2007 | Indiana University Sports

At Last, Coach IS No. 1

Coach got His record on New Year’s Day. He became the winningest coach in men’s Division I basketball history when His Texas Tech team defeated New Mexico, 70-68: victory number 880. Coach spent the weeks leading up to His historic day telling eager reporters that the record meant nothing to Him, that He was concerned about a lot of things but, by God, not that danged old record. Of course that was baloney, as only Coach can spew it. But somehow He found time to arrange for the Frank Sinatra version of the old song, My Way, to blast over the speaker system in Lubbock’s Friggemall Arena at game’s end, and pictures of a smiling Coach embracing players, and talking to the wretched press were plastered all over television and the next morning’s newspapers. Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz got it precisely right, I believe, when he wrote that he was glad Knight was not at Indiana University when He set the record. “He was where he should be,” Kravitz said, “At Texas Tech. . .in exile.” We can all agree that Coach did it His way and has achieved huge success as a coach. He has even arranged for His son, Pat, to succeed Him as head coach, so the joke is still on Texas Tech, and it may be near-eternal. Let’s wish Coach well and be really, really thankful He’s gone from Indiana. (January 2, 2007)

“The late Tom Keating, Star columnist of all columnists, told me years ago that he lost his respect for Bob Knight the day he witnessed Mr. My Way humiliate an Indiana University student journalist at a post-game press conference. Similar examples of Knight’s imperiousness abound, and they say much more about character than either the tantrums or the plaudits from his cronies. Bottom line: He pretends he doesn’t need us, but he doesn’t exist without our grotesque appetite for entertainment, and there’s nothing there to care about but a bunch of numbers.” –Dan Carpenter, Indianapolis Star columnist. (January 7, 2007)

The Indiana University basketball team’s shoe mystery has spilled over into the new year. In a December, 2006, home game, I noticed that two of the IU players (D.J. White and Armon Bassett) were wearing red shoes while the rest of their teammates wore white ones. Today against Michigan State I could find only three players wearing white shoes (Rod Wilmont, Joey Shaw, and Errek Suhr) while at least six players (Bassett, Lance Stemler, Ben Allen, Earl Calloway, and Xavier Keeling) wore red. There’s no apparent consistency here. Do the players now get to free-lance on their uniform and accessory choices? A source close to the bowels of the program speculates that the athletic department buys basketball shoes in several designs, some with red the dominant color, others with white dominant—but all having both red and white--and the players get to choose their favorite game-by-game. (January 7, 2007)

I’m not ordinarily a conspiracy guy, but you knew this one was coming. Many of us lived our lives knowing only free television—until cable TV came along in the 1970s. Free radio has lasted even longer—until satellite radio, for a monthly subscription fee—was launched a few years ago. The shift from “free” to “pay for it” has been slow and in many cases, subtle. Indiana University sports fans until recently spent their lives—at least from the 1950s forward—watching nearly all IU’s basketball games free on local or network television. In tiny increments, that’s disappearing. The Big Ten, questing always for dollars, has increasingly controlled--and sold to the highest bidder—sports broadcasting rights. The universities, because they too value cash over everything else, have acquiesced in exchange for their share of the loot. Another increment has just occurred for Indiana fans. The January 10 Indiana-Purdue game—the rivalry of all rivalries for both schools—will NOT be available on “free television” and not even available on cable’s “basic” channel package via ESPN, which has the rights to many Big Ten games. No, this game is being carried only on ESPNU, a new sports channel ESPN is launching, one which is not available to most cable subscribers in Indiana, and would be a “premium channel “ if it were offered by Comcast and Brightpoint, Marion County’s only two cable providers. Jerry Martin, the general manager of WTTV-4, which for decades carried “free” IU games, explained that ESPN is trying to build a new “channel” (ESPNU) and “one way to do that is to take rivalry games that a lot of people want to see and put them on ESPNU.” Result? Boatloads of additional money for ESPN when cable companies are pressured by their customers to pick up ESPNU—for a hefty fee, of course--and then higher rates extracted from viewers. Both Purdue and Indiana trotted out spokesmen who claimed they had nothing to do with this and that whatever was going on was “out of their hands.” The “pay to view” movement is well along in television, but has barely begun in radio. That is the next frontier for the unbridled capitalist greedsters. We may as well get ready to have “free radio” taken from us, as well. (January 9, 2007)

Time Out For A Colonoscopy!

“He played from the bowels of his soul.”—Doug Mitchell, coach of the Indianapolis North Central High School boys basketball team, quoted in the Indianapolis Star following a 37-point performance by the team’s star, Eric Gordon, against big rival Lawrence North. And there was more—“He was tremendous. He played the way the game ought to be played in high school. He played for his teammates. He played to win. He played to do the right things. To see Eric show emotion like that—it’s something that’s really enjoyable for us as a staff to watch these young men discover that about themselves.” Gordon is averaging 32.1 points per game to date, and says he will attend Indiana University next fall. (January 20, 2007)

Seeking to nail it down, one of the IU-focused websites asked for official measurements on Indiana’s intriguing basketball recruit, Eli Holman, of Richmond, California. Eli’s high school coach complied and e-mailed the site boss with these figures as of mid-February: Height—6-9 and 7/8 inches; Weight—228 pounds; Wingspan—7 feet 5 inches. We’d best keep an eye on these numbers, as many and many a 6-8, 240-pounder has turned out to be 6-4 and 170 with fish flippers for arms upon arrival in Bloomington. (February 17, 2007)

Make room on your shelf for one more Bob Knight book. This one, the latest published about the former Indiana University basketball coach, is titled Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography and was co-authored by Steve Delsohn, an ESPN correspondent, and Mark Heisler, a writer for the Los Angeles Times. It came out in 2006 and in my view it’s the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched of the numerous books about Coach. Because of its thoroughness, its impact, even on a reader who has followed Knight’s career most carefully, is stunning. There are numerous previously unrevealed incidents involving Knight. The book covers Knight’s life from childhood through his present post at Texas Tech. Knight declined to be interviewed for this book, but it hardly matters. When it’s finished, there’s no place for anyone to hide, and nothing anyone can ever say to make the brutal facts go away. It is both a sad and a revolting story. Compelling reading, indeed. (February 15, 2007)

The LouisvilleCourier-Journal published a helpful list of “Kentuckiana” players involved in overseas basketball careers. Indiana University pedigrees or connections (in the case of Owens and Recker, who attended IU but transferred) among them included: Marco Killingsworth (South Korea), George Leach (Belgium), A. J.Moye (Germany), Andre Owens (Germany), Luke Recker (Spain), and Marshall Strickland (Turkey). (March 15, 2007)

Spring, 2007 Update: Weights And Measures Legislation

Indiana University basketball recruit Jamarcus Ellis has consistently been described for the last year as a 6-6 forward. Then an April 5 report on a popular sports website said Ellis stood 6-5. A day later, a noted Midwestern college sports junkie was quoted saying, “I have seen Ellis play and he isn’t 6-6. He’s closer to 6-4 than 6-5.” Also on April 5, sports writer LaMond Pope of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, said transferring IU player Xavier Keeling was 6-8 and 230 pounds after Keeling for the past year has been listed at 6-6. The same popular website reported that incoming IU recruit DeAndre Thomas of Chipola (Florida) Junior College stood 6-8 and weighed 303 pounds. Thomas during the past year has consistently been reported as weighing 270 to 280. This appears to be a new record for weight differential--at 33 pounds—reported by media outlets within a 12-month period. These are not confidence-builders. (April 6, 2007).

“Signing Day” for basketball recruits came April 11 and brought with it more mystery. IU indeed signed a large man, DeAndre Thomas, of Chipola (Florida) Junior College. But the Indianapolis’s Star account of this on April 12 said DeAndre weighed 320 pounds, a 17-pound gain since April 5. The IU website which on April 5 said Thomas weighed 303 pounds, reported on April 12 that he weighed 295. Thomas himself was quoted saying he hoped to play for IU next fall at his high school weight of 270 pounds. Why can’t someone actually weigh DeAndre, certify the figure before a national audience, and end these wild fluctuations? Why, indeed? (April 12, 2007)

Chris Simpson, one of Coach’s many demons, has written a book which includes accounts of Simpson’s tumultuous time at Indiana University leading up to and following Coach’s September, 2000, firing. Simpson was one of seemingly dozens of vice presidents added to the IU payroll during the reign of then president Myles Brand. Brand left Indiana to become head of the NCAA. Simpson left in July, 2001, and is an executive with a communications firm in Wonderland, D.C. His new book is titled “Weathering the Storm: Protecting Your Brand in The Worst of Times. “ Simpson’s account indicates he and Coach initially were friends. Coach described Simpson, however, as “the most treacherous and dangerous guy I’ve ever been around.” Another volume to add to the hefty historical record on Coach. (April 12, 2007)

Still Honked After All These Years

“The Couch selection still rankles me. . .that award should have gone to Antwaan Randle El. The simple fact is this. Randle El did things on the football field nobody had ever done before. He was the first Division I player to throw for 40 touchdowns and run for 40. . .the first player to record 2,500 total yards for four straight seasons, the first college player to throw for 6,000-plus yards and rush for 3,000-plus. The fact that IU went 5-6 in 2001. . .left Randle El sixth in the Heisman voting. . .He was the best player in one of the top conferences. . .he was Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. It is five years later and I am still angry about this vote.—Ken Bikoff, columnist, in the December 16, 2006, issue of Inside Indiana, about 2001 Heisman trophy vote. Eric Crouch won the award, and Rex Grossman, Ken Dorsey, Joey Harrington and David Carr finished ahead of Randle El, who never had a winning season at Indiana.
The Star’s IU beat writer, Terry Hutchens, solicited fan votes for an all-time Indiana basketball team. He got 233 responses. Their choices: First Team: Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford at guards, Calbert Cheaney and Scott May at forwards, Kent Benson at center. Second Team: Quinn Buckner and Mike Woodson at guard, George McGinnis and Alan Henderson at forward, Walt Bellamy at center. Third Team (next five vote-getters): A.J. Guyton, Damon Bailey, Jimmy Rayl, Randy Wittman, and Don Schlundt. My own top five are: George McGinnis and Archie Dees at forward, Walt Bellamy at center, and Isiah Thomas and Calbert Cheaney at guard. May, Woodson, Henderson, Alford and Wittman were my second team. The guy I most hated leaving off: Dean Garrett, a marvelous all-around talent and the center on the 1987 national title team, but who played only two years at Indiana. (April 30, 2007)

Trojan Horseville?

Dan Dakich has been hired as director of basketball operations at Indiana University, and will join new coach Kelvin Sampson’s staff later this summer. Dakich played for Bob Knight at Indiana in the mid-1980s, then served over 10 years as an assistant coach for Knight. He left IU in 1997 to take the Bowling Green University coaching job, and was fired from that position earlier this spring. Dakich’s hiring set off alarm bells among IU fans who suspect him of being a Knight loyalist. These critics fear Dakich will now become a “mole” on the IU staff. The decision to hire Dakich is puzzling. He brings nothing to the table the University couldn’t easily have found elsewhere, and without any Trojan Horse issues. One forgotten bit of trivia is that Dakich was the guy at the other end of the telephone line on a fateful December 1, 1999, when IU assistant coach Ron Felling placed a phone call, not knowing Knight was eavesdropping in a nearby office. Knight stormed into Felling’s office, confronted him. A shouting and shoving match reportedly ensued, and soon after Felling was fired. Sampson presumably is aware of the dynamics of this situation he’s created. He should be cautious going forward, and hope Dakich’s fealty is to his employer, Indiana University, and not to Knight, presently in Lubbock, Texas, and presumably still nursing his famous towering hostility toward IU. (June 9, 2007)

Dark Days

Grim reality overtook hopes and wishes in mid-June with Indiana University’s football program. Athletic director Rick Greenspan announced June 15 that assistant coach Bill Lynch would be interim coach for the 2007 season while simultaneously announcing that coach Terry Hoeppner, gravely ill with brain cancer, would not be returning to his job this year. Hoeppner was hospitalized for a few days, and sent home on June 15. He died June 19. Hoeppner only coached two seasons at IU, with 4-7 and 5-7 records, but he made great progress in that time in reviving the program. He was an irrepressible optimist, a warm and genuine man who inspired deep loyalty and trust. More than anyone in years, Hoeppner seemed like the right man at the right time for this unforgiving job. Then this terrible, unforgiving illness stole him from us. Lynch will have a full season’s chance to prove what he can do, and the university, unlike in the utterly chaotic period after basketball coach Bob Knight’s firing, can evaluate and plan calmly and rationally for the future. It will take every bit of wisdom available for IU to get it right. This is a sad, sad time. (June 20,2007)

IU’s six new basketball recruits barnstormed Indiana early in August and still another clue emerged for the Bureau of Weights and Measures and its devoted staff. DeAndre Thomas, the truly massive junior college recruit (Chipola JC, in Florida) told a throng of reporters at the New Albany exhibition game that “I came in here at 358 pounds and now I am at 322 or something like that.” Thomas’s weight was variously reported between 270 and 350 pounds last winter when he was being recruited by IU. (August 3, 2007)

Further arguing for Bureau of Weights and Measures intervention, attendance at the opening exhibition game in New Albany of the IU basketball recruit tour was reported by the Peegs.com IU website at “nearly 4,000,” by the Clarksville (Indiana) News & Tribune at “more than 3,000,” and at “more than 2,500” by the Indianapolis Star. (August 3, 2007)

On To The Supreme Court For Coach?

An Indiana appeals court has upheld a Marion County Court ruling that former Indiana Coach Bob Knight could not collect from His insurance company for an out-of-court settlement Knight reached with a former assistant (Ron Felling) in 2002. Felling sued Knight and Knight paid $25,000 to end the proceedings. Coach admitted He had shoved Felling, as the suit claimed, in an Assembly Hall confrontation in December, 1999. Knight claimed His insurance company wrongfully denied Him coverage and failed to defend Him from the lawsuit. (August 9, 2007)

“There’s only two things you people are good for--having babies and frying bacon.”—Bob Knight, then head basketball coach at Indiana University, offering his opinion on the value of women, in an interview printed in the December, 1982, issue of Indianapolis Monthly magazine.

One Ringy-Dingy. . .Two Ringy Dingys. . .

A single day after the opening of college basketball practice for the 2007-08 season, word broke on the Internet that Indiana University was self-reporting to the NCAA more rules violations by its newly-hired coach, Kelvin Sampson. The full story, when it emerged, stunned Indiana fans. Sampson, who had been on a year's NCAA probation his first season at IU for rules infractions (among them some 577 prohibited phone calls to recruits) at his previous post (Oklahoma), had been involved in 10 or so improper calls (all incoming) near the end of the probation period at Indiana, and his assistant coaches had made some 35 calls to recruits in violation of NCAA rules. (A few days later, IU conceded there had been about 100 possibly improper calls, but only 35 could be pinned down as clear violations.) Athletic director Rick Greenspan and Sampson appeared at a Sunday afternoon press conference to report the ugly news. Indiana is proposing in its report to the NCAA a penalty including Sampson forfeiting a scheduled $500,000 pay increase, the school’s forfeiting one basketball scholarship in 2008-9, prohibiting assistant coach Rob Senderoff from making any calls to recruits and banning him from recruiting on the road for one year, plus forfeiting his scheduled pay raise and bonus. Sampson attributed the problems to clerical errors and mistakes, and downplayed their seriousness by noting that there were only a small number of them among thousands of calls and contacts made. I have not heard either Sampson or Greenspan acknowledge the deep shame they should be feeling about what has happened. Critics have had a field day and their angry roar continues. Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz demanded both Sampson's and Greenspan's resignations the next day. Angry letters and e-mails are flooding newspapers and websites, with about half agreeing Sampson should be fired. IU’s reputation is taking a beating. My feelings are mixed. I’m deeply disappointed and angry at Sampson. When he was hired at IU, his escapades at Oklahoma were thoroughly aired. Critics at the time warned that he was a high-risk hire. Greenspan and other IU poohbahs knew the full details and rationalized hiring Sampson, anyway. The University put clear language in its contract with Sampson, however, that any future violation of NCAA, Indiana University, or Big Ten rules, would be sufficient cause for firing Sampson and voiding the contract. We may presume from this that Sampson himself was keenly aware that he would be under a microscope at Indiana. He addressed the subject at his hiring press conference and promised he and the basketball program would stay clean going forward. Greenspan and the University staked their reputation and judgment on this hire, and many fans stoutly defended the new coach. He had a highly encouraging first season while serving his probation. Recruiting was going well, and optimism was high. Now this. Critics are using terms like reckless, arrogant, cheaters and sleazy to describe Sampson and the IU program. The Indiana job is the best job Sampson will have in his lifetime. It was a perfect setting form him and the university to succeed. He has handed IU easily ample ammunition to fire him this instant. But IU has not. This should not be surprising, coming from the University which tolerated Bob Knight's misbehavior for nearly 30 years. Indiana feels its proposed penalties are severe enough to pacify the NCAA, but it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the NCAA responds with either agreement or even harsher sanctions. Every minute of that time, and for long after, Sampson, the basketball program, and the University, will be targeted by recruiting rivals, and rightly so. I don't feel the offenses are grave enough to warrant firing. I’ve wanted from the beginning to believe the best of Sampson. I still do. But this has to be his last chance. (October 15, 2007)
“So many (bad) things happened in this game, it’s impossible to document them all.”—Don Fischer, IU broadcaster, after IU’s 31-28 loss at Northwestern. (November 10, 2007)
Don is mistaken. It is possible to document them all. But let’s not. Living through them was horror enough. Suffice it to say that our beloved boys lost due to a stunning series of penalties, mistakes, errors in judgment, and dopey decisions, and that any fan familiar with IU’s 120 years of college football history has seen this all many, many times before. Hopes for a postseason bowl game now hang on beating Purdue in the season finale, an event no more likely that Halley’s Comet visiting your house weekly. A loss to Purdue will give Indiana a 6-6 season, a remarkable achievement by IU standards. A win would yield a 7-5 record, beyond any rational Indiana fan’s wildest dreams. (November 10, 2007)
Only 20,466 fans showed up at Ryan Field for the IU-Northwestern game, the Big Ten’s smallest crowd of the season. One may surmise that Northwestern fans are voting with their wallets, as Indiana fans have been for years. They are judging the school’s “product” inferior in an entertainment marketplace competing for consumer dollars. Rest assured that the higher-ups at Northwestern don’t get this, any more than anyone at IU does. They prefer to sit around sniffing indignantly and blaming non-ticket buyers for their disloyalty to the university. (November 11, 2007)

The Incredible Shrinking Eli

Last February one of the IU-focused websites asked the high school coach of IU recruit Eli Holman to officially weigh and measure Holman to put to rest widely disparate numbers flying around out here in the Midwest. Back came the word from the Left Coast: Eli weighed 228 pounds, stood 6 feet 9 and 7/8 inches tall. Fast forward to a pre-season basketball article on IU in this morning’s Star, in which it said that Holmanweighs “almost 100 pounds less” than “6-8, 300-pound DeAndre Thomas.” That would put Holman, who weighed 228 in February, now close to 200 pounds--and perhaps even below that, since Thomas and IU proudly announced a month ago that he, Thomas, began practice October 15 weighing 295 pounds. (November 11, 2007)

Halley’s Comet Is At My House!

Some of my friends were hurling rotten fruit and insults at me even before I went to the IU-Purdue football game. I invited a couple of them to go along, offering a free ticket. They howled. “Why would you go waste a day suffering?” one asked. “Are you crazy?” another sneered. It must have seemed that way. Truth is, I spent $48 bucks a ticket and couldn’t stand to toss two of them in the fireplace and stay home. I left four hours ahead of game time. It took an hour and 20 minutes to travel less than two miles from the Indiana 37 exit to the stadium parking lot. Still, I arrived over an hour before kickoff. The parking lots were jammed as far as the eye could see. Trudging to the stadium, I passed thousands of tailgaters, many already taking their medication--eagerly chugging booze and doggedly on their way to the oblivion they’d need to endure the coming game’s hideousness and pain. It was a perfect late fall day. To my astonishment, the stadium was filled—50,741, a sellout—the first Bucket game to sell out in Bloomington since the early 1990s. I’ve attended IU football games for five decades and never seen a sellout crowd. Purdue had won the last five games and nine of the last 10. Even more amazing, Indiana led at halftime, 17-3, and with 11 minutes to play in the third quarter by 24-3. This was ominous, getting us primed for the usual pain, degradation, humiliation, excoriation, insult, horror, and mutant-o-rama which typify over a century of IU football--and certainly the rivalry with Purdue. I was on the verge of leaving the game so I wouldn’t have to watch it all unravel again. As every IU fan knew—just knew--it would, the big mo changed, and Purdue began its drive. One touchdown, then another, and IU had the ball still leading, 24-17. Only a supreme act of will kept me from fleeing to my car. I remembered and sought inspiration from something my idol, Jonathan Winters, said long ago in one of his skits. He had a character, Elwood P. Suggins, who had just encountered some Martians, say, “We’ve got to stand here and take it! We mustn’t run any more! We mustn’t run any more! That’s what they want us to do is run!” So, shaking and twitching, and repeating that quote prayerfully in a low voice to myself, I stayed. Running back Marcus Thigpen, who had a stellar day otherwise, promptly fumbled. Purdue recovered, scored another TD—they were toying with us now--and tied the game at 24-24 with 3:29 to play. Plenty of time for IU to lose. The stadium grew deathly quiet, and for good reason. This was the moment many fans had lived hundreds of times before. But gol-danged if quarterback Kellen Lewis didn’t squeak us downfield and run down the clock to set up a field goal try. Austin Starr’s kick was powerful and true with 30 seconds on the clock, not the wounded duck kind of kick IU fans have watched in horror as it ricochets off three or four helmets and is blown back on course by a mysterious unseen hand to ding off the upright and through to defeat Indiana. Purdue was out of timeouts, and it quickly ended. Thousands of fans poured onto the field and the team and the huge crowd basked in half-disbelief and amazement. I took deep comfort watching Purdue’s galumphing, black-shoed stouthearts stumble slowly off the field, obviously dazed and unable to believe that what was rightfully theirs had somehow been stolen from them. Their coach, Joe Tiller, sounded characteristically bitter and terse in his locker room quotes printed in the Sunday morning paper. A rare moment—about the equivalent of Halley’s Comet. IU football fans should be grateful for every paltry crumb which falls from the table to them. I certainly am. (November 17, 2007)

Bill Lynch Is Our Guy

Most IU football fans saw it coming. Those with solid knowledge of the school’s football history knew it was coming. Glum silence pretty much greeted the news that the school was giving Bill Lynch, an assistant who was given the job when head coach Terry Hoeppner died last summer, a four-year extension on his contract to run the program. Athletic director Rick Greenspan said he never contacted any other coach during a decision process many fans hoped might involve a nationwide search. Lynch’s previous coaching record at Ball State and DePauw was undistinguished. That, and his almost vegetablelike personality, were negatives in the public perception of him. He did a creditable job—by Indiana University football standards—of guiding the team to a 7-5 record overall (3-5 in league play) and a likely bowl game, the school’s first since 1994. The local press flacks—columnist Bob Kravitz and beat writer Terry Hutchens of the Indianapolis Star—all along had argued for Lynch’s selection. Indiana has fielded a college football team for 120 years now, and its won-lost record is in the bottom five of all Division schools in the nation, and last in the Big Ten. One of the consequences of this has been a settling over the program and all who touch it, of a view of hopelessness and doom. Those leading the program cannot, of course, ever publicly express such feelings, but the school’s continuing history of feeble corrective action and an all but irresistible eagerness to settle for low-tier mediocrity are compelling evidence. Kravitz himself came as close as anyone to admitting as much when, in his column announcing the Lynch choice, he dismissed critics who thought IU should have searched nationally and hired a big-name (or bigger-named) coach, by asking, “Who was going to walk through the door?” at IU and want to lead such a program. Kravitz’s conclusion—and certainly that of Greenspan and other university pooh-bahs—was that Lynch, who had publicly stated his wish for a “dream job” such as this--was the best IU could ever hope for, and therefore he was really the right man and the best man for the job. So, another search is over. Bill Lynch is the guy. Our most fervent prayer ought to be that he will, indeed, be the right guy to lead Indiana out of the football wilderness. The best thing about this is that we will actually find out if he is or isn’t. And in the grand cosmic scheme of the universe, the choice of who coaches IU football makes no difference in anything. The planet will hurtle onward into the void, utterly oblivious to it all. Light those candles. (November 27, 2007)

Dang! Trouble Just Follows Coach Around, Wherever He Goes

Coach got back in the news in an old, familiar way as November circled the drain. Two people in the Lubbock, Texas area, where Coach now coaches the Texas Tech basketball team, told Associated Press that Bob Knight or one of his hunting companions hit them with birdshot on two occasions in October. No one was hurt, and no charges have been filed against Knight. One of the persons claiming to be hit said it happened three times and was done “intentionally.” Coach denied that and sputtered his usual profanities when an AP reporter inquired. Midwesterners can only smile and remember a similar October, 1999, episode when Knight was coaching at Indiana. In that one, Coach peppered a hunting companion with shotgun pellets while on a hunting trip in Wisconsin. The victim required medical treatment and later sued Knight, claiming that Knight had tried to coerce him into agreeing with Knight’s version of the event. Coach was cited for failing to report the incident and for hunting without a license. The suit was settled out of court in 2001. Some stuff never changes. (November 30, 2007)

	Scoundrels, Knaves & Fools American Pile Whoops & Squawks Splinters From the Bench Indiana University Sports Lists & Other Minutiae Contact the author	2008 \| 2007 \| 2006 \| 2005 \| 2004 \| 2003 \| 2002 \| 2001 \| 2000 \| 1999 \| 1998 \| 1997 \| 1996 \| 1995 \| Pre-1995 Indiana University Sports At Last, Coach IS No. 1 Coach got His record on New Year’s Day. He became the winningest coach in men’s Division I basketball history when His Texas Tech team defeated New Mexico, 70-68: victory number 880. Coach spent the weeks leading up to His historic day telling eager reporters that the record meant nothing to Him, that He was concerned about a lot of things but, by God, not that danged old record. Of course that was baloney, as only Coach can spew it. But somehow He found time to arrange for the Frank Sinatra version of the old song, My Way, to blast over the speaker system in Lubbock’s Friggemall Arena at game’s end, and pictures of a smiling Coach embracing players, and talking to the wretched press were plastered all over television and the next morning’s newspapers. Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz got it precisely right, I believe, when he wrote that he was glad Knight was not at Indiana University when He set the record. “He was where he should be,” Kravitz said, “At Texas Tech. . .in exile.” We can all agree that Coach did it His way and has achieved huge success as a coach. He has even arranged for His son, Pat, to succeed Him as head coach, so the joke is still on Texas Tech, and it may be near-eternal. Let’s wish Coach well and be really, really thankful He’s gone from Indiana. (January 2, 2007) “The late Tom Keating, Star columnist of all columnists, told me years ago that he lost his respect for Bob Knight the day he witnessed Mr. My Way humiliate an Indiana University student journalist at a post-game press conference. Similar examples of Knight’s imperiousness abound, and they say much more about character than either the tantrums or the plaudits from his cronies. Bottom line: He pretends he doesn’t need us, but he doesn’t exist without our grotesque appetite for entertainment, and there’s nothing there to care about but a bunch of numbers.” –Dan Carpenter, Indianapolis Star columnist. (January 7, 2007) The Indiana University basketball team’s shoe mystery has spilled over into the new year. In a December, 2006, home game, I noticed that two of the IU players (D.J. White and Armon Bassett) were wearing red shoes while the rest of their teammates wore white ones. Today against Michigan State I could find only three players wearing white shoes (Rod Wilmont, Joey Shaw, and Errek Suhr) while at least six players (Bassett, Lance Stemler, Ben Allen, Earl Calloway, and Xavier Keeling) wore red. There’s no apparent consistency here. Do the players now get to free-lance on their uniform and accessory choices? A source close to the bowels of the program speculates that the athletic department buys basketball shoes in several designs, some with red the dominant color, others with white dominant—but all having both red and white--and the players get to choose their favorite game-by-game. (January 7, 2007) I’m not ordinarily a conspiracy guy, but you knew this one was coming. Many of us lived our lives knowing only free television—until cable TV came along in the 1970s. Free radio has lasted even longer—until satellite radio, for a monthly subscription fee—was launched a few years ago. The shift from “free” to “pay for it” has been slow and in many cases, subtle. Indiana University sports fans until recently spent their lives—at least from the 1950s forward—watching nearly all IU’s basketball games free on local or network television. In tiny increments, that’s disappearing. The Big Ten, questing always for dollars, has increasingly controlled--and sold to the highest bidder—sports broadcasting rights. The universities, because they too value cash over everything else, have acquiesced in exchange for their share of the loot. Another increment has just occurred for Indiana fans. The January 10 Indiana-Purdue game—the rivalry of all rivalries for both schools—will NOT be available on “free television” and not even available on cable’s “basic” channel package via ESPN, which has the rights to many Big Ten games. No, this game is being carried only on ESPNU, a new sports channel ESPN is launching, one which is not available to most cable subscribers in Indiana, and would be a “premium channel “ if it were offered by Comcast and Brightpoint, Marion County’s only two cable providers. Jerry Martin, the general manager of WTTV-4, which for decades carried “free” IU games, explained that ESPN is trying to build a new “channel” (ESPNU) and “one way to do that is to take rivalry games that a lot of people want to see and put them on ESPNU.” Result? Boatloads of additional money for ESPN when cable companies are pressured by their customers to pick up ESPNU—for a hefty fee, of course--and then higher rates extracted from viewers. Both Purdue and Indiana trotted out spokesmen who claimed they had nothing to do with this and that whatever was going on was “out of their hands.” The “pay to view” movement is well along in television, but has barely begun in radio. That is the next frontier for the unbridled capitalist greedsters. We may as well get ready to have “free radio” taken from us, as well. (January 9, 2007) Time Out For A Colonoscopy! “He played from the bowels of his soul.”—Doug Mitchell, coach of the Indianapolis North Central High School boys basketball team, quoted in the Indianapolis Star following a 37-point performance by the team’s star, Eric Gordon, against big rival Lawrence North. And there was more—“He was tremendous. He played the way the game ought to be played in high school. He played for his teammates. He played to win. He played to do the right things. To see Eric show emotion like that—it’s something that’s really enjoyable for us as a staff to watch these young men discover that about themselves.” Gordon is averaging 32.1 points per game to date, and says he will attend Indiana University next fall. (January 20, 2007) Seeking to nail it down, one of the IU-focused websites asked for official measurements on Indiana’s intriguing basketball recruit, Eli Holman, of Richmond, California. Eli’s high school coach complied and e-mailed the site boss with these figures as of mid-February: Height—6-9 and 7/8 inches; Weight—228 pounds; Wingspan—7 feet 5 inches. We’d best keep an eye on these numbers, as many and many a 6-8, 240-pounder has turned out to be 6-4 and 170 with fish flippers for arms upon arrival in Bloomington. (February 17, 2007) Make room on your shelf for one more Bob Knight book. This one, the latest published about the former Indiana University basketball coach, is titled Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography and was co-authored by Steve Delsohn, an ESPN correspondent, and Mark Heisler, a writer for the Los Angeles Times. It came out in 2006 and in my view it’s the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched of the numerous books about Coach. Because of its thoroughness, its impact, even on a reader who has followed Knight’s career most carefully, is stunning. There are numerous previously unrevealed incidents involving Knight. The book covers Knight’s life from childhood through his present post at Texas Tech. Knight declined to be interviewed for this book, but it hardly matters. When it’s finished, there’s no place for anyone to hide, and nothing anyone can ever say to make the brutal facts go away. It is both a sad and a revolting story. Compelling reading, indeed. (February 15, 2007) The LouisvilleCourier-Journal published a helpful list of “Kentuckiana” players involved in overseas basketball careers. Indiana University pedigrees or connections (in the case of Owens and Recker, who attended IU but transferred) among them included: Marco Killingsworth (South Korea), George Leach (Belgium), A. J.Moye (Germany), Andre Owens (Germany), Luke Recker (Spain), and Marshall Strickland (Turkey). (March 15, 2007) Spring, 2007 Update: Weights And Measures Legislation Indiana University basketball recruit Jamarcus Ellis has consistently been described for the last year as a 6-6 forward. Then an April 5 report on a popular sports website said Ellis stood 6-5. A day later, a noted Midwestern college sports junkie was quoted saying, “I have seen Ellis play and he isn’t 6-6. He’s closer to 6-4 than 6-5.” Also on April 5, sports writer LaMond Pope of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, said transferring IU player Xavier Keeling was 6-8 and 230 pounds after Keeling for the past year has been listed at 6-6. The same popular website reported that incoming IU recruit DeAndre Thomas of Chipola (Florida) Junior College stood 6-8 and weighed 303 pounds. Thomas during the past year has consistently been reported as weighing 270 to 280. This appears to be a new record for weight differential--at 33 pounds—reported by media outlets within a 12-month period. These are not confidence-builders. (April 6, 2007). “Signing Day” for basketball recruits came April 11 and brought with it more mystery. IU indeed signed a large man, DeAndre Thomas, of Chipola (Florida) Junior College. But the Indianapolis’s Star account of this on April 12 said DeAndre weighed 320 pounds, a 17-pound gain since April 5. The IU website which on April 5 said Thomas weighed 303 pounds, reported on April 12 that he weighed 295. Thomas himself was quoted saying he hoped to play for IU next fall at his high school weight of 270 pounds. Why can’t someone actually weigh DeAndre, certify the figure before a national audience, and end these wild fluctuations? Why, indeed? (April 12, 2007) Chris Simpson, one of Coach’s many demons, has written a book which includes accounts of Simpson’s tumultuous time at Indiana University leading up to and following Coach’s September, 2000, firing. Simpson was one of seemingly dozens of vice presidents added to the IU payroll during the reign of then president Myles Brand. Brand left Indiana to become head of the NCAA. Simpson left in July, 2001, and is an executive with a communications firm in Wonderland, D.C. His new book is titled “Weathering the Storm: Protecting Your Brand in The Worst of Times. “ Simpson’s account indicates he and Coach initially were friends. Coach described Simpson, however, as “the most treacherous and dangerous guy I’ve ever been around.” Another volume to add to the hefty historical record on Coach. (April 12, 2007) Still Honked After All These Years “The Couch selection still rankles me. . .that award should have gone to Antwaan Randle El. The simple fact is this. Randle El did things on the football field nobody had ever done before. He was the first Division I player to throw for 40 touchdowns and run for 40. . .the first player to record 2,500 total yards for four straight seasons, the first college player to throw for 6,000-plus yards and rush for 3,000-plus. The fact that IU went 5-6 in 2001. . .left Randle El sixth in the Heisman voting. . .He was the best player in one of the top conferences. . .he was Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. It is five years later and I am still angry about this vote.—Ken Bikoff, columnist, in the December 16, 2006, issue of Inside Indiana, about 2001 Heisman trophy vote. Eric Crouch won the award, and Rex Grossman, Ken Dorsey, Joey Harrington and David Carr finished ahead of Randle El, who never had a winning season at Indiana. The Star’s IU beat writer, Terry Hutchens, solicited fan votes for an all-time Indiana basketball team. He got 233 responses. Their choices: First Team: Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford at guards, Calbert Cheaney and Scott May at forwards, Kent Benson at center. Second Team: Quinn Buckner and Mike Woodson at guard, George McGinnis and Alan Henderson at forward, Walt Bellamy at center. Third Team (next five vote-getters): A.J. Guyton, Damon Bailey, Jimmy Rayl, Randy Wittman, and Don Schlundt. My own top five are: George McGinnis and Archie Dees at forward, Walt Bellamy at center, and Isiah Thomas and Calbert Cheaney at guard. May, Woodson, Henderson, Alford and Wittman were my second team. The guy I most hated leaving off: Dean Garrett, a marvelous all-around talent and the center on the 1987 national title team, but who played only two years at Indiana. (April 30, 2007) Trojan Horseville? Dan Dakich has been hired as director of basketball operations at Indiana University, and will join new coach Kelvin Sampson’s staff later this summer. Dakich played for Bob Knight at Indiana in the mid-1980s, then served over 10 years as an assistant coach for Knight. He left IU in 1997 to take the Bowling Green University coaching job, and was fired from that position earlier this spring. Dakich’s hiring set off alarm bells among IU fans who suspect him of being a Knight loyalist. These critics fear Dakich will now become a “mole” on the IU staff. The decision to hire Dakich is puzzling. He brings nothing to the table the University couldn’t easily have found elsewhere, and without any Trojan Horse issues. One forgotten bit of trivia is that Dakich was the guy at the other end of the telephone line on a fateful December 1, 1999, when IU assistant coach Ron Felling placed a phone call, not knowing Knight was eavesdropping in a nearby office. Knight stormed into Felling’s office, confronted him. A shouting and shoving match reportedly ensued, and soon after Felling was fired. Sampson presumably is aware of the dynamics of this situation he’s created. He should be cautious going forward, and hope Dakich’s fealty is to his employer, Indiana University, and not to Knight, presently in Lubbock, Texas, and presumably still nursing his famous towering hostility toward IU. (June 9, 2007) Dark Days Grim reality overtook hopes and wishes in mid-June with Indiana University’s football program. Athletic director Rick Greenspan announced June 15 that assistant coach Bill Lynch would be interim coach for the 2007 season while simultaneously announcing that coach Terry Hoeppner, gravely ill with brain cancer, would not be returning to his job this year. Hoeppner was hospitalized for a few days, and sent home on June 15. He died June 19. Hoeppner only coached two seasons at IU, with 4-7 and 5-7 records, but he made great progress in that time in reviving the program. He was an irrepressible optimist, a warm and genuine man who inspired deep loyalty and trust. More than anyone in years, Hoeppner seemed like the right man at the right time for this unforgiving job. Then this terrible, unforgiving illness stole him from us. Lynch will have a full season’s chance to prove what he can do, and the university, unlike in the utterly chaotic period after basketball coach Bob Knight’s firing, can evaluate and plan calmly and rationally for the future. It will take every bit of wisdom available for IU to get it right. This is a sad, sad time. (June 20,2007) IU’s six new basketball recruits barnstormed Indiana early in August and still another clue emerged for the Bureau of Weights and Measures and its devoted staff. DeAndre Thomas, the truly massive junior college recruit (Chipola JC, in Florida) told a throng of reporters at the New Albany exhibition game that “I came in here at 358 pounds and now I am at 322 or something like that.” Thomas’s weight was variously reported between 270 and 350 pounds last winter when he was being recruited by IU. (August 3, 2007) Further arguing for Bureau of Weights and Measures intervention, attendance at the opening exhibition game in New Albany of the IU basketball recruit tour was reported by the Peegs.com IU website at “nearly 4,000,” by the Clarksville (Indiana) News & Tribune at “more than 3,000,” and at “more than 2,500” by the Indianapolis Star. (August 3, 2007) On To The Supreme Court For Coach? An Indiana appeals court has upheld a Marion County Court ruling that former Indiana Coach Bob Knight could not collect from His insurance company for an out-of-court settlement Knight reached with a former assistant (Ron Felling) in 2002. Felling sued Knight and Knight paid $25,000 to end the proceedings. Coach admitted He had shoved Felling, as the suit claimed, in an Assembly Hall confrontation in December, 1999. Knight claimed His insurance company wrongfully denied Him coverage and failed to defend Him from the lawsuit. (August 9, 2007) “There’s only two things you people are good for--having babies and frying bacon.”—Bob Knight, then head basketball coach at Indiana University, offering his opinion on the value of women, in an interview printed in the December, 1982, issue of Indianapolis Monthly magazine. One Ringy-Dingy. . .Two Ringy Dingys. . . A single day after the opening of college basketball practice for the 2007-08 season, word broke on the Internet that Indiana University was self-reporting to the NCAA more rules violations by its newly-hired coach, Kelvin Sampson. The full story, when it emerged, stunned Indiana fans. Sampson, who had been on a year's NCAA probation his first season at IU for rules infractions (among them some 577 prohibited phone calls to recruits) at his previous post (Oklahoma), had been involved in 10 or so improper calls (all incoming) near the end of the probation period at Indiana, and his assistant coaches had made some 35 calls to recruits in violation of NCAA rules. (A few days later, IU conceded there had been about 100 possibly improper calls, but only 35 could be pinned down as clear violations.) Athletic director Rick Greenspan and Sampson appeared at a Sunday afternoon press conference to report the ugly news. Indiana is proposing in its report to the NCAA a penalty including Sampson forfeiting a scheduled $500,000 pay increase, the school’s forfeiting one basketball scholarship in 2008-9, prohibiting assistant coach Rob Senderoff from making any calls to recruits and banning him from recruiting on the road for one year, plus forfeiting his scheduled pay raise and bonus. Sampson attributed the problems to clerical errors and mistakes, and downplayed their seriousness by noting that there were only a small number of them among thousands of calls and contacts made. I have not heard either Sampson or Greenspan acknowledge the deep shame they should be feeling about what has happened. Critics have had a field day and their angry roar continues. Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz demanded both Sampson's and Greenspan's resignations the next day. Angry letters and e-mails are flooding newspapers and websites, with about half agreeing Sampson should be fired. IU’s reputation is taking a beating. My feelings are mixed. I’m deeply disappointed and angry at Sampson. When he was hired at IU, his escapades at Oklahoma were thoroughly aired. Critics at the time warned that he was a high-risk hire. Greenspan and other IU poohbahs knew the full details and rationalized hiring Sampson, anyway. The University put clear language in its contract with Sampson, however, that any future violation of NCAA, Indiana University, or Big Ten rules, would be sufficient cause for firing Sampson and voiding the contract. We may presume from this that Sampson himself was keenly aware that he would be under a microscope at Indiana. He addressed the subject at his hiring press conference and promised he and the basketball program would stay clean going forward. Greenspan and the University staked their reputation and judgment on this hire, and many fans stoutly defended the new coach. He had a highly encouraging first season while serving his probation. Recruiting was going well, and optimism was high. Now this. Critics are using terms like reckless, arrogant, cheaters and sleazy to describe Sampson and the IU program. The Indiana job is the best job Sampson will have in his lifetime. It was a perfect setting form him and the university to succeed. He has handed IU easily ample ammunition to fire him this instant. But IU has not. This should not be surprising, coming from the University which tolerated Bob Knight's misbehavior for nearly 30 years. Indiana feels its proposed penalties are severe enough to pacify the NCAA, but it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the NCAA responds with either agreement or even harsher sanctions. Every minute of that time, and for long after, Sampson, the basketball program, and the University, will be targeted by recruiting rivals, and rightly so. I don't feel the offenses are grave enough to warrant firing. I’ve wanted from the beginning to believe the best of Sampson. I still do. But this has to be his last chance. (October 15, 2007) “So many (bad) things happened in this game, it’s impossible to document them all.”—Don Fischer, IU broadcaster, after IU’s 31-28 loss at Northwestern. (November 10, 2007) Don is mistaken. It is possible to document them all. But let’s not. Living through them was horror enough. Suffice it to say that our beloved boys lost due to a stunning series of penalties, mistakes, errors in judgment, and dopey decisions, and that any fan familiar with IU’s 120 years of college football history has seen this all many, many times before. Hopes for a postseason bowl game now hang on beating Purdue in the season finale, an event no more likely that Halley’s Comet visiting your house weekly. A loss to Purdue will give Indiana a 6-6 season, a remarkable achievement by IU standards. A win would yield a 7-5 record, beyond any rational Indiana fan’s wildest dreams. (November 10, 2007) Only 20,466 fans showed up at Ryan Field for the IU-Northwestern game, the Big Ten’s smallest crowd of the season. One may surmise that Northwestern fans are voting with their wallets, as Indiana fans have been for years. They are judging the school’s “product” inferior in an entertainment marketplace competing for consumer dollars. Rest assured that the higher-ups at Northwestern don’t get this, any more than anyone at IU does. They prefer to sit around sniffing indignantly and blaming non-ticket buyers for their disloyalty to the university. (November 11, 2007) The Incredible Shrinking Eli Last February one of the IU-focused websites asked the high school coach of IU recruit Eli Holman to officially weigh and measure Holman to put to rest widely disparate numbers flying around out here in the Midwest. Back came the word from the Left Coast: Eli weighed 228 pounds, stood 6 feet 9 and 7/8 inches tall. Fast forward to a pre-season basketball article on IU in this morning’s Star, in which it said that Holmanweighs “almost 100 pounds less” than “6-8, 300-pound DeAndre Thomas.” That would put Holman, who weighed 228 in February, now close to 200 pounds--and perhaps even below that, since Thomas and IU proudly announced a month ago that he, Thomas, began practice October 15 weighing 295 pounds. (November 11, 2007) Halley’s Comet Is At My House! Some of my friends were hurling rotten fruit and insults at me even before I went to the IU-Purdue football game. I invited a couple of them to go along, offering a free ticket. They howled. “Why would you go waste a day suffering?” one asked. “Are you crazy?” another sneered. It must have seemed that way. Truth is, I spent $48 bucks a ticket and couldn’t stand to toss two of them in the fireplace and stay home. I left four hours ahead of game time. It took an hour and 20 minutes to travel less than two miles from the Indiana 37 exit to the stadium parking lot. Still, I arrived over an hour before kickoff. The parking lots were jammed as far as the eye could see. Trudging to the stadium, I passed thousands of tailgaters, many already taking their medication--eagerly chugging booze and doggedly on their way to the oblivion they’d need to endure the coming game’s hideousness and pain. It was a perfect late fall day. To my astonishment, the stadium was filled—50,741, a sellout—the first Bucket game to sell out in Bloomington since the early 1990s. I’ve attended IU football games for five decades and never seen a sellout crowd. Purdue had won the last five games and nine of the last 10. Even more amazing, Indiana led at halftime, 17-3, and with 11 minutes to play in the third quarter by 24-3. This was ominous, getting us primed for the usual pain, degradation, humiliation, excoriation, insult, horror, and mutant-o-rama which typify over a century of IU football--and certainly the rivalry with Purdue. I was on the verge of leaving the game so I wouldn’t have to watch it all unravel again. As every IU fan knew—just knew--it would, the big mo changed, and Purdue began its drive. One touchdown, then another, and IU had the ball still leading, 24-17. Only a supreme act of will kept me from fleeing to my car. I remembered and sought inspiration from something my idol, Jonathan Winters, said long ago in one of his skits. He had a character, Elwood P. Suggins, who had just encountered some Martians, say, “We’ve got to stand here and take it! We mustn’t run any more! We mustn’t run any more! That’s what they want us to do is run!” So, shaking and twitching, and repeating that quote prayerfully in a low voice to myself, I stayed. Running back Marcus Thigpen, who had a stellar day otherwise, promptly fumbled. Purdue recovered, scored another TD—they were toying with us now--and tied the game at 24-24 with 3:29 to play. Plenty of time for IU to lose. The stadium grew deathly quiet, and for good reason. This was the moment many fans had lived hundreds of times before. But gol-danged if quarterback Kellen Lewis didn’t squeak us downfield and run down the clock to set up a field goal try. Austin Starr’s kick was powerful and true with 30 seconds on the clock, not the wounded duck kind of kick IU fans have watched in horror as it ricochets off three or four helmets and is blown back on course by a mysterious unseen hand to ding off the upright and through to defeat Indiana. Purdue was out of timeouts, and it quickly ended. Thousands of fans poured onto the field and the team and the huge crowd basked in half-disbelief and amazement. I took deep comfort watching Purdue’s galumphing, black-shoed stouthearts stumble slowly off the field, obviously dazed and unable to believe that what was rightfully theirs had somehow been stolen from them. Their coach, Joe Tiller, sounded characteristically bitter and terse in his locker room quotes printed in the Sunday morning paper. A rare moment—about the equivalent of Halley’s Comet. IU football fans should be grateful for every paltry crumb which falls from the table to them. I certainly am. (November 17, 2007) Bill Lynch Is Our Guy Most IU football fans saw it coming. Those with solid knowledge of the school’s football history knew it was coming. Glum silence pretty much greeted the news that the school was giving Bill Lynch, an assistant who was given the job when head coach Terry Hoeppner died last summer, a four-year extension on his contract to run the program. Athletic director Rick Greenspan said he never contacted any other coach during a decision process many fans hoped might involve a nationwide search. Lynch’s previous coaching record at Ball State and DePauw was undistinguished. That, and his almost vegetablelike personality, were negatives in the public perception of him. He did a creditable job—by Indiana University football standards—of guiding the team to a 7-5 record overall (3-5 in league play) and a likely bowl game, the school’s first since 1994. The local press flacks—columnist Bob Kravitz and beat writer Terry Hutchens of the Indianapolis Star—all along had argued for Lynch’s selection. Indiana has fielded a college football team for 120 years now, and its won-lost record is in the bottom five of all Division schools in the nation, and last in the Big Ten. One of the consequences of this has been a settling over the program and all who touch it, of a view of hopelessness and doom. Those leading the program cannot, of course, ever publicly express such feelings, but the school’s continuing history of feeble corrective action and an all but irresistible eagerness to settle for low-tier mediocrity are compelling evidence. Kravitz himself came as close as anyone to admitting as much when, in his column announcing the Lynch choice, he dismissed critics who thought IU should have searched nationally and hired a big-name (or bigger-named) coach, by asking, “Who was going to walk through the door?” at IU and want to lead such a program. Kravitz’s conclusion—and certainly that of Greenspan and other university pooh-bahs—was that Lynch, who had publicly stated his wish for a “dream job” such as this--was the best IU could ever hope for, and therefore he was really the right man and the best man for the job. So, another search is over. Bill Lynch is the guy. Our most fervent prayer ought to be that he will, indeed, be the right guy to lead Indiana out of the football wilderness. The best thing about this is that we will actually find out if he is or isn’t. And in the grand cosmic scheme of the universe, the choice of who coaches IU football makes no difference in anything. The planet will hurtle onward into the void, utterly oblivious to it all. Light those candles. (November 27, 2007) Dang! Trouble Just Follows Coach Around, Wherever He Goes Coach got back in the news in an old, familiar way as November circled the drain. Two people in the Lubbock, Texas area, where Coach now coaches the Texas Tech basketball team, told Associated Press that Bob Knight or one of his hunting companions hit them with birdshot on two occasions in October. No one was hurt, and no charges have been filed against Knight. One of the persons claiming to be hit said it happened three times and was done “intentionally.” Coach denied that and sputtered his usual profanities when an AP reporter inquired. Midwesterners can only smile and remember a similar October, 1999, episode when Knight was coaching at Indiana. In that one, Coach peppered a hunting companion with shotgun pellets while on a hunting trip in Wisconsin. The victim required medical treatment and later sued Knight, claiming that Knight had tried to coerce him into agreeing with Knight’s version of the event. Coach was cited for failing to report the incident and for hunting without a license. The suit was settled out of court in 2001. Some stuff never changes. (November 30, 2007) Back to top
©2009 Twitfits.com