and who announced his resignation the next day. Peculiar Halftime Broadcast And nowhere have I seen a word in the press about Hammel's comments during the halftime radio show with lead broadcaster Don Fischer at the Kentucky game, among the very weirdest of broadcast remarks ever heard, anywhere. Hammel expressed relief that Felling had resigned because, Hammel said, there had been a lot of concern (on the part, presumably, of the university, or the athletic department) that Felling was going to get them into trouble for violation of an NCAA rule strictly prohibiting the administrative assistant from engaging in any coaching activity whatsoever. Hammel clearly implied that Felling had been "crossing the line" and had been doing things the NCAA could interpret as "coaching." Hammel suggested that Ron had been very unhappy in the "administrative position" to which he'd been assigned several years ago. Felling loved coaching so much, Hammel implied, that he had just been unable to prevent himself from doing some "coaching" here and there. Whatever the truth may be, the fact that Hammel or any university representative anywhere would publicly discuss the topic--on a radio broadcast, no less--is utterly astonishing, the equivalent of taking out a full-page newspaper ad to hint that you've violated NCAA rules. It's just not done. My recollection is that Fischer said little to nothing in response that day. One interpretation, admittedly deeply cynical, is that Hammel was laying down, either at someone's suggestion or on his own initiative, a basis for Felling's dismissal that would favor the university and Coach. If an eager reporter could find a tape of that show he could have a field day. Number 1 on a List of Things Indiana University Should Do But Won't: begin construction today on a larger-than-life statue of Ron Felling in front of Assembly Hall. Where do I send my contribution? Word arrived April 21 that Ron Felling is planning a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Indiana University for wrongful dismissal and that a big Indianapolis law firm has taken the case. Felling is the assistant basketball coach who resigned suddenly under odd circumstances in December, 1999. Though it's not come out in the press, the story is that Felling was physically assaulted by his boss, Coach Bob Knight, during a confrontation in Felling's office on Thursday, before Indiana's Saturday game against Kentucky. Knight, the story goes, screamed and threatened to kill Felling. The lawsuit, if it's true, will pucker a lot of rectal orifices in the university administration, long noted for its utter cowardice in dealing with Knight. The prospect of lengthy court testimony about the icon god and his behavior may prove difficult for the university to endure. It could even lead--pray tell--to private negotiations to get Knight to resign. Like Sick, Knight has an uncanny way of getting away scot-free, so there's no cause to believe this will be any different. Still, this is a cause worth keeping an eye on, and praying for. Rumor floated just before Easter that The Mentor has now been privately asked to resign by a representative of the IU board of trustees. He is said to have declined to do so. Aside from the sheer preposterousness of the idea of anyone in the university administration having the courage to confront the monster it's created, the timing allowed for flights of fancy. Suppose Coach was fired on Friday--Good Friday in this case. There would immediately be worldwide protest marches, with Grape Kool-Aiders storming American embassies abroad, seizing radio and TV stations. Back home, they would surge in great howling mobs across the campus and onto Myles Brand's lawn demanding justice, demanding vengeance, denying everything, blaming Coach's enemies, who are everywhere, demanding that their King rise again. And on Easter, Coach would be resurrected. All would hail. He is Risen! Another former Indiana basketball player, Andre Patterson, has confirmed Neil Reed's account of being choked in practice by Coach. Patterson was emphatic about remembering the incident. Another guy for the Kool-Aid Crowd to demonize. (April 30, 2000) IU Surges To Early Lead In Dopey Commencement Derby Rock singer John Cougar Mellenkamp was Indiana University's commencement speaker over the weekend. Mimicking Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Saint Augustine, Mellenkamp waited till the night before to write his speech. He mounted the podium in full academic regalia, chewing gum and wearing sunglasses. Once introduced, he tossed his gum wad away, and began counseling the thronging masses. The Indianapolis Star had a breathless reporter present, and he wrote that the crowd roared its approval when Mellenkamp suddenly declared it was too danged hot to be wearing academic garb, then tossed aside his robe and mortar board and delivered the rest of his address in grizzled splendor wearing black jeans, work boots, and black sleeveless T-shirt, his tattoos pulsating in the southern Indiana sun. He used profanity, snickered and slouched, told his audience that "Life is about getting exactly what you want." He said people--"you guys," actually--should not spend their lives doing something they hated doing. When some impertinent prick wondered why the University allowed such a sleazeball to sully the occasion, an IU spokesperson quickly pointed out that students voted to have Mellenkamp. All this--and Bob Knight, too--friends, from a university which actually claims it is serious about its mission of taking the quest for truth and knowledge to higher planes. There is one universal truth about this, however: The Cougster has donated over $6 million to Indiana University, and that offers a clue about the price of respectability in its eyes. (May 5, 2000) Davis On The Attack To Defend Coach IU's assistant basketball coach, Mike Davis, was interviewed on WNDE-AM radio in Indianapolis Friday, May 12, and it was downright amazing. Davis trashed Ron Felling at a surprisingly hostile level, said if Felling had remained on IU's staff, he (Davis) would have quit. Davis hinted darkly of many other things about Felling that have never been made public, but never clarified a one of them. He accused Felling of disloyalty, treason, lying, the works, said that he had seen the famous videotape and, "You cannot tell if Coach's hand is on Neil Reed's shoulder or his throat." (Either Davis isn't watching the same tape millions of other Americans have seen, or he is now certifiably insane. Knight's hand IS on Reed's throat. Period.). Davis trashed Reed, trashed everyone who is trying to destroy Coach and His Program. He said that, "In Alabama where I come from, we would never treat a living legend like this. We would never allow Bear Bryant to be treated this way." What the interviewer, the weak-kneed Tim Bragg, should have immediately pointed out was that there is a difference, Mike: Bear Bryant would never have acted this way. But Tim let every last syllable of Davis's blather go unchallenged. Davis added that if Knight was forced out he, too, would leave IU. Davis said that Coach's Enemies--all the people who are telling lies, leaking stories, making things up--have one motive--they do not want Coach to win any more national championships or any more Big Ten championships. They want to destroy His program, prevent it and Coach from having success. Mike's been to Clintonista training school and earned a Ph. D. (May 13, 2000) Local news channels are breathlessly reporting that the Indiana University board of trustees has just concluded a two-hour and 20-minute meeting and left the decision about Bob Knight's future up to that tower of courage, university president Myles Brand. Brand, it is said, will announce his decision Sunday the 15th at 3 p.m. The "investigation" commissioned by the university of The Mentor's various capers, which was scheduled to be concluded in June, has been wrapped up a month early and the report given to the trustees. IU Spokeslackey and Chief Spinner Chris Simpson gave scant details after the trustees finished their huddle. He fended off every question, and gave no hints. Word is out that Coach did see fit to fly back from a big fishing trip to Canada to meet with Myles for two hours last night at Brand's home. We can safely assume Coach set Brand straight on what should be done. History--over a quarter century of it--tells us nothing will be done. I'm heading to St. Paul's to light a candle. (May 14, 2000) Coach has launched his recovery strategy. Tonight the TV screens were ablaze with a rambling, artfully-worded fake mea culpa issued by Knight. He is apologizing--well, sort of--for "mistakes" he's made, admitting that his temper has been a problem he's "had to battle" (now he's a victim) all his life but pointing out that everyone (this is called "deflection") has things he or she has to struggle with in his or her life, or lives, and that He, Coach, is no different (this is called baloney, since he is different from almost everyone) than the rest of us. He's always been too "confrontational," he admits, and so on and on, ad nauseum, actually. This is Classic Knight. When Coach is backed into a corner and can't bully his way out he always resorts to these pseudo-apologies laced with big dollops of sarcasm. He's an absolute master at this, and of taking crises to the very cliff's edge, then backing off. He knows--as we do--that his persecutors are utterly desperate to find an excuse to drop this, have it--oh, please, please, dear God--go away. This "apology" gives them precisely what they need to now be able to say, "See, Coach has admitted his problems and regrets them, and now it's time to move on." The university has its excuse. Coach has handed them an exit ticket, and the door is wide open for them to cut and run. I'll be the most surprised person on the planet if they don't. The sudden and surprising (recall that when it was announced, the Walda-Eichorn Tribunal was to report back around mid-June) conclusion in mid-May to Indiana University's "investigation" of the Most Recent Unpleasantnesses Involving Coach Knight had to be motivated primarily by the university's desperate desire to stanch the flow of stories coming out. It reached near avalanche proportions as emboldened victims and witnesses began stepping forth. They absolutely had to be stopped. (May 18, 2000) Myles Brand went to great but inadvertent lengths to tell us what Coach had done that wouldn't result in getting Him fired. I'd rather have had Brand asked the question turned around: Just what would it have taken to make Brand do his duty and fire Him? An impeccable source tells me the IU trustees voted 7-0 (with two Knight lackeys on the board, Steve Ferguson and Pete Obremsky, abstaining) to fire Knight last weekend, but Brand personally overrode their decision. Patrick Knight, Soothsayer In post-investigation penance, the Star gave Coach's son, Pat, free rein to vent his own anger in its May 19 edition. Young Knight said he is still angry and always will be angry at the way his family name was attacked during The Most Recent Unpleasantness Involving His Father. "This isn't over. This will never be over for any of us," Patrick told the Star, vowing never to forget how people tried to destroy his father and the entire family. Pat remains a chip off the old asshole, a tedious, surly, vicious, insulting, arrogant turd of a man, just like his father. (May 19, 2000) This morning's Indianapolis Star carried a brief report of still another Unpleasantness involving Coach. The paper reported that former IU basketball center Chris Lawson was quoted in the Nashville Tennesseean saying he recalled Coach punching another player in the head during halftime in the IU locker room at Iowa State in December, 1990. Lawson declined to identify the player, saying he was afraid to come forward because of fear he would be vilified by the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd. Somehow, the Tennesseean put two and two together, though, and contacted Matt Nover, who acknowledged a "heated situation" at halftime between himself and Knight. Nover, in finest Clintonista form, offered a cagey, carefully crafted answer when he told the newspaper that Knight "never struck me with his fist." (May 22, 2000) One of the luckier people in the Most Recent Unpleasantness is former IU player Steve Alford, now head coach at Iowa. Alford was allowed to cleverly deflect a report that Knight had punched him in the stomach with the disingenuous and unchallenged reply that "nothing along those lines ever occurred," and he was never drawn any further into the mess. Alford issued a carefully worded statement a week after the verdict saying he was really happy Coach will continue to be in charge at Indiana. And that may be true, for increasingly we hear that opposing coaches are plenty happy to have Knight stay right where he is, leading Indiana to fifth-place finishes and early exits from the NCAA tourney and not being a serious factor when the schools bump heads recruiting. Richardson Blistered On Rome Show There are a few ornery journalists left. Jim Rome, host of a nationally syndicated radio and TV sports talk program, and John Feinstein of the Washington Post teamed up during the last week of May to scourge Indiana University trustee Ray Richardson over the Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach. Richardson was coerced into admitting that the secret vote of the trustees was 7-0 to fire Coach, but that IU president Myles Brand decided to retain The Mentor anyway. Feinstein said that Coach told a national ESPN audience that He did not apologize to President Brand when He, Knight, met with the president the night before a press conference was held to announce the school's decision. But the next day Brand told a press conference that Knight had indeed apologized during his Saturday night meeting with Coach. Feinstein asked Richardson if the rationale Brand gave to the trustees for his decision not to fire Knight included the fact of a Knight apology. Richardson said, yes, that's what the trustees were told. Feinstein then pointed out that somebody was lying--either Knight or Brand--and would he, Richardson, have any speculation about which it could be? Richardson backed and filled furiously and somehow escaped alive. This was a Kodak Moment, though. How I wish I coulda been there. The big mystery is how Richardson could be stupid enough to have gone on such a show in the first place. (May 23, 2000) Zero = One Step Beyond An Indianapolis pundit offered a succinct view of how Indiana University's freshly-minted "zero tolerance" policy for its basketball coach will be interpreted by those charged with enforcing it: zero tolerance will be "one step beyond whatever Bob Knight does." You can bet money on this. Must Be Something In That Bloomington Water Northeastern University has fired Joy Malchodi, its women's basketball coach "in the wake of an internal investigation into her conduct," according to USA Today. She's been given an administrative position in the athletic department. USA Today's account notes that Malchodi came to Northeastern from none other than Indiana University, where she "was known for yelling and swearing on the sideline." At The Head Of The Table. . . A friend is utterly despondent that The Mentor again slipped off the hook down in Bloomington. He believed Knight's 29-year record of ugliness and abuse of others warranted a firing. He is correct. But his mistake is believing there is justice in the world. Seldom is this true. Sensing he was near-suicidal, I gave him this advice. In all your dealings with other human beings, expect the worst from them. You will seldom be shocked or disappointed. Despair will no longer buffet you. And when humans do step out of character and behave nobly, you'll be delighted and pleased and grateful. Every day of your life will be easier once you lower your expectations to coincide with reality. Now, please, take the small handgun out of your mouth, return it to its nesting place in the bottom right-hand drawer of your desk, walk out of the room and join your loving family for whatever remains of your life. And never, never again look at the head table, because that's where the rogues and scoundrels will always be sitting. The wire services reported this nugget over the weekend: Professor Bob Knight won't be teaching classes this fall at Indiana University. He informed the University in June that he would not be teaching a class about coaching basketball which meets during the first eight weeks of the fall semester. Athletics Department spokeslackey Todd Starowitz said Knight "would not be available to answer questions about his decision." The athletic department issued a statement on behalf of Knight which said "the nebulous guidelines of the 'zero toleraance' policy imposed on Knight by IU President Myles Brand have forced Knight to refrain from teaching." So. Knight remains a world-class asshole. What else is new? And how will Brand react to this thinly disguised and typically juvenile insult? (September 4, 2000) After months of radio silence, Coach is emerging from the bunkers. This morning's Indianapolis Star reports that He is studying His options under the zero tolerance policy, trying to ascertain what it allows Him to do. IU's Vice President for Shilling, Chris Simpson, told eager reporters that he, Simpson, had actually talked to The Mentor recently, and that The Mentor felt that teaching the class on coaching was just too much of a risk, given the nebulousness of things (suppose some student "wanted to make an issue of something" was one of the examples given to illustrate the dangers that would lurk for Coach in the classroom) and that Coach was making a sincere effort to weave His (tortured) way through the fuzzy guidelines to calm seas where He can continue to be the highly successful Coach He has always been and plans to continue to be. Today's story will be a huge relief to the millions of The Faithful who've been tortured by His silence and gnawed at by pervasive anxiety in the Bleak Period Following His Excoriation and Then Redemption. I think we can all breathe easier now. (September 6, 2000) Uh-Oh, An 'Inappropriate Touching' Wait! Wait! Here's another one! Coach is unjustly alleged to have grabbed a 19-year-old freshman by the arm outside Assembly Hall yesterday after the lad greeted Coach with a "Hey, Knight, what's up?" Coach, always at home with paradox, is said to have sternly lectured the lad about topics such as manners, civility, and showing respect. Coach is even said to have used profanity while doing so. Could this be an "inappropriate touching" by Coach? Coach and His supporters are denying everything. But better wait. Someone may have this on tape. (September 8, 2000) All Hail! The Deed Is Done! Myles Brand dipped down in there today, found two the size of grapefruits, and fired The Mentor. I never thought I'd live to see this. I'd given up all hope. (September 10, 2000) Borrowing an old LBJ coonskin metaphor, let's nail that ugly red sweater up on the wall! He's toast! Almost As Good As Impeachment Day September 10, 2000, is the second happiest non-family related day of my life, trailing only Sick's Impeachment by the House of Representatives Dec. 19, 1998. One of the all-time greats! Only one thing could have improved Myles's announcement Sunday. That would have been if he'd paused meaningfully at the end, then added, ". . .and just to cap off a glorious day and cut out some more of the cancer, I'm firing Patrick Knight as of this moment, too." (September 11, 2000) Maybe Pat will spare us Further Unpleasantness and just resign. Preferably today. But don't be surprised if Patrick stays on. That would serve the cause of family vengeance much more than a resignation. And force IU's hand, too. Worst Nightmare Department: Athletic director Clarence Doninger resigns, and IU names Pat Knight the new head coach and athletic director. Is there anyone who'll say this isn't possible? Here's the solution, either short-term or long-term, for IU: Larry Bird. (September 11, 2000) Little Missy Frobish, one of TV Channel 6's breathless reporters on-scene in Bloomington last night--and for all we know, permanently--offered this comforting breaking news around 10:30 p.m., telling viewers that while she couldn't get a word out of Coach when His plane landed in Bloomington, she had learned that Bob Hammel was "with Coach on the plane" and Hammel told Missy that Coach was "doing all right." Film of last night's student ruckuses in Bloomington is living proof that the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd has teeming millions of adolescent acolytes to carry on The Cause and keep Coach's name and grievances alive for future generations. The youthful buffoons marauding IU's campus last night are confused. They should be burning The Mentor in effigy. (September 11, 2000) Author and Washington Post writer John Feinstein was interviewed on local radio this morning and offered a nostalgic anecdote related to the mid-1980s when he spent a year traveling and living with the IU basketball team in preparation for writing his factual account of Certain Unpleasantnesses (his best-selling book, Season on the Brink). He was asked, during a road trip to Iowa and Minnesota, what he was going to do that day. Feinstein said he answered in a self-effacing way that "I'm going to do what I do every day--follow Knight around." Coach, hovering nearby, overheard this and, according to Feinstein, "was in my face" in an instant, screaming angrily, that he, Feinstein, had no right to address Him as "Knight". . .and so on and so on. Feinstein chuckled this morning and said that when he heard the allegation of Last Week's Unpleasantness Said to Have Involved a Student Who Rudely Used the Word 'Knight' to Address The Mentor, it had a certain ring of veracity to it. Where Coach is involved, doesn't everything? Crackpot Pete Add longtime Knight friend and now apologist Pete Newell to the list of those who've relinquished all contact with reality. Monday's Chicago Tribune quotes Newell predicting (and I fully agree) that Knight will be swamped with coaching offers "from some of the biggest schools in the country next year" but then following up, in a remarkable flight of self-delusion and denial, with the ridiculous claim that he believes IU fired Knight just to ruin His career. "Indiana," Newell is quoted, "thinks they're ruining a career in coaching. I think they're wrong." (September 11, 2000) Pretty much lost in the firing furor was Knight's cartoonish press conference last Friday in which he denied all allegations and offered eager reporters a detailed blackboard drawing to support His version of things. He told the press he'd merely wanted to instruct the lad who'd so rudely addressed him as "Knight" on matters of good manners and civility. Inexplicably, no one burst out laughing at this point. You'd have to look far and wide on this planet to find anything more preposterous than Coach lecturing anyone on good manners and civility. Athletic director Clarence Doninger still holds that ultimate trump card. He could name Ron Felling the new head coach. The avalanche of support for Coach has begun. Monday's Indianapolis Star featured a full page of letters to the editor, about 20 of them. They overwhelmingly support Knight. The Grape Kool-Aid Crowd's loose on the Internet and roaming Bloomington's streets. Fraternities have hung out effigies of the 19-year-old Kent Harvey. Signs are stuck in yards, banners hung from buildings, generally calling for the deaths of Harvey, Myles Brand, and anyone else deemed a Traitor. Brand and other IU officials report getting not hundreds of e-mails but thousands, many of them profanity-filled and bristling with threats. All this is emblematic of where our society stands today. Does this sound like Mao's Red Guard or the Khmer Rouge? Indeed it does. I hear few voices despairing over it, though. Everyone's following the script. Coaches around America are defending Coach, saying He didn't deserve to lose his job. Present players are rushing forward to Praise Him and Proclaim the End of the World. Former players are defending Him. Kool-Aiders are sick with anger and blindly lashing out at The Enemy with their big trump card, death threats. Coach's critics are in hiding. And a few of us--Antichrists all--are basking in the deep, warm, golden glow of satisfaction of a lifetime's wait finally rewarded. USA Today reports that its Internet survey finds 67 percent of the respondents agree with Indiana's firing of Knight. An Indianapolis Star poll found 52 percent backing the decision. You'd never guess it by listening to the media, though. Apparently those in favor are in hiding now. Wisely, I suspect. There's a murderous mentality out there, as Knight supporters struggle in a losing battle to keep their world intact. Incoming freshman recruit Andre Owens offered this precious jewel of Aristotelian analysis to a breathless TV-6 reporter last night: "Every other coach in the NCAA does the same things (as Coach is unjustly alleged to have done) and they don't do nothing to them." Owens said it was completely unfair to punish Coach for things that everyone else did. I did not make this up. TV cameras numerous times Sunday night showed us closeups of boisterous young people holding up a Wanted--Dead or Alive poster, which bore the name, description and a picture of the wanted criminal--in this case the lad (Kent Harvey) the Kool-Aid Crowd accuses of destroying Bob Knight's career. Given the highly inflammable environment and the general agitation present among the mob, does this sort of thing border on a crime of some sort? Inciting to riot, maybe? May we have a legal opinion on this, counselor? (September 11, 2000) Basketball player George Leach angrily told reporters that they (the IU big-shots who'd fired Coach) had deprived him of his lifelong dream to play for Coach Knight. Sorry, George, you're confused, too. Bob Knight deprived you of that opportunity, not Myles Brand. Does Coach get to continue using university property (Assembly Hall, the IU Auditorium, for example) now that he's no longer an employee, in order to conduct His various rants, offer His convoluted explanations of "His side of the story" to howling mobs of the faithful, continue his snide insults and attacks on school officials and the vast conspiracy out to destroy Him, His family, His friends, His goldfish, His reputation, His dog, His personal belongings? Has the university escorted Him to His office under armed guard and told Him to pack his crap and get the frigg out of there by dusk, as it should? Just wondering. The Star quoted Greg Garrett, an Indianapolis fireman at Station No. 7, saying, "We think that guy (the student involved in The Most Recent Unpleasantness) set Knight up." Case Closed Department "I would have to be an absolute moron, an absolute moron, with things that have been laid down on me, to grab a kid in public and curse a kid in public." --The Mentor, addressing reporters at His press conference September 8 to explain His version of the event. O.K., So He Is An Absolute Moron Department Police in Bloomington on September 11 announced they'd closed their investigation of The Unpleasantness and that while witnesses had different interpretations of the severity of the "grabbing" there was no doubt that the grabbing occurred. No formal charges will be filed against Coach. See, This Wasn't Brain Surgery Department "All it (IU's 'zero tolerance' behavior code for Coach) basically required was for Bob Knight to be a decent human being, and he couldn't hold up to that standard" --Indiana University Trustee Ray Richardson. Crackpot Pete--The Sequel "This was never meant to be an edict anyone could follow. Not even God could follow it."--Pete Newell, longtime friend of The Mentor, quoted Sept. 11 in the Chicago Tribune while claiming the university set up Coach to be fired when it established a "zero tolerance" policy for his future behavior. "Bob Knight is out of a job today not because the university wanted to do the right thing, but because it no longer had a choice." --USA Today, in its lead editorial Sept. 12, 2000. Pat Knight has been quoted in the press saying he's resigning his assistant coaching position. Good! A Great Leader In The Making Department "Whatever Coach (Knight) tells me to do, whatever the players say, I'm going to do." --Mike Davis, assistant basketball coach at Indiana University, asked about whether he'd stay at Indiana now that The Mentor has been fired. (Quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 12, 2000.) *Yeah, But They're Our* Stupid, Stinking Bonfires** "The truest measure of the Bobby Knight era is the putrid odor emanating from the bonfires still smoldering in Bloomington." --Columnist Melissa Anderson, the Chicago Tribune, Sept. 12, 2000. "Everybody's thrown furniture." --A. J. Moye, freshman basketball recruit at Indiana University, joining his teammates in refusing to assign Knight any blame for his firing. (USA Today, Sept. 12, 2000) "Kool-Aid, anyone? But of course. Thousands of Bob Knight fans remain at the vat, lapping up Coach's brew of poison, even as they burn their Indiana University shirts, march on the home of President Myles Brand and rethink alumni donations" --Columnist Ruth Holladay, Indianapolis Star, Sept. 12, 2000. If you listen carefully to what players and others are saying, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that what Indiana University has is a cult, not a basketball team. Junior guard Dane Fife has been threatening to transfer to protest Coach's firing. Won't somebody please, pleeease help Dane pack his bags and hand him a bus ticket out of town? "There have been university officials who have lied to Him and deceived Him." --Dane Fife, no doubt wearing his baseball cap indoors and backwards, quoted in the Sept. 11 Indianapolis Star angrily defending Coach. "How could you expect them to return? They've lost their father figure." --Pat Knight, son of The Mentor and an assistant coach at Indiana University, replying to a reporter's question about whether the players would transfer in protest. An ESPN Classic Coach's 40-minute appearance Sept. 12 on ESPN was classic Knight. He was arrogant, sarcastic, bullying, manipulative, insulting, and evasive. He repeatedly tried to embarrass young Jeremy Schaap, the interviewer. He spun long artful non-answers where it suited Him. He told the breathless nation watching that every charge against Him was made up out of thin air and a lie. So, what did we learn? Nothing new. We saw again, though, that Knight is a world-class asshole. Back in the studio, host Bob Ley offered what he inaccurately described as "some perspective" on Knight's harangue by having as guests Dane Fife, a junior on IU's basketball team, and Gary Williams, former Ohio State assistant coach in the mid-1980s and now head coach at the University of Maryland. Williams, true above all to the coaching brotherhood, minced carefully with every answer, obviously afraid to say anything judgmental. He kept referring to facts as "perceptions" and said that everyone had their own perception of what they had seen or heard or experienced. Fife wore his baseball cap indoors and opined that the whole team felt The Mentor had been set up by the university. Why does ESPN or any media outlet waste its time with things like this? (September 12, 2000) Schaap, for his part, remained remarkably cool under persistent bullying from Knight. Afterwards, Schaap said he wasn't particularly upset, that this was merely Knight "reacting to a line of questioning he didn't like." Well said. When Knight got really snotty with young Schaap toward the end of the interview, I said to my wife that what this situation called for was for Schaap to unfasten his microphone, turn it off, and walk out of the room without saying a word, leaving Coach there by Himself. But she, the only voice of sanity, reason, or moderation in our family, correctly pointed out that Schaap's bosses would have fired him for that. Schapp's job, she counseled me, was to show the nation what Bob Knight was, and he had done that. It's axiomatic that witnesses sometimes offer different accounts of an event. Last night The Mentor told ESPN that both Neil Reed and Jeanette Hartgraves were lying in their accounts of what Coach did to them. Reed is the former IU player who accused Knight of choking him during a practice. Hartgraves is the former IU secretary who reported that Knight threatened, screamed and cursed at her during a February, 1998, tantrum in an IU athletic department office, and in an another outburst in the late 1980s Coach threw a potted plant or vase against a wall near Hartgraves. Their versions of these Unpleasantnesses were confirmed by an IU trustee investigation last spring. Knight claims they are lying even though there is videotape of Knight with his hands on Reed's throat during a practice, and there were at least 12 players and assistant coaches who witnessed this (though only one or two would ever admit they saw it, the film shows them all standing there watching). There was at least one witness (Clarence Doninger) to the Hartgraves Unpleasantness. Knight's preposterous claim is the technique of sociopaths everywhere: deny the facts, deny all evidence, accuse all witnesses of lying. The technique was raised to an art form by Sick and the Clintonistas during the Plague of Unpleasantnesses Said to Have Involved The President and His Family and Friends since the 1992 election. Knight's wild statements drew only a one-paragraph mention deep in the Indianapolis Star's coverage of the ESPN fiasco. Another tiny, subtle lie told by Coach in his ESPN interview was hardly noted at all in press coverage. Midway through the ordeal, he told Schaap that Patrick Knight (Coach's son) had been the real "victim" in This Most Recent Unpleasantness, having been fired from his assistant coaching job at IU. Schaap challenged the "victim" claim by pointing out that Patrick was out of a job because of things his father had done, but missed the lie. Young Patrick was quoted in the press Monday or Tuesday saying he was resigning his job at IU. So unless we've missed something, he was not fired as Coach alleged. The Mentor also told His ESPN audience that the University lied about all seven instances cited by President Myles Brand in his Sept. 10 press conference as factors in the decision to fire Knight. What Knight is asking us to believe is that all the university's top administrators and trustees, up to and including the school president, were sufficiently consumed by their desire to destroy Knight that they were willing to go on national television twice and risk their careers and reputations by lying extensively about numerous Unpleasantnesses, many of which could be independently verified by a salivating press. Sorry, Coach, this one doesn't pass the smell test. For approximately 29 years, Indiana University athletic officials, trustees, top administrators and school presidents lied, covered up, spun, deceived, and denied reality, facts and the truth to protect Bob Knight or explain Him away. Now that they've stopped lying, and begun telling the truth, Knight is accusing them of lying. Isn't self-delusion a beautiful thing? Gotcha! Knight also told Schaap that no one ever told him what the zero tolerance policy guidelines were and so he never had any idea what they were, what the term meant. Schaap repeatedly asked Coach if He'd ever asked President Brand what the guidelines meant and Knight each time declined to answer the question. Within 48 hours the University released a statement signed by Knight on May 15 in which he acknowledged "receiving " the guidelines from President Brand and stating that He, Coach had "absolutely no problem with guidelines." This revelation was met by complete silence from Knight, and no one from the press, so far as I know, has bothered to confront Knight with the lie. No matter. This was a supremely satisfying and beautiful little Gotcha! Moment. Just about anyone with a functioning brain knows what the guidelines meant. They meant the university expected Knight to be a decent human being. Nothing complicated about it, really. But far too complicated for the disingenous Mentor to understand, and far too tough a standard for Him to live up to. There was a telling if inadvertent contrast on last night's TV news. On the one hand you had a clever, dissembling Bob Knight in denial on ESPN, and from down in Florida came news film clips showing former New York Yankees and Mets outfielder Daryll Strawberry standing before a judge freely admitting guilt and accepting responsibility in an automobile accident and fleeing-the-scene episode. (September 12, 2000) Call The Orkin Man The University is in a bind. The Big Tumor is out, but many Knight loyalists still infest the place, particularly in the athletic department. What to do about them is the challenge. If I'm Indiana University, I fumigate, disinfect. I clean 'em out and send 'em packing. For if we think this is over with the firing of Knight, we're mistaken. Knight and His acolytes will work assiduously for the rest of their lives to gain the vengeance they so sorely crave. Those left behind can be counted upon to undermine and subvert the new regime when it's named. I doubt if IU has the will to be this harsh. This is academe, after all, and the place where it took the university nearly three decades to acknowledge the cancer in its midst. The basketball players themselves are doing a lot of yapping and sabre-rattling, making demands, threatening to transfer if they don't get their way. In the short term they'll probably have to be accommodated. After a couple days of deliberation, IU named assistant coach Mike Davis to a new Interim Head Coach position. That will pacify the players and avert a mass mutiny. It was stressed loudly and repeatedly that this is an interim appointment only, and that the University will begin a search immediately to locate and hire a new head coach by next spring. (September 12, 2000) Davis was an ardent supporter of Knight through the Niagara of Unpleasant Allegations made against the Mentor last spring. Davis was so enthusiastic that he made extensive radio station appearances around the Midwest defending Coach, trashing His accusers, and denying all charges. On May 12, for example, when he was interviewed on WNDE-AM in Indianapolis, Davis told the station's nasal-voiced sports anchor, Tim Bragg, that if Knight was forced out he, Davis, would leave, too. Guess he's changed his mind on that one, now that the opportunity of a lifetime's been dangled. Giving a Kool-Aider such as this the basketball reins isn't comforting, but as a practical matter the university had little choice. The Kool-Aid Crowd's in a horrific bind, too. Many of them are straight out of Southern Indiana's racist, Klan-loving sewer. Mike Davis, who loyally defended the Fallen Mentor but now replaces Him, is a black man. What's a Kool-Aider to do now? Indiana doesn't know it, but it has already hired its permanent coach. Mike Davis. Here's how this will play out. Davis will have a decent if not outstanding season. IU has plenty of talent. The lads will play fiercely to vindicate their commitment to The Mentor. IU will go through a show of considering all applicants. But at decision time it will be made acutely aware that to deny the permanent position to Davis will be seen worldwide as an act of the most despicable racism. IU will face the spectre of a national firestorm of Al Sharpton-Maxine Waters-Jesse Jackson-Ted Kennedy-John Conyers-style demagoguery if it even thinks about hiring a honky. Davis will be their choice. The only thing that could possibly derail this is a poor season--the odds are microscopically low for this--or some astonishing moral turpitude or criminal act on Davis's part. If the latter, he can then run on the Democratic ticket and be elected president of the United States. It's a done deal. Book it! Author John Feinstein cut through the whimpering, foot-shuffling, nonjudgmental feel-good crap of the Geraldo Live talk show on CNBC last night by saying Knight's claim of ignorance about the meaning of the zero tolerance guidelines was "pure garbage." It's so refreshing to hear something called what it is. (September 13, 2000) Anybody else see a parallel between The Mentor and Richard Nixon? Both are (were) driven by a powerful anger and hatred of their perceived enemies. Both nursed grievances and a sense of betrayal all their adult lives. Of the two, Nixon seems to have been better able to function in the world than Knight. But of course I could be wrong about every last syllable of this. This morning's Indianapolis Star reports that among Mike Davis's first acts as the new interim head coach was to declare that he will never, ever go into Coach's old office again. It is a sacred place. It would hurt too much to enter. It would profane the memory of Coach. The office will be left exactly as it was the moment Coach walked out, with all the pictures, plaques and mementoes left hanging on the walls, all the treasures in place, forever and forever, so long as Mike or any of us shall live. (September 14, 2000) For my part, I'd rather see Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf lead an armored division in there, raze the place, salt it and pave it over. Adoring thousands filled Dunn Meadow last night to hear Coach "tell my side of the story." Only trouble was, Coach never told them His side of the story. Instead, He reminisced about how wonderful students had been to the team over these many, many years, and how much that support had meant to Coach and His teams. He took half a dozen lame potshots at his Enemies. He surprised us all by calling off the attack dogs from the hapless Kent Harvey, who'd been driven into exile and threatened with death by the Grape Kool-Aid Crowd. Coach didn't do this very emphatically, but what passes for sincerity from Coach is never very emphatic. It was enough that he asked them to lay off the poor fellow and not kill him. One sign in the crowd read: On The 8th Day, God Created Coach. Police were said to be out in force, but inconspicuously. The event seemed to be entirely peaceful. TV sound and satellite trucks were on campus "from all over the country," according to Channel 6's breathless reporter. Coach noted sarcastically that no one among his enemies in the university hierarchy had even wished Him and His family the best for the future. To remedy that, and to obtain what He obviously feels is due Him, Coach asked the students to bow their heads for a minute of silence--a full minute, he instructed them--and wish Him and His family the very best for the future. On that utterly bizarre note, the speech ended and Coach wheeled and strode away. Another beautiful moment for the memory book. (September 14, 2000) Death Threats Top The List As we sift through the rubble looking for the one fact or episode which most symbolizes the depths of the sickness infesting Knight's acolytes my choice is the death threats made against the 19-year-old Kent Harvey and, presumably, other Enemies. And Knight to this day has never uttered a strong rebuke of this behavior. The Rager, The Stalker, The Sneering Duck-Walker. . . As for the depth of the sickness infesting Coach Himself, the contenders for the absolute worst are many. Would it be Coach duck-walking across the locker room with his pants around his ankles and holding a wad of excrement-smeared toilet paper in His extended hand to show the lads what they'd been playing like? Would it be Coach raging and screaming profanity at Jeanette Hartgraves, then Clarence Doninger's secretary in the athletic department, or throwing a potted plant at her? Would it be Coach publicly humiliating a hapless NCAA underling (Rance Pugmire) at a press conference at a 1995 NCAA basketball tournament press conference? Knight choking Neil Reed? Threatening to kill his assistant coach, Ron Felling? Would it be Coach's long, drawn-out oncourt tirade in March, 1998, against referee Ted Valentine, in which Knight, his face florid and twisted in ugly rage, played matador and stalked a circle around Valentine while the crowd roared, before advancing, still screaming, on the referee and veering off at the final instant to head off the floor after being ejected from the game? Would it be any of Coach's many appearances on his own TV show during which he insulted and humiliated the show's pathetic host and lifelong faithful lapdog, Chuck Marlowe? Or one of many more? My vote goes for a tie between Coach's vile abuse of a woman (Hartgraves) and the Toilet Paper Caper. President Brand's wife felt compelled to hold a press conference in Bloomington Sept. 14 to ask Knight's worshippers to call off their threats of death and violence. Peg Brand said she and her family felt their lives were in danger. Police have been assigned to guard Mrs. Brand while she teaches a class on campus. The menace she perceived, she told eager reporters, was sufficient that she and Brand had moved out of their on-campus home temporarily, even though police had been guarding it since mobs of students and Kool-Aiders were unleashed last week. There isn't a school or an institution in the United States or, indeed, the civilized world, where an atmosphere like this would develop over the criticism or firing of a basketball coach. Only in Bloomington, Indiana, and only Bob Knight. Does anyone realize what a searing indictment this is? (September 15, 2000) Shakespeare Was Right One more inevitability in This Most Recent Unpleasantness has arrived. Coach's attorney, Russell Yates, is yapping in the Sunday Star about illegal clauses in The Mentor's contract with IU. Particularly, he alleges, the non-compete clause where Knight agreed not to take a job with another Big Ten school or any school in Indiana or Kentucky. There are dark hints that Yates considers the university liable for enormous amounts of lost income Knight won't get from endorsements, running his basketball camps, and God knows what else. "We're going to negotiate that," he thundered, "or we're going to litigate." If I'm Indiana University, I say fine, sue. And we'll call in the Clintonista legal staff and stall and delay and deny for the next 10 years, and we'll see how Coach likes waiting on the sidelines watching his remaining life trickle away while we litigate. As an Indiana taxpayer, I stand ready to pay extra taxes to prevent The Mentor from this extortion. Where do I send my check? (September 17, 2000) My guess is that before this is over, Coach will sue for other things, too (like wrongful dismissal), and seek millions for his anguish and suffering. I doubt there's any fury more ugly in the universe than Coach betrayed. This thing is so-o-o-o bad for so-o-o-o many that I can foresee Sick (and Weird Al, of course, so he, too, can get credit for feeling their pain) declaring a national disaster and committing federal funds to set aside and build a sanctuary for Coach and His Vast Flock, a place where they can resign from the evil world to nurse their grievances, their anger, their resentments and their hatreds forever and forever and forever, so long as any of them shall live--for there is no healing possible for them after what they've suffered. I'll vote for that! Is it time to piss on the fire of 29 years of Bob Knight Unpleasantnesses, call in the dogs, and go home? Can we get Coach to take his pestilential presence elsewhere and leave us alone now? Shakespeare was right, except he should have added assholes to the list. The September 18 issue of Sports Illustrated features Coach blazing on the cover and contains an allusion I'd have paid money to have thought of first. In a paragraph referencing the driving into exile by outraged Kool-Aid'ers of English Professor Murray Sperber and the hapless 19-year-old Antichrist, Kent Harvey, SI's writer Alexander Wolff reached for and captured a Napoleonic reference that's perfect for this sad Bloomington spectacle. Wolff refers to Sperber, who is lecturing at a university in Canada while on leave from Indiana, as teaching this fall "at Indiana's Elba campus." (September 18, 2000) Indiana University, which imagines itself one of the world's great universities, is a second-tier school which does not rank in the country's top 50 schools (five other Big Ten schools did), and ranks below every other Big Ten school except Michigan State in ratings of public universities in U.S. News & World Report magazine's latest study of American colleges and universities. The reaction of IU officials when contacted by the Indianapolis Star for comment, according to an article in the Sept. 17 edition, was to "quickly point out flaws in the rankings" and to note that "the Bloomington campus has a record enrollment this year." This from an institution which took over a quarter of a century to face the Toxic Bob Knight Unpleasantness Festering In Its Midst, which proudly paraded flea-bitten and marginally literate rock idol John Mellenkamp as its 2000 Commencement speaker, and which would have been in suicidal depression had its basketball team finished 10th in the Big Ten. Denial runs deep down there. Two possibilities for Coach: Northwestern and Notre Dame. Oh sure, you say, He signed a contract with a non-compete clause in it which covers both schools (the Big Ten, and the states of Indiana and Kentucky are prohibited). But what are those but nettlesome nuisances to be Clintonistaed by Coach's stable of attorneys? Some troublemaking prick noticed that when Indiana University's football team took the field September 16 in Lexington to play Kentucky, there were no longer last names on the backs of IU's jerseys. An eager reporter, obviously clever enough to put several clues together, asked Coach Cam Cameron about this oddity. Cam's reply was quietly reported a few days later in the Indianapolis Star. "Cameron didn't have much to say on the topic," the Star noted, then quoted The Camster saying the no-names policy "will be a week-to-week thing. But there's a good chance it will stay that way for the rest of the season." Seasoned IU observers and cryptologists have already bored through the fluff and smoke to these salient facts; 1) The no-names thing was a sacred issue for The Fallen Mentor, the recently fired (on Sept. 10) basketball coach,Bob Knight; 2) The Camster played for Coach some years ago at IU; 3) The Camster is widely suspected to be a loyal apostle of Coach's yet today. Thus it is suspected that Cam's football team now wearing nameless jerseys is a thinly-encrypted message from The Camster to The World That Destroyed The Only Coach He Ever Loved and Still Does, a bird-flipping cry to Coach's Enemies And All The Traitors Who Betrayed Him, that Cam Still Trusts in Coach, Still Supports Him, Always Will. It seems a safe bet that no one in the athletic department--what's left of it under Clarabelle's disastrous stewardship--will make an issue of this, nor will the press. But we can hope, can't we, that perhaps the Camster already knows--or has decided on his own--that he's toast and outta there at the end of this season? Coach Confides In Larry I missed Coach's one-hour special with the buffoonish sleazeball, Larry King, last night. This morning's Star reported that Coach "was civil throughout the entire program." That in itself is news. Beyond that, no new information was revealed, though Coach took the usual potshots at His many Enemies and is said to have told Larry that He did not have to have been fired, that He would have resigned. This is somewhat--well, 100 percent--at odds with the university's version. Coach is just taking his cues from the Clintonistas, however. He knows that spin is all. (September 28, 2000) I was told a few days later that Coach explained his views to Larry and a grateful nation on showing respect for others, and in particular why he took offense when the young student didn't address him as Mr. or Coach earlier this month. About two minutes later, Coach referred to the man who fired him, Indiana University President Myles Brand, as "Brand" and Larry King let it slide right by without a single comment. Fans Demand Justice Outraged fans are threatening to file lawsuits against Indiana University for firing The Mentor. The plaintiffs claim the firing was illegal because President Brand consulted "unofficially" with small groups of IU trustees before announcing the firing. This, the screamers allege, violates Indiana's "open door law" which requires the public be notified when directors or public officials hold official meetings. Brand was clever enough--as most public executives are--to discuss his decision with only four trustees at a time, thus not having a quorum which the law declares would constitute an "official meeting," one that must be open to the public. This looks like the kind of case that will be laughed out of court, but you never know. In our society you can find a judge or jury to agree with any position if you look long enough. I doubt there's a thing illegal about this, but the Grape Kool-Aiders have law degrees, too, so they'll have to have their rant. Their quest for vengeance has only begun. (October 3, 2000) Coach's critics--negativist destroyers, all--have long maintained that basketball recruiting at Indiana University was significantly limited by what we may politely call His "demanding" methods and persona. This plus Knight's widely known disdain for recruiting in general and His contempt for what He saw as spoiled, selfish, coaching-resistant youngsters meant that large numbers of potential recruits were not even in the pool of talent available to IU. The Grape Kool-Aid Crowd vigorously ridiculed such claims. Now comes a stunning revelation: none other than Mike Davis, the university's new interim head coach, has a different view. The October 7, 2000, edition of Inside Indiana features an article about recruiting by editor Pete DiPrimio in which he quotes Davis saying, "I think me being a head coach here changes things as far as recruiting goes. It widens the range of a recruit we can get. Now we can get top-10 guys. I want to bring in top-10 players here. I can recruit and I will continue to recruit hard." Aside from the heresy of these statements, they hint at intriguing possibilities, among them that Davis may actually be a normal human being who'll subscribe to the notion that practically everyone but Coach did--that ultimately, teams with the most talent tend to win, and that to have talent, you've got to out-recruit the other guy for it; and that perhaps Davis is already beginning to emerge as his own man, one finally free of the The Mentor's suffocating influence. (October 8, 2000) Revelation No. 2, After Bobby Department: Writing in the October 7 edition, Inside Indiana editor Pete DiPrimio offers a less than sunny view of how things were prior to September 10, 2000. "Under Knight," DiPrimio says, "promoting IU basketball was not a priority. . .the media were treated like pariahs. . .players were only occasionally available after home games, almost never on the road." DiPrimio also noted that iron gates which were installed at The Mentor's orders near the team's Assembly Hall locker room "to keep the media away from players and their families after home games" will be removed now that a new coach is in place. Meantime, the editor related, Coach is "reportedly pitching his autobiography--to be written with former Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel--for at least $2 million." One would have preferred such forthrightness from DiPrimio and the boys at Inside Indiana long ago, but better late than not at all. Rumor has it that Indiana University president Myles Brand and his wife have been able to move back into their campus home now. Apparently the skulkers and fanatics who've been menacing them on Coach's behalf have found something else to occupy their time. The Unassailable Logic of The Prophet Isiah Indiana Pacers Coach Isiah Thomas, who played for two seasons at Indiana University under Coach Bob Knight, told breathless reporters October 7 that he hopes the university rehires Knight next spring when it wraps up its global search for a successor to the fired Mentor. "In sports," Thomas said, "we forgive people for everything and everybody gets second and third chances. . .We allow people to come back from drugs, murder, and everything else. His situation shouldn't be treated any differently." It's past time somebody said it aloud and new Indianapolis Star sports columnist Bob Kravitz finally did in Sunday's edition: It looks like IU football coach Cam Cameron is in over his head. Time to think about finding another coach. (October 14, 2000) World Record Negative Yardage In A Four-Down Sequence? Michigan's 58-0 rout of Indiana October 14 isn't much of an eyebrow-raiser over its long horrifying football history. Veteran IU fans can recall many similar or even worse embarrassments (59-0 to Wisconsin last year, 62-0 to Iowa in 1997, and so on, ad nauseum, actually). But a four-down sequence in the second quarter of this game probably surpasses anything in the 109-year history of Indiana football for pathetic ineptness. See if you don't agree. Indiana had a first- down-and-ten on Michigan's 20-yard line. On first down, quarterback Antwaan Randle-El was sacked for an 11-yard loss. On second down, the center snapped the ball over Randle-El's head. He recovered the ball but IU lost 25 yards on the play. On third down, Randle-El tried a quick kick. But he punted the ball into the back of an IU player. Indiana recovered the "blocked" punt for a four-yard loss but retained possession. On fourth down and 49 yards to go, Indiana punted again. This one was also blocked--by an opponent this time--but caught in mid-air by a Michigan player who ran 41 yards for a touchdown. Thus, IU went 80 yards backwards in four downs and the ball never crossed its own line of scrimmage even on two punts. The 58-0 debacle for IU football at Ann Arbor--seen on ESPN all across the country-- again raises an issue one of the big foundations ought to fund and research: the linkage between national televised games and the severity of IU defeats. I have no facts to support this, but my gut hunch is that the greater the visibility, the greater the humiliation where IU football is concerned. Getting Indiana University off national television would be an important first step in appeasing the gods who torment us. What will eventually cost Cameron his job is not his terrible record or obvious coaching deficiencies, but what finally forced IU administrators to fire the last coach, Bill Mallory: economics. Everyone associated with the football program settled decades ago into an easy tolerance for losing games. But Indiana is averaging 31,401 fans for three home games. The value of the empty seats at a conservative $20 per ticket is about $420,000 per game, or over $2 million per season. Football is the main source of income for the entire athletic program. Money will get their attention when nothing else does. Coach's attorney, Russell Yates, is peppering news outlets with angry letters attacking Myles Brand's recent speeches and press releases touching upon The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve The Flaming Asshole In the Ugly, Pilled Red Sweater. Yates claims, apparently with a straight face, that it's a vicious and unconscionable university campaign of disinformation, lies, and distortions designed to blacken the name and reputation of Coach. Yates's indignation is, as we might expect, selective. He speaks in code as well. What he means is: It's O.K. for Coach to go on his national media tour trashing Brand and IU, but it's not O.K. for Brand to offer an alternate interpretation of events. Yates is demanding meetings with IU's attorneys to discuss The Mentor's non-compete clause, in which Coach agreed to forfeit his remaining deferred compensation if He takes a job in Indiana, Kentucky, or in the Big Ten. Yates alleges this is unfair, illegal, and unjust. This is almost as exciting as the six-year, $53 million taxpayer-financed Whitewater Torment of Sick Willie and his bride! I'm keeping my candles lit. How about you? (October 16, 2000) Indiana surprised us all Saturday with a wild 51-43 victory over favored Minnesota. Because Indiana's defense ranks 111th out of 114 in Division I football, no lead seemed large enough. Even a 16-point lead with four minutes to play was no comfort. Attendance--for Homecoming, mind you--was reported at 30,882, below the average of 31,401 for three previous home games this year. The Indianapolis Star's IU beat writer, Terry Hutchens, reported October 19 that although almost five weeks have passed since Coach was fired and replaced--in an interim capacity, IU went to great pains to stress--by his former assistant, Mike Davis, Coach has still not spoken with Davis. Hutchens gave his report perspective by noting that shunning is a standard Knight tactic, employed whenever Coach feels He has been betrayed. Davis, for his part, seemed surprisingly unconcerned about it. "It's not a problem with me," he said. "There's a lot of people I haven't talked to, and a lot of people that I have." But here--in Davis's own words--is what surely caused Coach to cast Davis into the Outer Darkness. Davis failed to commit professional suicide--he didn't fall on his sword and turn down the job. "Coach Knight brought me here and I was loyal to him when he was here," Davis told the eager reporter. And then--the heresy. "Now, I'm remaining loyal to Indiana University. I stayed for the team. I stayed because it was an opportunity for me as a head coach." Coach will never forgive him for this. Davis knows, we can be sure, that a crucial part of his candidacy for a permanent appointment as head coach in Bloomington next spring will be his ability to convince IU's poohbahs that he, Davis, is his own man, not a stinking Knight loyalist in disguise. (October 19, 2000) Cursing For Kids? Hey, It's Just Coach Still Being Coach Coach emerged from his den in late October to honor a speaking commitment made before he was fired by Indiana. He spoke at a downtown Indianapolis fund-raiser to an audience that included young children of elementary school age. Coach used profane language in his speech but local TV anchorette Debbie Knox, who arranged the event, said she wasn't offended and feels Knight's message is still "widely appealing." This was a twofer. First, Coach's foul language for the kids proves he still hasn't learned civility and good manners. And second, Debbie Knox proved she remains incapable of judgmentalism. Is $138 A Case A Bit Stout? I recently found myself in the Hoosier Dome in downtown Indianapolis watching the Indiana-Penn State football game. Several things stood out. First was the nonstop noise provided by Dome management. Throughout the seemingly interminable three-hour disappointment there was rarely a moment not filled by the Dome's handlers with roaring rock music, advertisements, or other hype screeched at hysterical, near-deafening sound levels. Someone obviously has discovered something essential about the human condition here, and it must have to do with the public's absolutely consuming need to be continuously entertained, stimulated. Second, it is obvious from concession prices that this long ago ceased to be the average man's affordable entertainment. A bottle of beer sells for $5.75 (that's $138 a case). A hot dog, soft drink, and a sack of peanuts go for $2.75 each. Parking runs from $5 to $10 and tickets sold for $25 and up. That mythical American family of four would have to spend a minimum of $100 to get inside the building and another roughly $40 to treat each member to a modest snack and drink. And of course the concourses bulge with kiosks and huts offering NCCA- and NFL-sanctioned clothing and other souvenirs. So it would take a gutty, doggedly determined family of four to escape for less than $200. For my part, I refused to buy anything, even though I was hungry and thirsty. I am not part of anyone's "target audience." Indiana University's football team drew an average of 31,110 for five home games. That's the lowest since 1964. If we add a game played at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis which drew a crowd of 43,122, the "home" average skyrockets to 33,114, the lowest since 1974. Grim stuff. How long before IU's athletic pooh-bahs notice the approximately two million dollars per year of lost revenue from 20,000 empy seats per game? (November 12, 2000) Hey! What ever happened to Ron Felling's million-dollar lawsuit against Coach and Indiana University? Not a peep in months about it. (November 15, 2000) Coach has sued the Converse Shoe Company, maker of the legendary Chuck Taylor All Star basketball shoe brand, claiming He is owed big money for a promotional contract the firm canceled shortly after The Most Recent Unpleasantness Said to Involve Coach Down in Bloomington, Indiana. The Indianapolis Star's account noted that the shoe company is rumored to be in "financial difficulty" (code for: headed down the toilet). It will be a sad day, indeed, when there are no more Chuck Taylor sneakers to lace up. Billions and billions of high school basketball players have worn these shoes. They reach back to my childhood on the plains of central Indiana. I wore them as a mentally defective Scorched Corners Mad Hatter in the 1950s. But then this is the Definition of Life, isn't it: everything we know and love falling away and disappearing? (November 28, 2000) Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievements Awards are out and though their quality is not what it used to be, having them is better than not having any at all. A keynote feature this year is a section entitled "365 Reasons to Kill Yourself." Some very special reasons make the list--no easy task in itself, since there are far more than a mere 365 eminently qualified contenders. Hoosiers may take special pride in the awards, since our Beloved Mentor and Supernova Flamer, Bob Knight, was the only three-time nominee. Coach made the cover as well, as one of the magazine's "Castaways from Hell" (his teammates there were Hillary Clinton, Yasir Arafat, Regis Philbin, Elian Gonzalez and Britney Spears). My personal highlights include (in no particular order of importance) No.88--Cameras at political conventions playing Find The Colored Guy; No. 107--Chelsea Clinton; No. 127--The suggestion that Tiger Woods's success at an exorbitantly expensive game requiring miles of immaculately manicured lawns will help urban black kids living 12 to a room; No. 315--You're not allowed to sell your soul on eBay; No. 316--But selling it on Meet The Press is no problem; No. 314--The joyous reality of a Jewish vice presidential candidate candidate only means that every four years we are going to have to pull out the Ethnicity List and make sure everyone gets a shot, or we are never going to hear the goddamn end of it; No. 350--Bobby Knight; No. 351--Knight; No. 352--Mr. Knight; No. 22--askOJ.com; No. 41--Celebrity-endorsed diseases; No. 176--Victoria's Secret's disturbing report that 40 percent of all sales are thongs. The magazine also reports, under the heading of The Clinton Legacy, that during the year 2000 the average bra purchased in America increased from 36B to 36C. Looks to me like there are Reasons To Go On Living, too. Now that the season is over, isn't it time for eager reporters to check back with Indiana University football Coach Cam Cameron to solve a mystery which erupted in September when without explanation the players' names were removed from the backs of the school's football jerseys. Cameron's vague non-explanation at the time was of no help to readers and fans. I believe we know what the explanation was, but I'd prefer to have The Camster pressed to confirm it. Surely he'll have time now, in the off-season, to address it. Confirmed Sighting of Another Bob Knight Acolyte Department: About 2,000 fans stormed out of a Barry White concert in Sydney, Australia, Thanksgiving Day and demanded refunds. USA Today reports the pop singing idol showed up an hour late, then sat for extended periods on a stool with his back to most of the crowd, many of whom paid up to $70 for tickets. There were also complaints of poor sound quality. So what are they angry about? (December 3, 2000) Log On In Remembrance Of Him . . . Part of my annual year-end ritual is to be especially alert for reasons to go on living. USA Today columnist Chris Jenkins recently provided one. Chris's December 18 column reported the heartwarming news that Coach has a Website any of us can visit. It looks suspiciously like a Flying Dutchman Website, a ghost ship sailing through cyberspace with no visible crew and trailing only cobwebs, but it is His Own Website. And it still holds the promise of almost infinite enlightenment, for those courageous enough to face and learn the truth. Jenkins learned of Coach's special place from a freelance writer named Steve Baldwin, whose hobby is searching out once-thriving commercial websites that have fallen into neglect and disuse. He chronicles these in his own site called ghostsites.com. Jenkins interviewed Baldwin, then himself visited Coach's site. It is called coachbobknight.com. Jenkins reports that it contains a special "Ask Coach" section where fans may deposit e-mail questions. This is the format so beloved by followers of Coach's famous radio non-talk show, which was conducted by mail or tape recording, with Coach always at some secret, remote location such as a restaurant or his own kitchen, eating and visiting with friends while the show's host, Don Fisher, patiently read edited, screened questions and waited--sometimes for inordinately long periods--for Coach to sarcastically respond to them. But alas, Jenkins reported that "the last batch of questions (at Coach's website) is from 1998." He checked out Coach's "news" page but found nothing there except an invitation to "check back later" for more news. Baldwin told Jenkins the only sign of life he's found at coachbobknight.com was in a "chat" area "where a few lost souls have logged on to talk about Indiana hoops." Jenkins tracked down the Bloomington, Indiana-based advertising firm that apparently operates the site, and was told by an executive, Tom Hirons, that the site is all but dead and "has been inactive for a year." Hirons said this has nothing to do with Coach's September, 2000 dismissal by the university. He said the site was a "spare time project" for a few employees who are IU basketball fans. Hirons added that he is "looking into" having the site dismantled and removed. Time is obviously short, my friends, but we still have a chance to Hear His Word, to Know The Truth, and to Pay Homage and Again Pledge Eternal Fealty to Coach. I'll see you there! (December 31, 2000) Back to top
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