The other night the girl, Lady Phardoe, and I decide to kick it at home and rent a movie. We wound up renting an old William Hurt/Holly Hunter flick called Broadcast News. By the way, it's good. There is a scene where Hunter is in the edit room with her editor and they are in a hurry trying to put the finishing touches on a news piece. The news is live and the piece has about one minute until it airs. When suddenly, while doing a final dub her editor, Bobby, yells, "Oops!" In a hurried, out of breath cadence Hunter starts chanting "Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby..."
I'm thinking that this very same chant was repeated several times in the last few days on the campus of Indiana University, several times in a negative way and several more in a positive way. The ax finally fell on Sunday when the powers at be at Indiana fired basketball coach Bobby Knight ending three tumultuous decades at a school where he was one of basketball's best coaches but also one of its most volatile. Already in trouble for a history of misconduct, Knight's temper finally did him in when he grabbed a student by the arm last week to lecture him about manners. The coach had been under a "zero-tolerance'' school policy that included no "inappropriate'' physical contact with students.
Last spring, he was accused of choking one of his players during practice in 1997, an act caught on videotape. Following a school investigation into that accusation and others, Indiana warned Knight in May that he was under a zero-tolerance policy. The university also suspended him for three games and fined him $30,000. In typical Bobby Knight fashion this didn't seem to faze him. No one was going to tell Knight what to do or how to conduct himself or by no means tell him how to run his basketball program.
Indiana president Myles Brand called Knight and told him the end was here and he could leave gracefully and resign if he so chose. Knight told him to stick it and Brand then subsequently fired him. All of this was quickly followed by chaos. Lots of chaos!
Now I had some other things to discuss in my little column this week like for example, women's tennis. That match between Venus Williams and Martina Hingis in the semi-finals of the US Open was awesome! Greatest come from behind victory I've ever seen in women's tennis. Not to mention that with the skimpy outfits, Anna Kournikova and the permanent T.H.O. that the Williams sisters have, this sport is vaulting up the popularity ladder.
I was going to talk about the fact that Houston NFL team owner Bob McNair paid $700 million for a franchise and beat out the larger market, Los Angeles, in a heated battle to get a team and all he could come up with for a name was the "Texans!" Wasn't that name taken by the Cowboys like forty years ago? What a shitty name! "The name and logo embody the pride, strength, independence, courage and achievement that make the people of Houston and our area special'', said McNair. The people who live in Texas don't seem to get the fact that no one gives a rat's ass about Texas except Texans!
I had a few choice words for the great Cardinals defensive specialist, Simeon Rice. Rice had 44 sacks over the last four years and he set a single season team record with 16 1/2 sacks and was positioned to get a big contract as a free agent. Then the Cardinals applied the franchise tag and Rice got pissed. He held out all summer trying to get the deal he wanted and even went so far as to call Phoenix, Phardoe's turf, "the armpit of the world.'' Not good! Don't call my people and my place bad names. Not healthy, I wield power!
I also had a little ditty about Darryl Strawberry... ah, forget it, he's exhausted all my banter!
But I can't discuss these things because Mr. Knight did a bad thing! Knight's behavior, which has included verbal and physical abuse of players, has been a problem since he took over the Hoosiers in 1971. The 59-year-old coach, a member of the Hall of Fame, has one of the game's most notorious tempers. He has thrown chairs across the court in a fit of rage. In an altercation with a fan in a hotel lobby Knight stuffed him in a garbage can. In Puerto Rico, Knight allegedly hit a policeman and was convicted in absentia having never uttered so much as an apology. Puerto Rico continued to try to extradite Knight until 1987. He kicked his own son on the bench during an Indiana game.
Jeanette Hargraves, a secretary at Indiana, stated that the coach hurled a plant in her direction and called her a bitch. He lit up a press conference moderator in Boise, Idaho at an NCAA Tournament in 1995. In an interview with Connie Chung he was quoted as saying, "...if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it." And these are just to name a few, there are many, many more!
The question isn't whether or not Knight is an asshole. I think that's very apparent, Knight may even agree with you. He's says he absolutely doesn't care what people think about him. A bigger question, is he going to snap one day and go postal on everyone within a five-mile radius? I guess the powers at be at Indiana figured he was just too much of a distraction and he had to go. I think he became bigger than the program and they resented that.
Coach Bobby Knight IS Indiana basketball! Knight owns a career record of 763-290. He spent his first six years at Army and is 117 wins shy of passing North Carolina's Dean Smith to become college basketball's all-time winningest coach.
Knight guided Indiana to national championships in 1976, 1981 and 1987, but the Hoosiers had done little in the postseason in recent years. They have lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament four times in the last six seasons and last reached the Final Four in 1992. But, many consider this Hoosier squad to be the best one that Indiana has put on the court in many years.
Bottom line is he wins! Is he crazy? Probably. Is he violent? Yes! Does he get out of control and handle some situations the absolute wrong way? Most definitely! Does he win? Yes! Does he run a clean program? Yes! Has he ever had sanctions on his team? No! Bobby Knight brought a winning program to Indiana that is worth millions to the university, not to mention putting their school and basketball program on the map. I'm sure they can get a new coach. Can they replace Coach Knight? Maybe, but probably not.
Let me leave you with my favorite Knight quote. While speaking to a packed stadium after a game he said, "When I die, I want to be buried face down so my detractors can kiss my ass!"
I feel better now!
9/13/2000
phardoe@sportshollywood.com
Teed Off
By Phardoe...
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Some funny things happen when tempers flair in sports. To whatever degree of the mishap it doesn't really seem to matter. It doesn't matter if it's the World Series or a Little League game. What does seem to matter is that someone is pissed off and there is going to be hell to pay.
Well last week some people got pissed. It all happened in the same sport, kind of, baseball. Now if baseball is the common denominator that's about the only thing.
People do some dumb shit.
In a game between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Boston Red Sox there were pissy attitudes all over the field. Apparently the BoSox Pedro Martinez felt the need to send an early signal, a very early signal. Who knows what his deal was! Great pitcher but sometimes walks a fine line of sensible, sane pitching behavior. Martinez hits the D-rays first batter, Gerald Williams. He was the first damn hitter, what could have gone bad already? Well Gerry started to slowly walk up the first base path but then decided, "What the hell, I'll make Sportscenter tonight" and he charged the mound. Madness ensued!
The game was interrupted five times by fights and/or arguments. Williams was tossed. Three D-rays pitchers, Dave Eiland, Tony Fiore and Cory Lidle, were ejected for throwing at Red Sox players including Brian Daubach. Daubach was hit by pitches twice after playing a role in the first-inning fight, during which he hyperextended his left elbow. Good thing he's a ball player and not a boxer! "We thought that Daubach was throwing cheap shots in the pile and you have to protect your players,'' Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild said after the game. "You're not going to let that happen, and the only problem was that our pitchers kept missing that guy.'' They threw behind him twice.
Now the funny part. They must have briefly forgotten the fact that they suck! I'm sure the lowly Devil Rays banded together and said they were going to show that nasty Pedro who's boss. They did, he is. Martinez pitched a one-hitter, taking a no-hitter into the ninth. After they cleared the field from the melee Martinez then retired 24 consecutive batters before John Flaherty singled leading off the ninth. My advice to the deprived team from South Florida, both of them actually, is to stop worrying so much about crowding the plate and throwing blows and start polishing off the golf clubs. Your tee times start in about four weeks!
Now one on a lesser or more serious level depending on how you look at it. Nearly two dozen adults stormed a T-ball field and began brawling over an umpire's call as the 4- and 5-year-old players watched. A home video taken during a Miami Friends Baseball Association T-ball game Tuesday shows at least 20 men charging the field, throwing wild punches and shoving and tackling one another. No one was seriously injured, and no children participated in the fight.
Wow the funny thoughts and visions that this sparks. First of all the name of the t-ball league has the word "friends" right in the title. Friends from where, San Quentin?! Second, it happened in Florida. Hey wait a damn minute! Was Gerald Williams kid playing in this game? I also have this vision of all the dads beating the crap out of each other, all the moms bitch-slapping and swinging their purses and all the kids trying to bite each other.
Now that is some good family fun. I can't wait till I have a kid and he gets to play t-ball. Little Phardoe shows up, talks some smack and I get to slap some dad around. Life is good.
Now this one is just a work of beauty. Federal regulators are suing former baseball player Steve Garvey for pitching a so-called miracle weight-loss product in TV infomercials that the Federal Trade Commission is calling deceptive. The ex-L.A. Dodger hero made "extreme" claims about Enforma diet system supplements "Fat Trapper" and "Exercise in a Bottle," the FTC lawsuit charges.
Hey Steve, what the f*** are you thinking? Is this what your Popeye arm existence has become? Get a job dude. I'm sure you could get a coaching job somewhere doing something. You played in the show for like fifty years. Isn't there something you can teach? Isn't there someone out there that will listen to your knowledge of the game? Hey how about the Miami Friends Baseball Association T-ball League?
I feel better now!
9/8/2000
phardoe@sportshollywood.com
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Phardoe lives at the beach and can currently be seen on a barstool near you. Feel free to buy him drinks! But beware -- Phardoe is also the loudest, angriest sportsfan who has ever lived. He thinks British soccer fans are sissies. If he starts to get aggressive, just say "Big Unit rocks" or "Sun Devils rule" to calm him, then find the nearest exit. (Or just buy him another beer.)
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