A Season on the Brink

by John Feinstein

  On the morning of the game Knight and Hammel walked from the hotel into the arena for the game-day shootaround. The walk was only about half a mile, but the temperature was about zero and the winds made it feel even colder. Knight never blinked. He is an inveterate walker, regardless of temperature on the road. And when Knight walks, Hammel walks. It isn’t a matter of choice. Knight says, “Come on, Hamso, let’s go,” and they are off.

  Knight and Hammel spend so much time together on road trips that the players over the years have taken to calling Hammel “the shadow.” What the players don’t know is that this is more Knight’s idea than Hammel’s. Knight doesn’t like spending time alone, and over the years he has become extremely comfortable with Hammel. He trusts him, and Hammel knows his moods well enough that if Knight doesn’t say a word during an hour-long walk, Hammel knows to stay silent. When Knight feels like talking, he will talk.

  On this frigid morning, Knight was in a nostalgic mood. “Hamso, do you realize I made this exact same walk on a game morning twenty years ago?” he said. “I haven’t come very far since then, have I?”

  Because Knight calls Hammel “Hamso,” everyone else in the Indiana party calls him that, too. Everyone else in the world calls him Bob, but on the Indiana basketball team there is only one Bob—the one everybody calls Coach.

  When Knight coached at Army, he was known to one and all in the East as Bobby. His mother calls him Bobby. Most of the people in Orrville still call him Bobby, and Fred Taylor calls him Bobby. But Knight has always signed his name Bob and identified himself as Bob. When he first arrived at Indiana, Hammel asked him which he preferred in print. Knight said it didn’t matter to him. “Well, then, let’s go with Bob,” Hammel said, “because I hated being called Bobby as a kid.” That was fine with Knight. That is what he is called throughout the Midwest—Bob. But he answers to Bobby just as easily. The only person who ever refers to him as Robert is his wife.

  The game that night was markedly different from the one Knight had coached in twenty years earlier. Once again, Indiana proved that it could compete with very good teams. The game was much like the Kentucky game, close all the way. Neither team led by more than four points during the first half. Harris was a different player—hanging in with the Louisville leapers on the boards, playing with intelligence. But Daryl Thomas, who had scored twenty-nine points against Texas Tech and really looked to be coming into his own, was having trouble. At halftime he had four points, zero rebounds, and three fouls. Harris also had three fouls, but when he came out with 1:38 left, Knight walked down the bench and put his arm around him. “Keep your head up, you’re doing a hell of a job.”

  It was the first time that Harris had earned praise since the Czech game. At halftime it was 34-32, Indiana, after Alford shocked everyone by missing a free throw with four seconds left. Still, Knight was pleased. Standing in the shower room that he and the coaches used for their meeting, he said firmly, “There’s no doubt in my mind that we can play with anybody.”

  They played with Louisville until the final seconds. In the end, the foul trouble that plagued Harris and Thomas did them in. And at the finish Louisville guard Milt Wagner, a fifth-year player who had been out the entire 1985 season with a broken foot, found his missing shooting touch. He finished the game with twenty-two points—five less than Alford—but made seven of eight free throws down the stretch. The last two came with Louisville leading 62-61 and ten seconds left.

  Knight called time to try to rattle Wagner and to set up a play in case he missed. “I think he’s going to miss,” he told the players, “and we’re going to hit a shot and win the game.”

  Wagner didn’t miss. Louisville won 65-63. But the point had been made. Playing an excellent team on the road, the chance had been there. Knight was encouraged. There was no crying, no gnashing of teeth. They had played well and so had Louisville. Games like this were excellent preparation for the Big Ten. “We’ve got Iowa State in three days,” Knight said. “Let’s not have a repeat of Kansas State.”

  When Klingelhoffer came to get Knight for the press conference, the players were almost dressed. Crum had taken a long time. “I can’t go,” Knight said. “I’ve got to get these kids home. Some of them have exams in the morning. Explain that to them.” Klingelhoffer asked Knight for a couple of comments about the game he could take back. Knight gave them to him.

  While Klingelhoffer went to type these quotes, he sent his assistant, Eric Ruden, to tell Louisville SID Kenny Klein that Knight wouldn’t be coming to the press conference because the players had to get home for exams in the morning. Klein then announced only that Knight would not be coming to the press conference.

  Knight had done himself in again. His reason for skipping the press conference was legitimate. But even so, if he had taken ten minutes to go in and answer a few questions, it would have made little difference to the players and would have avoided any problems. Even if his explanation had been properly relayed through channels, the fact remained that because of his past, Knight was always going to be guilty until proved innocent in the eyes of most reporters. Was this fair? No. But it was the same way Knight viewed most reporters.

  The newspaper reports the next day said that Knight had refused to attend the postgame press conference. Technically, this was accurate, though incomplete. When Knight saw this reference in a game story in The Indianapolis Star, he exploded. He called Klingelhoffer down to the locker room. Klingelhoffer explained what had happened. Knight was, to put it mildly, unhappy with Klingelhoffer. “I get enough crap from those people without this kind of thing happening,” he said. “Jesus Christ, is that fair, Kit?”

  Klingelhoffer escaped. Knight walked into the bathroom. For a moment there was silence. Then he began kicking the bathroom stall. He stormed back into the room, kicked the phone sitting on the floor and the garbage can in the corner. “I just can’t take it anymore,” he yelled.

  To Knight, this was a classic case of being unfairly made out as a villain. This is an image Knight has appeared to court for years but, in fact, he hates it. He hadn’t been upset after the game; he had been pleased with the way the team had played. But now, it looked to the public like old Bobby was sulking over a loss again. He blamed Klingelhoffer, and he blamed the Star reporter, Bill Benner. But Benner hadn’t reported the incident any differently than other writers, Knight had seen only his story.

  Once, Knight probably would have stayed angry over such an incident for several days. But he has come a long way in letting go of incidents that involve the media. Losses he cannot let go of, but he has consciously worked at caring less about what is said and written about him. He still gets angry, as the Louisville incident illustrates, and will brood at times about what he sees as mistreatment, but on a scale of one to ten he has improved from a solid one to perhaps a five over the years.

  That is progress. Because of that progress, the two days of practice between Louisville and Iowa State were brisk, sharp, and almost temper-free. The players were still in exams on Thursday and Friday, and Knight didn’t want to add any pressure. Because of the exam schedule, he worried that they might be flat for Iowa State, a good team that had already beaten Iowa and Michigan State earlier in the month. Iowa State was coached by Johnny Orr, a longtime Knight buddy. Knight had respected Orr when he coached at Michigan, and he thought Orr had his most talented team in six years at Iowa State.

  Knight was correct, as Iowa State would prove by reaching the NCAA round of sixteen, but if truth be told he had absolutely no reason to worry about this game. With exams over Friday, the players were scheduled to go home to see their families after the game on Saturday—unless they played poorly and put Knight in such a bad mood that he decided not to send them home. Or, he might decide to bring them back on Christmas Eve—that had happened in the past. The players wanted none of this. They wanted to win and go home. When they walked into pregame meal on Saturday morning, a message was waiting on their plates: “You have to earn this Christmas pr
esent.” Knight knew how to appeal to basic desires.

  The score was 17–4 before Iowa State knew what had happened. By halftime it was 44–26. Knight started Robinson on Iowa State’s star guard Jeff Hornacek, ordering him to stay with Hornacek all over the floor, not to switch, not to look for help. He wanted Robinson to use his quickness to deny Hornacek the basketball. This was an ideal assignment for Robinson because he only had to concentrate on one thing: Hornacek.

  Hornacek was one for six at halftime, and not a factor. Nothing changed in the second half. Iowa State crept briefly to within fourteen, but Thomas (thirty-one points) and Alford (twenty-four) pounded away, and the lead grew to 74–49 with 7:54 to play. Indiana was making a good team look helpless. Even with Calloway and Harris shooting a combined five for fifteen, Iowa State had no chance. The only hitches in the whole act came late. Jadlow got careless with a couple of rebounds, allowing Iowa State to get to within seventeen. Knight called time to berate Jadlow for careless play. And in the final minute, someone in the stands noticed that Harris had his uniform shirt hanging out. “Tuck your shirt in, Andre,” he yelled. Harris reached for the shirt as everyone laughed. Knight did not. He sent Brooks over to tell Harris to get the damn shirt in. He did.

  The final was 86-65. Merry Christmas.

  As the players charged into the locker room, Royce Waltman looked at the other coaches and said, “Now that’s the way to strike a blow for liberty.” That’s exactly what they had done. They had four days of liberty. Normally, Knight would have asked them to be back Christmas morning because they had a game on December 27. But he was so pleased he gave them the morning off, meaning most of them could spend it with their families.

  “Come back ready to go, though,” he warned. “When we get back, Michigan will only be a week away.” Michigan. The Big Ten. The players knew they had better enjoy Christmas while they could.

  Knight was almost obsessed with Michigan. The Wolverines had won the Big Ten championship in a runaway the year before, winning their last fifteen league games. One of their losses had been in the opener, at Ann Arbor, when Indiana destroyed them by twenty-five points. That had been before the collapse at Indiana. Now, Michigan had everyone back from that team and was a heavy favorite to win the league again.

  But Michigan was more than just the league favorite. The Wolverines were coached by Bill Frieder, a longtime Orr assistant coach who had been given the job in 1980 when Orr left for Iowa State. Once, Knight and Frieder had been friends. Frieder was one of those young coaches who looked up to Knight, asked him for advice, and treated him like one of the game’s statesmen.

  In 1981, just prior to the start of the national championship game, Frieder had gone to the locker room to wish Knight luck. A photographer had taken a picture of them standing together in the hallway outside the locker room. For Frieder’s fortieth birthday, Knight had the picture laminated and signed it, “To Bill, who no doubt will be on the other side of this picture (playing for the national championship) some day soon.” Frieder was so proud of the picture he hung it right next to the desk in his office.

  In January 1983, when Indiana blew Michigan out in Bloomington, Knight went into the Michigan locker room to tell the players that if they stuck to what they were doing and listened to Coach Frieder, they would be a fine team someday. That freshman group was now the senior nucleus of the current team.

  It all changed between Frieder and Knight in 1984. The day before an Indiana-Michigan game in Ann Arbor, Frieder came to see Knight at practice. He had a problem. The local writer in Ann Arbor was really on his case about changing lineups. The writer maintained that Frieder was indecisive and this was proof. Would Knight talk to him?

  This was quite a favor to ask, especially the day before a game. But Knight almost never says no to a friend, and Frieder was a friend. When the writer came to see Knight after practice, Knight said to him, “Tell me, do you think I’m a good coach?”

  “I think you’re the best.”

  “Well, let me tell you something. There probably isn’t a coach in America who changes lineups more than me. It doesn’t mean you’re indecisive. It means you’re still looking for a combination that works. That’s what Bill is doing here.”

  The next day, the writer’s column was, more or less, an apology to Frieder for questioning him. If Bob Knight said it was right, then it was right.

  That day during the game, Knight got entangled in a messy argument with the officials near the end of the first half. He was given a technical. He continued screaming. As he did, he heard Frieder a few feet away yelling, “Give him another technical!” When the half ended, Knight went after Frieder in the runway leading to the locker rooms. He was enraged. Knight doesn’t think any coach should get involved in another coach’s argument. But for Frieder to do this one day after he had asked for—and received—the kind of favor Knight had done for him was inexcusable. In no uncertain terms, Knight told Frieder just that.

  Frieder maintains that he didn’t realize Knight had been given a technical and he was trying to tell the officials that what Knight was saying merited one. Either way, he was involved when Knight thought he had no right to be involved. As far as Knight was concerned, that was the end of the friendship. Apologies were a waste of time. Frieder took down the picture next to his desk. “I didn’t think Bob would want me to have it there,” he said.

  Two years later, Frieder regretted the incident and still hoped that someday Knight would forgive him. It would, at the very least, take a while.

  Before Michigan came to town there was the little matter of playing the post-Christmas Hoosier Classic. This was a four-year-old Indianapolis version of the Indiana Classic. Because I.U. is so popular that it can sell 15,000 seats in Indianapolis regardless of the opponent, this tournament had been invented. It meant Indiana never had to play away at Christmas, and all the revenues from the two tournaments were profit because expenses in Bloomington were zero and in Indianapolis near zero.

  The opposition in this tournament would be Idaho, Mississippi State, and San Jose State. Even Knight had to concede that Indiana would be hard-pressed to lose to any of these teams. Because of this, Knight did something that no one could ever remember him doing in the past: he looked beyond an opponent. The Christmas day practice and the two the following day were spiced with constant talk about Michigan.

  “I am not interested in beating Idaho or San Jose State or Mississippi State,” Knight said during practice. “I’m interested in beating Michigan.”

  Hammel, hearing this, was shocked. So was Tim Knight. Neither could ever remember hearing Knight talk to his team about a game before it was the next game on the schedule. “I worry,” Hammel said, “about putting so much into one game.”

  They didn’t put much into the Idaho game. Perhaps the first half of this game was proof of the Knight theory that you have to build up every opponent. Indiana was sloppy, sleepy, not into the game. A 5–9 guard for Idaho named Chris Carey hit his first five shots. Idaho actually led, 25–23, with 4:49 left in the half before Indiana came back to lead 37–33 at the break.

  “I am so depressed I don’t even want to talk,” Knight told the players. “I’m through fighting you kids. I can’t do it anymore.” Then he cleared the locker room: assistant coaches, doctors, trainers, managers. For four minutes it was just Knight and the players. He said nothing he hadn’t said before but the message was clear—and loud.

  Knight stalked onto the floor still angry. He called Crabb over to the bench. One of Crabb’s jobs is to supervise Indiana’s cheerleaders. “This crowd is dead, absolutely dead,” Knight told Crabb. “I don’t want these people [the cheerleaders] out here just to be seen. I want them doing something. I want them to get these people in the damn game. If they don’t do it, they won’t be here tomorrow night.”

  Crabb understood. He also understood that the world’s greatest cheerleaders would have had trouble getting a response to the first half that had just been played. But he wasn
’t about to point that out to Knight.

  Fortunately for Crabb, the cheerleaders, and everyone else inside the city limits, the players responded to their halftime whipping. After six more minutes of struggle they scored ten straight points to turn a 47–41 lead into a 57-41 lead in a two-minute stretch. The lead just kept building from there and the final was 87–57.

  Calloway, who had struggled before Christmas, had twenty-six points, and Alford had twenty-four. But the real hero was Delray Brooks, who came off the bench to spark everyone. Brooks had only four points, but he had seven assists and outhustled everyone on the floor. He earned himself a start with his play and got a standing ovation at the end of the game. The second-half margin was 50–24. Everyone breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  The opponent in the final would be Mississippi State. Knight worried about their quickness, but there was no need. It was 46–22 by half time, and the final was 74–43. Brooks and Jadlow both got starts. Jadlow finished with ten points and eight rebounds and had Knight raving about his toughness.

  The whole day was a high for Knight. That afternoon, he and Kohn Smith walked across the street from the hotel to a Bob Evans restaurant. Knight loves to eat in Bob Evans. Whenever Indiana stays in a hotel near a Bob Evans, Knight is apt to eat there three times a day, the last time usually at two or three in the morning. Many a Knight diet has gone aglimmering at Bob Evans over apple pie and ice cream in the wee hours on the morning of a game.

  Knight was sipping an iced tea when a boy of about twelve gingerly approached him. Behind him were two older men; one appeared to be his older brother, the other his father. Knight is eminently approachable in these situations, patient and polite. He always signs an autograph when asked politely.

  The young man’s name was Garland Loper. Shyly, he explained that his father and older brother were deaf-mutes and would like to meet Coach Knight. Garland was the family spokesman. When the other two wanted to say something they signed it to him and he spoke it to the world. Knight was completely charmed by Garland Loper. He talked for several minutes to the three Lopers, gave them his autograph, and asked Garland for his address. When Knight returned to school, he had Indiana shirts, brochures, and an autographed team picture sent to the Lopers. Then he called and invited the whole family to come to a game.