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DAZE WORK: Absorbing the full Bob Knight experience
Over the years I’ve been asked a number of times if I’ve ever met or interviewed any celebrities. Certainly that is one of the byproducts of this profession. And with about 50 years in this business, I’ve encountered my share.
Heck, I’ve bowled with The Mamas and Papas in French Lick (much to my daughters’ enduring delight in being able to retell that story) and with singer Harry Chapin in the old lanes in the basement of the DePauw Union Building. I’ve interviewed sports stars from Colts’ quarterback Peyton Manning (and his dad Archie) to baseball Hall of Famer Bob Lemon to being on hand for Colts’ Coach Jim Mora’s infamous “Playoffs!?” remark.
Thanks to DePauw, I’ve rubbed elbows with the likes of Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Spike Lee, Vice President Dan Quayle and astronaut Jim Lovell. Interviewed Mitch Daniels as governor, Dixie Chopper user and Purdue University president. And then there was author Shere Hite of “The Hite Report” on female sexuality giving me a crash course in womanly sexual response way too loudly in the middle of the DePauw Union Building lobby.
But nobody stands taller in my reporting experiences than Bob Knight, the legendary Indiana University basketball coach who died Wednesday at age 83.
Robert Montgomery Knight alternately intrigued, scared and mystified me as a still wet-behind-the-ears sports reporter for The Bloomington Courier-Tribune back in the day.
After all, Knight exuded the bigger-than-life presence of John Wayne, Ted Williams and my father, all rolled into one.
We had met early in my Bloomington tenure as another sports writer and I dropped in on one of his early practices in the fall of 1972. But it was a year later that I found myself in the eye of the hurricane by showing up at Coach Knight’s summer basketball camp to obtain his blessing to follow incoming 6-foot-11 player Kent Benson, the redhead who would become a cornerstone of the last unbeaten national college basketball champions, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. Benson was the lone recruit in that class, coming to IU to join the likes of Quinn Buckner, Scott May, Bobby Wilkerson and Tom Abernethy already in tow.
My goal was to follow Benson around campus during orientation to gauge the Hoosier faithful’s reaction to literally the big man on campus, the tallest recruit in the history of IU basketball to that moment.
Knight barely let me divulge my master plan before launching into a tirade about a story I had done earlier in the week involving one of his assistant coaches, John Hulls, who was leaving Bloomington (got the scoop when he called to cancel his paper) for a coaching job in Utah. Not happy with the support of the university after an unusual situation in which Hulls was shot by another resident in the local mobile home park where he lived while -- depending on your perspective -- he was either a hero chasing a would-be peeping Tom or was the offender himself.
As he voiced his disdain for my story, Knight shifted his weight and the bleachers groaned, crying out on their own, it seemed, as though they had somehow been violated. A stern look on his face, he glared at me and glanced down at Herald-Telephone Sports Editor Bob Hammel, seated at his feet like some basketball disciple. Hammel knew all about the situation but didn’t write about it, he asserted, yada, yada, yada.
“Now I’ll have 50,000 applicants,” Knight complained for what he kept calling “my job.” I kept thinking it was John Hulls’ job while marveling at how badly Knight had overestimated our circulation. Of course, I dared not say anything aloud to that effect because humor was an interesting element of the Bob Knight experience. While he had a great sense of humor, nobody ever laughed -- even when he told an obvious joke -- until those closest to the coach laughed or showed they were in on the joke, if there indeed was one.
But after verbally spanking me, Knight acknowledged the validity of what I wanted to do and gave his blessing. I was off and running and really didn’t expect to hear from him again about it.
During our interview, Benson praised Knight’s recruiting of him, especially in light of the full-court-press tactics Kentucky’s Joe B. Hall and Notre Dame’s Digger Phelps were employing, even following Benson to Europe where he was part of a touring high school all-star team.
Knight instead stayed in Bloomington, where he was helping 1973 grad Steve Downing work out a contract as a first-round draft pick of the Boston Celtics. To Benson, that cemented the relationship Knight had with his players, past and present.
When I heard Knight later address that Benson comment, knowing it only could have come from my full-page story on him, I felt vindicated by the whole experience. Not that I was going all Sally Field with “Bobby Knight likes me, he really likes me.” But I knew he was cool with my story, which while certainly not a goal of mine still felt good.
Honestly in my two-year experience with him, I believe Bob Knight made me a better reporter. You certainly never wanted to be That Guy, who asked the stupid question that steered him away from commenting on the game to attacking your credibility and then watch him leave the press conference without addressing on-court issues. You had to be prepared as much as his players were for any game in his 1972-2000 IU career.
Love him or loathe him, Bob Knight was a complicated man. What you saw was what you got. Trust me, he never cared whether you liked it or not.
Regardless, he has definitely carved out a place on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time sports coaches along with the likes of John Wooden, Vince Lombardi and Red Auerbach.
Almost certainly there will never be another one like Bob Knight.
And I feel lucky to have crossed paths with him.