Doyel: Bob Knight, Boilermaker for a day
Purdue Pete led the procession. The Boilermaker Special locomotive brought up the rear. In between them was another Purdue icon, former basketball coach Gene Keady, and he was not alone. Keady was with the real guest of honor, a man draping his arm over Keady’s shoulders as 2,300 Purdue fans stood and cheered:
Bob Knight.
A month after blowing off Indiana’s celebration of his undefeated 1976 national championship team, Knight flew into town to help Keady raise money for Purdue on Saturday.
If you’re an Indiana fan, how do you take this? Before you answer, come inside the Elements Financial Blue Ribbon Pavilion at the State Fairgrounds and see how Knight charmed the biggest crowd in The Famous Purdue Agriculture Fish Fry’s history, prompting Purdue’s Dean of Agriculture, Jay Akridge, to tell the crowd: “Somebody said there’s a football game in San Francisco, but I think the hottest ticket this weekend is right here.”
And he’s right. Bob Knight, speaking at a Purdue event? That’s Super Bowl stuff in Indianapolis – it’s "Ripley's Believe It Or Not!" stuff – and the $25-a-head event was sold out before it was even announced. Purdue invited its most loyal boosters in direct emails, then released event details with this disclaimer: Sold out. Also: No media passes allowed.
Knight was there early, posing for photos and signing autographs for any Purdue fan who had the gumption to ask. Two kids, maybe 10 years old, didn’t have the gumption. They stood about 15 feet from Knight, wide eyes staring eagerly at him. They wore red IU hoodies. They held miniature, red-and-white IU basketballs. They held pens.
They never got an autograph.
Maybe Knight didn’t see them.
* * *
“I have to tell coach Knight this,” is how Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann started these comments from the podium, before Knight and Keady spoke. “My five siblings are IU graduates. I’m the only Boilermaker in the family. I texted my family to tell them who I was going to be with today.
“So, coach Knight, the moral of the story is this: Even if you’re a Hoosier, you’ll eventually become a Boilermaker. So Boiler Up!”
Knight took it in good humor. This event was nothing if not funny and good-spirited, including the oversized wooden chair sitting sentry near the Purdue basketballs and Purdue T-shirts for sale. The chair had a handwritten sign:
Try to throw THIS ONE, Coach Knight.
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That’s a barb, but this was a love-fest between Knight and Keady, Knight and Purdue President Mitch Daniels, Knight and the Purdue crowd. He wore dark slacks and a green shirt under a beige sweater that, in the lighting on-stage, looked like old gold. Surely a coincidence.
Wearing that gold-looking sweater, Knight looked out among the Purdue crowd and congratulated the “people who have been responsible for the nice things your university has accomplished, and not just accomplished but shared with schools and people all over the world. You have a tremendous right to be proud of what your university does.”
A month ago, Indiana was proud of its 1976 national championship. To celebrate the 40th anniversary, IU invited every living player and coach from that team, every student-manager, everybody who sang the national anthem that season. Almost everybody returned to campus, even Scott May, ending his self-imposed exile that started when his coach – Bob Knight – was fired in 2000 and gained in intensity when the IU crowd booed his son when Sean May returned to Bloomington in 2004 with the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Knight didn’t respond to IU’s repeated invitations. Knight won’t return to Assembly Hall.
Knight won’t say Assembly Hall.
Not Saturday, not with nearly an hour of talk on stage. Not once did any of the following words come out of Bob Knight’s mouth: Indiana. Hoosiers. Assembly Hall.
Doyel: Bob Knight skips ceremony, but he's unmistakably present
These words, however, did come out of his mouth: Purdue. Boilermakers. Mackey Arena. And so did these words, from the Hoosiers’ former coach to the Boilermakers’ current fans:
“You have a tremendous right to be proud of what your university does.”
* * *
There were three podiums. On the left was Bob Hammel, the Hall of Fame sports writer from Bloomington, the moderator Saturday, and Knight’s good buddy. On the right was Gene Keady. In the middle was Knight, the unicorn Purdue caught and was showing off.
Before the coaches spoke, the crowd was shown a highlight reel from IU and Purdue basketball, both coaches with their legendary looks – Knight dashing with his curly hair and plaid sports coat, Keady scowling in his blazer and combover – and major accomplishments. A combined 17 Big Ten championships, the screen showed. Three national championships, it said. And then this picture: the 1976 IU banner celebrating the sport’s last perfect season. Knight was sitting between Hammel and his wife, Karen Knight. He was watching the giant screen from the front row. He showed no emotion, not until it was his turn to talk.
They were terrific, Keady and Knight, charismatic in their own way – Knight bombastic and profane, Keady humble and hapless, the perfect foil to such an unyielding personality.
Knight’s first words were a softball to the Purdue crowd, telling them of the time he asked political columnist George Will of The Washington Post to name someone else who should run for President. Will answered: former Gov. Mitch Daniels, the Purdue president.
From there, Knight and Keady did what they do.
Knight, addressing Mitch Daniels: “There are a lot of us here today who would like to see you get up off your ass and do something.”
Keady: “See? It never ends.”
And they were off, Knight and Keady playing off each other, Knight doing most of the talking, Keady getting laughs with just a few words. Like after Keady introduced his wife, Kathleen, to the crowd. Kathleen sat down. And then …
“I would appreciate it if Gene’s wife would stand one more time,” Knight said.
Keady: “Oh boy.”
With the crowd still giggling, Knight thanked Kathleen Keady for being “the lady that got rid of that god---- combover.”
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All in fun, of course. Keady and Knight were close almost from the start of a rivalry that Bob Hammel noted saw each go 6-14 on the other’s home court – Gene Keady breaking the 20-20 tie with a victory in their only Big Ten tournament meeting. In 1984 Knight asked Keady to help him pick the U.S. Olympic team.
“Thank you,” Keady told him Saturday, “for letting me be a part of that, Bob.”
“Listen,” Knight said, “when we were in basketball together, if it was something I had to do about the game itself, I wanted you there with me. Because as I said before, there just isn’t anybody in my time in coaching that I thought was the equal of you and the way you coached kids.”
Endearing stuff, and it ended this way.
“I appreciate having coach Knight here,” Keady told the crowd in his closing remarks. “I really didn’t think he’d do it, but I see now why I have a great deal of respect and love for him. So thank you Bob for doing this.”
Applause.
Now it was Knight’s turn to say goodbye.
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“There was never a coach I respected more than your coach,” he told the Purdue crowd, “and I was tickled to be asked to be a part of this with him. I leave you with this thought. Just like I said, let’s get Mitch Daniels off his ass and get him out there working, because I damn sure don’t want to be listening to Hillary (Clinton) for the next four years.”
The crowd was singing “Hail Purdue!” as Knight walked out of the building. A silver Buick LaCrosse was waiting outside. As Knight walked toward it, a man in a red IU jacket approached for an autograph.
“I have a plane to catch,” Knight said.
And with that he climbed into the Buick and was gone, leaving behind a handful of disappointed IU fans but more than 2,000 glowing folks from Purdue.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.