Everybody's got a Bobby Knight story
Here's mine. As usual with Knight, it was a disaster
(I posted a version of this on the platform formerly known as Twitter and people seemed to like it, so I thought I’d put it in the newsletter.)
In 1979 I was writing a sports column at the Colorado Springs Sun, a small newspaper in the front range of the Rocky Mountains. How small? Well, it was the second biggest newspaper in the second-largest city in Colorado. The Washington Post it was not.
However, CS was then (and still is) the location of the U.S. Olympic Committee Training Center. So a lot of American teams gathered there to be fitted for game uniforms and outfits for formal events, like opening ceremonies. A lot of well-known athletes and coaches stopped in.
That year Knight, a wildly successful — if extremely volatile and controversial — college coach at Indiana, was selected to be the coach of the USA Pan American team. They stopped in Colorado Springs on the way to the Pan Am Games, which were in Puerto Rico that year.
When he arrived I was the only reporter there, notebook in hand. I asked, a little nervously, if he had time for an interview.
He gave me a one-word answer: No.
Kinda what I figured, but at least I made the effort.
Then he surprised me. He said the team was headed to a workout at the Air Force Academy and if I would drive out there — probably 45 minutes — he’d talk to me then.
I jumped in my car and was in the gym and waiting when Knight and the team arrived.
And . . . he was nice as pie.
He was happy to talk, told some stories and even flashed a little sense of humor. It was just great.
So I drove back to the office and wrote a column that said, in so many words: “You know, a lot of people don’t like Bobby Knight. But I spent some time with him one-on-one, and he couldn’t have been nicer. Maybe the haters have it all wrong. Maybe he’s a misunderstood good guy.”
And after that column ran, Knight got on the plane for Puerto Rico for the Games.
There, he . . .
Got into a huge argument with the referees in the very first game, despite leading by 35 points. He was so vociferous that he was ejected from the game.
Somehow got into a confrontation with a Puerto Rico police officer about the use of a gym for practice and by some accounts punched the cop.
As a result, Knight was arrested, handcuffed and spent a brief time in jail. Subsequently, he was ordered to stand trial in Puerto Rico, but left the country before his day in court and refused to return for a trial. He was tried anyhow and sentenced to six months in prison, which he never served.
Back in the States, when asked about the incident, he said of the Puerto Ricans, “Fuck ‘em. The only thing they know how to do is grow bananas.”
So basically, he was an international embarrassment.
My takeaway? First impressions are overrated.
This newsletter is sent our on an irregular basis. If you’d like to read it when it arrives, click this button. It’s free and worth every penny.
Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Twitter: @cwnevius
But you miss the point. He was right.