Seth's 50 Centers

The country’s most outrageous, most controversial, most livid, most demonstrative and most polarizing coach called it quits Monday.

Bob Knight, much like Super Bowl losing coach Bill Belichick, was an easy read. Either you liked him or hated him, but at times I felt a bit of each.

As a student at Ohio State, I was fully aware of Knight’s existence as a player off the bench in the golden age of OSU hoops — the Buckeyes won the 1960 national title and were runners-up the next two seasons as Knight joined classmates like John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas on the run.

Havlicek had his number retired at Ohio State, as did Lucas, and during a media session he made sure to mention that Knight wasn’t just the towel boy who sat the bench all the time. He said he had a solid game.

Knight obviously went on to become a much more well-known coach than player. He grabbed his first head coaching job at Army at the age of 24, went on to win three national titles at Indiana and won over 900 games.

He also threw a chair across the court, nearly got arrested at the Pan-Am games and allegedly choked Neil Reid on the court. He was fired for an altercation with an IU student.

My experience with Knight was exactly what you’d imagine, and I think back fondly to the day he yelled at me!

It was after an OSU win at the Schottenstein Center in 1999 that I got my first taste of Knight’s angry scowl. I was a sophomore calling the play-by-play on the student radio station and it was a great thrill for me to go down to the press room following each game to see the opposing team’s coach.

This was the first year in the new arena and the media was set up in a much smaller room than it uses now for post game press conferences. I stood against the back wall only about 20 or so feet away from the table where Knight sat. He made an opening statement and opened it up for questions.

Honestly, it felt like a lifetime and no one had a question for the coach of the team that just lost by nearly 20 points, so I went ahead and pulled one from under my hat!

OK, as a back story, Ohio State was a surprise team that year. After going 8-22 the year before, this team was beating teams up that had dominated it just a season earlier! So, I wanted to get this great OSU alum’s take on the remarkable turnaround of a team his Hoosiers had swept in three games the year before.

The question went something like, “Coach, were you surprised with the solid team play, specifically from the point guard, from the Buckeyes?”

Again, it felt like an eternity as he stared me down. You could hear the tape swirling in the video cameras it was so quiet.

“Let me ask you a question,” Knight said as he followed that with something like, “if I just said this is a team that did a really good job against us, don’t you think that means I was impressed by them?”

There wasn’t any swearing that I recall, and he didn’t really yell at me, but the entire room kind of just froze. Another token question or two and Knight was gone from the room as quickly as he’d entered.

As I stopped my tape recorder a few TV guys came over to make sure I was OK. Was I OK? I was great! The most outspoken coach ever to sit at a post game microphone had just laid into me! I thought it was one of the coolest things ever.

I still have that tape somewhere, but the last time I played it I remember it not being nearly as dramatic as it felt.

I think I’ll keep my memories of that fire-breathing man staring down at me in tact by not digging up that tape anytime soon!

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