I wasn’t really worried about missing anything. There were only about thirty or forty minutes left anyway.
“I know that, Tim, but if I leave it makes him think I’m intimidated because he yelled at me.”
Garl laughed. “You’ve been here almost five months,” he said. “He knows you aren’t intimidated by him by now. Believe me. You need to take one for the team today. You may not owe this to him, but you owe this to the players.”
He was right. Knight went off on the players often enough without me adding to their misery. “Okay,” I said. “But if anything happens…”
Garl held up a hand. “I promise,” he said.
I went home angry because I didn’t think I had done anything wrong. There was a part of me that wanted to pack my bags, write a note to Knight saying, “See you down the road, asshole,” and get the hell out of town. I knew that finding out what was going on inside the team for what little was left of the season wouldn’t be difficult. By that point I was friends with the assistants, with Garl and his assistant, Steve Dayton, and with most of the players. Then again, it wouldn’t be the same as me being there firsthand and I knew it. I had to remind myself one more time: the goal is to get to the end of the season and write a good book, not to let your ego or your temper get in the way.
I cooled off considerably when Felling called to thank me for leaving and to tell me that Knight had, in fact, calmed down after I had left. He asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner, but I thanked him and said no. An evening at home after all those nights out with Knight would be a nice change of pace.
“I’ll be there for walkthrough in the morning,” I said. “If he doesn’t want me there, he’s going to have to tell me to leave.”
“I understand,” Felling said. “We’re all with you. We’ll help any way we can.”
I appreciated that, but I also knew this was strictly between Knight and me. No one was going to intervene, and I didn’t want anyone to intervene. I had seen what happened when Knight was upset with a person and someone else dared to speak up on his behalf.
Knight didn’t say a word to me on game day. Indiana struggled against Minnesota again, but won the game. I just went about my business as if nothing had happened. The only thing I did that was different was ride to the pregame meal with the assistants instead of with Knight. Indiana won again on Sunday against Iowa to unofficially wrap up an NCAA berth. The Hoosiers were 20–6 at that point. There was one week left in the regular season.
I was in the locker room talking to some of the players when Kohn Smith pulled me aside and said, “Coach wants to see you.”
My first thought was, “Well, if he throws me out now, I got through two more key games this week.” I walked across the court to the Cave. Knight had just come out of the shower and was sitting in his chair in a towel. As usual, he began the conversation without any sort of greeting.
“I’ve been pretty goddamn pissed off at you the last few days,” he said as soon as the door closed.
“I noticed.”
“I came this close to telling you to get the f— out of here about five times,” he said. “If you hadn’t left practice when you did on Tuesday, I don’t know what I would have done.”
I actually didn’t think he would have done anything, but he wanted me to know that he had noticed that I had felt the need to leave.
“That was Garl’s idea,” I said, knowing the answer was a little bit risky but, since we were alone, not caring as much as I would have if the other coaches had been in the room. If I was going out, I’d go out swinging.
“Garl’s a smart man,” Knight said.
I waited to see where this was going. Knight launched into a lengthy doth-protest-too-much speech about how little he cared about his image or what anyone thought about him, which was why it pissed him off so much when anyone thought he cared about his image.
I kept listening. “I decided to let you stay,” he said. “And let me tell you why. First of all, I thought you showed guts just showing up these last few days, knowing I might tell you to get the f— out at any minute. Second, I know you’ve rooted like hell for this team. And third, even though you’re a f—up sometimes, I like you.”
“Thanks, Bob,” I said. “I like you too.”
I wasn’t sure at that moment if I meant that, but it was the right thing to say. And I had rooted like hell for the team. I liked the players a lot and I certainly could appreciate what they had gone through to be 20–6 at that moment.
“Okay,” he said. “Do me a favor and go tell the coaches to come on back in here. How about if we go to Zagreb’s tonight to celebrate beating the Hawkeyes?”
That sounded good to me. Little Zagreb’s was one of those really good steakhouses with sawdust on the floor. I went and found the coaches, who were back in the locker room.
“Well?” Felling asked.
“He likes me,” I said. “And I’ve rooted like hell for the team.”
“We like you too,” Felling said.
That was nice to hear. We all walked back into the Cave.
“Fellas,” Knight said, “Feinstein lives to fight another day.”
More important, I lived to report another day.
6
Moving On… and Not Moving On
THE REST OF THE season passed without incident, at least without incidents involving me. Indiana played superbly at Michigan State after the Iowa game, setting up a rematch with Michigan for the Big Ten title. There was no tournament back then and winning the Big Ten—especially the idea of somehow stealing it from Michigan—was a big deal for Knight.
Unfortunately, it was also a big deal for Michigan, which took control of the game at the start and turned it into a blowout before halftime. Knight ranted at the players afterward for lacking toughness, but he had to be happy with the way they had bounced back from their 7–11 Big Ten record of a year earlier to finish 13–5 and in second place. When the NCAA field came out the next day, Indiana was the number three seed in the East behind top-seeded Duke and two seed Syracuse. Knight loved the draw. He was convinced that Syracuse wasn’t that good and, at that point in time, losing in the regional final to Mike Krzyzewski would be about as close to an acceptable loss as was possible.
“At least if we lose to Duke, one of the good guys will make the Final Four,” he told the coaches on Sunday night.
Knight expected a difficult first-round game from Cleveland State because the Vikings were quick and they pressed—much the same way Iowa pressed. Even in the win at home against Iowa, Indiana had struggled against that sort of quick, full court pressure. Repeatedly he told the players to expect a difficult game. And yet I felt as if he was already thinking, in the back of his mind, about Syracuse in the round of sixteen.
As it turned out, neither Indiana nor Syracuse got that far. Indiana was sent to Syracuse to play in the Carrier Dome. Syracuse was playing a home-court first-round game against Brown, and then was scheduled to play the Navy-Tulsa winner in the second round. Indiana would play the second afternoon game on Friday, right after St. Joseph’s played Richmond. The assistant coaches sat and watched that game on press row, having already made arrangements to get game tapes from the losers on the winners in order to prepare for a second-round game Sunday.
Because the NCAA had strict rules about the number of people who could sit on the bench, I watched the game from press row. I was still in the locker room before the game and, as soon as the half ended, I raced across to join the team to walk into the locker room. I did the same at game’s end.
The NCAA now has rules that basically make it impossible for any media member to have this kind of access during an NCAA Tournament game. I have been told by people I know at the NCAA that I am directly responsible for two NCAA rules: the first is on locker room access. Now the rule says that if any media member is allowed in the locker room prior to the official open–locker room period after the game, all media members must be allowed in.
Clearly, that w
ouldn’t work for someone writing a book like mine, which is what the NCAA wants. This has come up as an issue twice in books I’ve done since Season on the Brink. The first was in 1997 when I was working on my book on ACC basketball. Knowing that the NCAA had changed the rule, I didn’t apply for media credentials at any of the early-round sites. This was at the suggestion of Terry Holland, who was the basketball committee chairman that year.
“If you don’t have a media credential, then I would think the rule on opening the locker room wouldn’t apply,” he said.
So I got the coaches—except for Dean Smith, who still wasn’t letting his mother or me into his locker room—to put me on their “official party” lists. That meant I would walk in with the team, be given a lapel pin that allowed me in the locker room and onto the bench area (the NCAA had extended the bench area to two rows by then to accommodate more managers and assistant coaches) but not into media areas. That was fine with me. I needed to be with the teams I had been given that sort of access to all season.
Good plan. Except that the late Dave Cawood, whom I had done battle with frequently in my role as president of the Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) a few years earlier (Cawood didn’t want the media to have even one little bit more access than we already had), saw my name on the official party lists and wrote me a letter saying that, as a media member, I couldn’t be on any official party list. “Who are you,” I asked, “to say who can and can’t be on official party lists? That’s strictly up to the schools.” Cawood said, “Fine, but the open–locker room media rules will apply if you’re in the locker room,” and he would make sure all media members in attendance knew that any locker room I was in was open to all of them.
I called Holland and asked him to intervene, especially since he had said if I wasn’t on a media list, I wouldn’t be considered media.
Holland and I have known each other and liked each other (at least I like him) since he first got to Virginia in 1974, when I was an undergraduate at Duke, and he returned my call on a story I was working on for the student newspaper. Terry didn’t want to get in the middle of a fight between Cawood and me. He said the media was Dave’s bailiwick, and he would defer to Dave. So I had to give in and get media credentials. If you think I ever forgave Cawood, you’re wrong.
Three years later, when I was working on my Patriot League book, I was smarter. Plus, Cawood had “left” the NCAA. I applied for a media credential in Buffalo, where Lafayette, the league champion, was being sent to play. Then I got the Lafayette people to add me to their official party list on the official practice day, twenty-four hours before their game against Temple. By the time Jim Marchiony, who had taken Cawood’s job, figured out that I was in the locker room, it was too late; the game was over and, since Lafayette had lost, I didn’t have to worry about a second-round game.
The other NCAA rule I am told I’m responsible for is one that now makes it a violation for a coach to take a member of the media on a recruiting visit. When I was researching my second book, A Season Inside, I went on home visits with a number of coaches, including Gary Williams, Paul Evans, and Dale Brown. The Brown visit was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. Dale was visiting a kid named Chris Jent—I also went with Williams when he visited Jent—and he spent the night regaling the Jent family with stories about his world travels, which included, I think, a hunt he went on in search of Sasquatch. Or maybe it was to see the Dalai Lama. I’m not certain. I was ready to sign with LSU and Brown. Jent signed with Ohio State and Williams.
Soon after A Season Inside came out I got a call from a guy I knew on the NCAA enforcement staff. “Congratulations,” he said. “We now have two Feinstein rules.” He then explained to me that it was now considered an “unfair advantage” to take a media member on a home visit because it might imply to the recruit that he would get more media coverage by playing for that coach and school.
“What if I went with every coach who visited a kid?” I asked.
“Good question,” the guy said.
Maybe someday I’ll test it, if only to upset my friends in Indianapolis.
ON THIS DAY IN Syracuse, no one tried to stop me from getting into the Indiana locker room—until after the game.
Indiana lost, 83–79. Cleveland State jumped to a 4–0 lead and Indiana never caught up. I still remember Knight’s line at halftime: “I ought to fire all of us.”
The game really wasn’t close. Indiana made some consolation buckets late, but Cleveland State was in control. I was sitting next to Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe. Late in the game when it was apparent Indiana wasn’t going to rally, Jackie leaned over to me and said, “I’m so sorry. I know how much time you’ve put into this book.”
Her implication was that a book about a season that ended with a first-round loss to Cleveland State in the NCAA Tournament probably wasn’t going to have too many buyers. I could understand why she’d think that, but I honestly believed by then that the book I had was going to be very good regardless of how Indiana’s season ended. I just didn’t think anyone had ever had the sort of access Knight had given me.
At that moment, I wasn’t thinking about how the loss might affect the book. I was thinking of the players. As Knight had correctly pointed out, I had rooted like hell for the team, because I liked and admired the players so much and because I had come to consider the assistant coaches friends.
When the game ended, I walked with Knight to the interview room. He had to wait briefly while Cleveland State coach Kevin Mackey was finishing up. Mackey’s life would go off the rails four years later when he was arrested coming out of a crack house and charged with possession of cocaine and DWI. At that moment though, he was riding high, explaining to the media how, while an assistant coach at Boston College, he had come up with the novel idea that recruiting the inner city was the way to go. Knight looked at me and said, “Is he f—ing kidding?”
Those were the last words he spoke to me that day. He handled the press conference calmly, lecturing the media only briefly on how many of them hadn’t understood how good Cleveland State was. He walked out of the room and headed directly to the bus. I walked back to the locker room to try to see people before they left. I was staying behind because the Post had asked me to cover Navy for the weekend while I was in Syracuse. Thinking that Indiana would be playing two games—I guess I was one of those media members who underestimated how good Cleveland State was—I had agreed. I knew I wouldn’t miss much on the plane trip back. And if I did miss anything, it would be reported to me, so I wasn’t that concerned. But I knew the players were leaving on spring break, and I probably wouldn’t see them again before I left town, which would now be early the next week since the season was over.
What I didn’t know when I walked back down the hall was that Knight had left instructions with security not to let the media into the locker room. The NCAA has rules about postgame media access, but Knight didn’t care and no one from the NCAA was going to tell him at that moment that he had to open his locker room. So when I tried to walk back inside, a security guard stopped me.
“No media allowed,” he said.
“Look, I’m with the team,” I said.
“Your badge says media,” he said correctly. “No media.”
“Okay, then. Can you just walk inside and find one of the coaches, they’ll explain to you—”
“Hey, pal, I said get lost, now get lost.”
Now I was pissed. The guy had gone from doing his job to being a bully. “Look, pal,” I said, “I need to get in there. I know you’re just following orders, but I’m asking you to find someone who knows what’s going on—”
The guy put out his arm as if to shove me. I took a step back. Things were about to get ugly. At that moment, Brian Sloan (son of Hall of Fame coach Jerry), who was a redshirt freshman that year, came out of the locker room and saw what was happening.
“Hey,” he said to the guard. “Leave him alone. He’s with us.”
The guard
looked at Sloan—clearly a player at 6'7", dressed neatly in a suit—and then at me.
“His badge says media.”
“He’s with us,” Sloan repeated. “Let him in.”
The guard stepped back. “Thanks, Brian,” I said, shaking hands.
“See you on the bus,” Sloan said, not knowing I wasn’t making the trip back.
I didn’t take time to explain, just thanked him again and walked inside. I didn’t have the chance to say much except to shake people’s hands and thank them. I told Alford I would call him at home over the weekend, and we made tentative plans for me to stop in New Castle, his hometown, on my drive east the next week. As I watched the players empty the locker room, I felt a profound sense of sadness because I was certain I would never feel this close to a group of athletes again. I was looking forward to getting home and to the return of some normalcy in my life, but I knew I’d miss the friends I had made the previous few months.
Once everyone had left, I walked down the hall to the media room, grabbed something to eat, and sat down at a table with several writers. It felt strange not being with the team. When I walked back onto the court, Navy and Tulsa were warming up. I spotted Navy coach Paul Evans and walked over to say hello.
“Well, you survived,” Evans said, knowing my time with Knight and Indiana had ended a couple of hours earlier.
He was right. I had survived. Now all I had to do was write the book.
I FLEW BACK TO Indianapolis late Sunday night and made the drive down SR-37 one more time. I had my car packed and ready to go by mid-morning on Monday. The players had scattered for spring break, but I knew the coaches were in town, and I had heard that Knight had them in looking at tape of the Cleveland State game most of the weekend. He had also told the players that they would be practicing once they returned from spring break until the day of the national championship game. The NCAA would change the rule allowing teams to practice until the tournament was over soon after Season on the Brink mentioned Knight’s postseason practices.
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