• Former IU head coach says press created controversy
By LAURA ROMPF
Associate News Editor
While coaching at Indiana, Bobby Knight loved visiting South Bend to play Notre Dame. The people were nice and the fans were courteous. Except for one.
When the Hoosiers played the Irish, former athletic director Moose Krause would don a bright red sweater, similar to the infamous sweater Knight himself wore.
"Moose was great," Knight said. "He'd say, `Now Coach, I'm wearing this red sweater for you. We're going to beat your ass, but I'm wearing this red sweater for you.'"
Besides Krause, Knight has several other close friends connected with the University, including former men's basketball coach Digger Phelps. While coaching at West Point in the late 1960s, Knight said he eventually wanted to move to Notre Dame and even contacted the athletic director about the head coaching position. About a month after Knight accepted the Indiana job, the Notre Dame job opened up and was offered to Phelps.
"Digger got the job, which I think he would've [even if I had been available]. It worked well for both of us," Knight said. "Indiana was a great place for me to go, and Notre Dame was a great place for Digger to go."
The two remained friends and coached against each other annually, either in Bloomington or South Bend. During one visit to Notre Dame, Knight brought a priest who was the head of the Newman Foundation at Indiana University. Because of Notre Dame's strong Catholic heritage, Knight said Phelps initially thought he was making a joke about University traditions.
"Digger thought I'd dressed a guy up as a priest and brought him to the game. But he was an ordained priest," Knight said. "He sat right behind me and early in the game, he got on the officials about the second play of the game. I had to turn around, I said `Father, will you get your ass back down.'"
Controversy
From throwing a chair to allegedly choking a player, controversy seemed to follow Knight while he was at Indiana. But Knight said that is because the news media focused on isolated incidents rather than the whole truth. Knight claims during his tenure at Indiana, the entire team, himself included, committed the fewest technical fouls in the country. The second least penalized team had twice as many.
"If you sit at a basketball game that I've coached, first of all, the other coach is going to get up far more than I do," Knight said. "Secondly the other coach is going to get on the officials far more than I do. When I get up once, an issue is made over it, then it becomes something that happens all the time. That's just not the case."
Knight said he has turned down interviews and refused to answer questions in the past because journalists are not doing the background work necessary to conduct a thoughtful interview.
"I like people [in the media] that deal with you honestly and work to be accurate and don't base opinions on something they have read or heard," Knight said. "They base it on what they themselves know and encounter. I've had people that have written articles about me who I wouldn't know if they walked through the door right now."
Knight said people in the media today are lazy, boring and often repeat questions.
"They don't pay attention," Knight said. "They've got so many things that they can do, but they take the easy way out so many times."
Knight refused to comment on the recent controversy surrounding his relationship with Indiana. He said the commercial he did for Minute Maid, which features Knight acting excessively gentle towards players, is not taunting the Indiana accusations that he was abusive.
"I don't think it mocks the I.U. situation at all. I don't think I.U. is even involved in that commercial," Knight said. "I don't have any relationship with I.U. I didn't have any relationship with anyone but Indiana when I coached there. My relationship is exclusively with Texas Tech."
Sitting this one out
After coaching nearly 30 years at Indiana, Knight recently signed a new contract with Texas Tech. For the first time in decades, Knight isn't an active participant in March Madness, but that doesn't mean he's not paying attention.
Knight said his former player and assistant coach Mike Krzyzewski, who now coaches Duke University, has a good shot at making it to the NCAA championship game. However, Knight said Maryland will put up a fight, as shown in the teams' earlier meetings this season.
"If this season's previous games are a sign of things to come, then this should be a really tight, tough game," Knight said. "I think that Duke's defense is such that if they don't get into a running contest ... I think they'll beat Maryland."
Knight said he is impressed with Michigan State's coach, Tom Izzo, who has brought his team back to the Final Four after losing three starters. Knight said Arizona is also peaking at this point in the season, so the game should go down to the wire.
"The interesting part of that game is Arizona is really a team that controls the area around the basket on defense and Michigan State's strongest characteristic is their offensive rebounding. So their two strengths go right against each other," he said.
Although Notre Dame isn't in the running for the national title this year, Knight predicted success for head coach Mike Brey.
"The coach that you got now is really going to do a good job," Knight said. "I think Mike did a really good job this year and I think he's going to do a great job for you."
Fear and respect
Some assume Knight's coaching tactics create fear in his players and thus gain him respect, but Knight said the two concepts are very different.
"I don't think fear and respect are synonymous," he said. "I think a coach earns the respect of players by how he prepares them and what he teaches them."
Whether through fear or not, many of Knight's players left Indiana with a deep respect for their former head coach. While Knight sat at one side of a circular table in McKenna Hall Tuesday for an interview, a former Indiana player and current Notre Dame employee sat at the other. He came simply to see Knight Ñ to visit with his former coach.
The player smiled gently several times as Knight shot down question after question from the three student panelists. He watched Knight reprimand the students, trying to teach them something about the man he was rather than the man he is portrayed to be.
This player knew what happened if you skipped class under Coach Knight. He knew Knight threw the chair. He'd heard about the choking incident and all of the recent controversy that led to Knight's firing. But he seemed to respect the man nonetheless.
This former player is not alone. Knight said many players realized after they left Bloomington that the Indiana basketball program was unique.
"Once they get away, maybe they have a chance to play professional basketball, they see the attitude that other players have towards their schools compared to what our guys have towards their school," Knight said. "They see that the difference is often astronomical."
All News Stories for Wednesday, March 28, 2001
