It was Super Bowl Sunday in 1975. I was a graduate student trainer at Indiana University and we were practicing between games. The practice was wrapping up and the team was shooting free throws. I asked the head trainer, Bob Young, if I could leave early since I had tests to study for. He said yes.
As I was leaving Assembly Hall where the basketball court is below ground level I came across a young boy and girl wandering the hallway which was off limits. I asked them "Can I help you?" They said they wanted to thank Coach Knight. "Thank him for what?" I said. For this, and they produced copies of programs from a game a few weeks prior that were signed "Best Wishes, Bob Knight."
They were kids in a foster home. Coach Knight had the practice of signing the unsold programs (which at that time were 25 cents apiece) and had them distributed to foster homes and kid's cancer hospitals.
I told them I would see what I could do and took them downstairs to the door to the locker room. The team was still shooting freethrows and Coach Knight was standing at mid court. I first went to Jan Stauffer who was a graduate assistant at the time and told him of the request. Jan went to his friend, Mike Krzyzewski, who was also a graduate assistant at the time. Mike forwarded it to assistant coach Bob Weltich who went to assistant coach Bob Donewald who went to assistant coach Dave Bliss who went to Coach Knight. The message was relayed back that Knight would talk to them after practice.
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He called the team over and after short speech dismissed them from practice and they all started sprinting to the locker room. The two kids were wide eyed and saying "There goes Buckner, there goes Wilkerson, there goes Benson."
Coach Knight came over and put his arm around my shoulder and started talking to the two kids. He treated them like adults and asked questions like "What do you think of our team? Did we play well yesterday? etc.
After a few minutes he pointed at the boy who had longer hair then the girl and said "Is that your girl friend?" and everyone laughed. At the same time he patted me on the back of head. At that time I still had hair and it was a little long. The next day I got a hair cut.
I have a lot of good memories of Coach Knight and thought this one was the best one to share. The one where he took away the press pass for Sports Illustrated out of games for the hit piece that Curry Kirkpatrick wrote was another beauty that I like to share in person. My condolences to his family, friends, former players and assistant coaches.
Related: HuskerMax BBS thread.
