I’d still blame Glass more. He extended Crean in 2011 for a ridiculous length of 10 years, and then hired the human form of plaster of paris to drag us further into the muck. Sadly, Glass’ protege Dolson then showed how little he learned by extending Tom Allen with another ridiculously long contract which means we hold on to him for four fully dismal seasons
I've followed IU hoops since 90-91
- Thread starter GeorgeStrait IU
- Start date
Deserved to be fired for what? For violating the zero tolerance bullshit that was a rigged deal from the moment your hero Myles Brand dreamt it up? For that? For not allowing himself to be shoved out the door by an administration that wanted to destroy, er..,excuse me, “de-emphasize” the basketball program? Hard to fathom that someone today, especially with the benefit of hindsight, would take the position that RMK deserved to be fired and defend Myles Brand.
Sounds like it just might be a little personal for you as well. I take it that you didn’t get your ass kissed and you’re still sore about it. An “unnecessary asshole”, right? If your smarmy, POS post in this thread is any indication I’d say it was both necessary and deserved…
Last edited:
Glen Grunwald was a huge bust…very highly rated in Street and Smiths, written up in SI as a high school senior and very intelligent. He injured his knee early on and could barely move after that. He never lost his sweet shooting touch, the ball appearing to float, but could only play for short minutes at a time due to his mobility liability. His injury is in the top five of unfortunate IU injuries.
His opinion of Coach Knight changed around 2016. As was the case with alot of Knight's former supporters and fans. I'm pretty sure of that.
Messed his knee up and lost confidence and fast first step. Regained some at Kansas.
Diabetes slowed Pat Graham's healing process a ton. The foot injury just never healed right.
For all the stuff he ended up getting fired for. After all the stuff he was allowed to get away with for decades at IU. At some point, enough is enough. And IU got to that point. It wasn't that Brand, or IU, wanted to deemphasize IU basketball, I'm sure. It was that they wanted their highest profile coach to stop acting like a lunatic. If Brand was gunning for Knight, he would have fired him immediately when the Reed stuff came out. That was an easy, justifiable, opportunity for him to make that move...if its something he was "just waiting for". Knight is the one that normalized irrational behavior.
My views of Knight did change after one of our encounters (mid 90's, can't remember exact year, summer of 94 or 95, I believe) I was working at a golf course as a cart attendant. Knight was buddies with one of the members at our course, and he was coming to play in an outing. I was in high school, and everyone knew how much I loved IU basketball. I defended RMK to the non IU fans. I went on and on and on about Cheaney, Bailey, Henderson, etc... So when he showed up that morning, the club pro arranged that I would be the one to get Knight's bag from him, show him where his locker was going to be, basically get him anything he might need or want. He rode to the course with the member, when he got out of the car I was there to meet both of them. The member introduced us, told him I was a big IU fan. Not one word from Coach. No big deal, he probably gets annoyed with fans all the time. I put his clubs on the cart with the member. The pro and the member talk with him and the pro notices Coach has hard spikes. He says to me, while we're all standing together, "take Coach in to the locker room, and have the locker room attendant change his spikes to soft spikes while he's getting ready." Coach says, "I hate ****ing soft spikes." And shakes his head. I lead him in to the locker room, show him his locker, and take his shoes to get the spikes changed. I stayed with the attendant while he was doing it. The attendant was going to throw his hard spikes away because some of them were worn almost down to the plastic. But I stopped him, and asked him to put them in a plastic bag, and that we'd let RMK decide what to do with them. When I took him his shoes, he was off somewhere else in the locker room, so I set his golf shoes down and put the plastic bag of his hard spikes on top of his shoes. I walked out and milled around by his cart waiting for him to come out. A few minutes later I hear him yelling about something as he's coming out of the pro shop. He sees me and B-lines my way, actual RMK full on red face. "Where are my ****ing spikes? You throw them away? Steal them? I hate ****ing soft spikes, so you better come up with my spikes!" As calmly as my teenager psyche could muster..."I put them in a baggie on top of your shoes." "No you didn't! Go ****ing get them then." So I did. And they were sitting on the floor where his shoes had been. I brought them back and gave them to him. Not a word one way or another from him. A normal human being would maybe try to lighten the mood a little bit, if not apologize. But he just threw them in to the cubby in his cart and walked off toward the putting green.
I can't fathom how many interactions like that people in the IU buildings had to deal with over the years.
Great coach. For some people, great person. By all accounts he was generous with his money. And for his closest friends, and for a long list of his players that were able to endure him, they love him because he did mold them in to better players and probably better people. I get all that.
But he was an unnecessary asshole. And society and times changed. And it was no longer a tenable situation.
Despite that encounter, I remained an adamant IU supporter. My views on RMK had been fundamentally changed. But I still rooted for him and IU. And I still think its a shame it had to end the way it did.
In Brand's own words, he makes it clear that D1A athletics, basketball and football specifically, are out of control and need to be reigned in via an academics first approach.
The speech “Academics First: Reforming Intercollegiate Athletics,” delivered to National Press Club, Washington, D.C. lays it out. Basketball and football pose a threat to the academic integrity of schools. He says you can't eliminate them, nor let them move to a professional model. Presidents must work with ADs, BOTs and stakeholders to put academics first. That means you "have to limit the excesses so the positive benefits can flourish" AKA de-emphasize the revenue sports while simultaneously boosting academics.
Speech Transcript (PDF download)
Video of the speech
Oh, I don't know. He looked pretty strong as the championship season went on. The next year, something happened.
Wasn't AJ Ratliff supposed to be good? Derek Elston sucked balls. Sean Cline was awful. I'm not sure how big those guy's reps were coming in, though.
Cline had a decent soph year...then blew out his knee. Was like watching a cripple play ball afterwards.
Good call on Ratliff. Occasionally Up, but mostly down career. Looked like he had turned the corner in year 1 of Sampson. Then year two he pulled off quite an accomplishment (TIC) for the Sampson era in becoming academically ineligible!!! Came back to play 2nd semester in ‘08 for a few games before Sampson showed him the door.
Andre Owens is a kid who didn’t see it through and transferred after his freshman year. Had a very good career at Houston and played for the Pacers for a couple of years.
Gator's rules: 1) RMK is never wrong, and any one who criticizes or questions his actions in any way, shape or form is the enemy and a traitor. 2) when in doubt, refer to rule #1.
Sadly, RMK got bigger than the program and when no one reigned him in, it was to the point he was probably going to be fired at some point. Sad, because he did so much good for the program, school and community and it would have been pretty easy to stay within the lines. Similar to your interaction, I always thought of the kid he skewered in the tourney about "who from IU told you that..." And, I think the kid was an unpaid volunteer if I remember correctly, but no reason to roast him publicly for trying to do his job.
I have no doubt he could be cruel if he was in a mood.
I had 2 brief interactions with him - both chance encounters. Both were pleasant and he was very nice. On one, I had my wife and 2 year old daughter with me and we ran into him coming out of Assembly Hall. I asked Norm Ellenberger (I think they were going to lunch) If I could introduce my daughter to Coach Knight. "Oh yeah, he'd be glad to meet you". Coach looked down at my daughter and she looked up at him (wish I'd have had a camera). He said "How are YOU?" several times. Cracked me up.
I think Coach just didn't handle stress well. That's no excuse. But I've known people who were under a lot of pressure (which Knight was all the time) and the least little thing sets them off. I'm sure part of it is insecurity, but a lot of people just don't have the emotional make-up to deal with stress.
It's too bad, because I believe he has a generous heart and was brilliant in his field. I agree with those who say there was no good way for him to go, but the way it went down was tragic, imo.
Uh-huh. That “kid” was Rance Pugmire. Look him up. Real high character guy apparently.
Ex-athletic director for USU enters guilty plea
Former Utah State University Athletic Director Rance Pugmire pleaded guilty Wednesday to a class-B misdemeanor charge of alcohol-related reckless driving but denied being drunk when he flipped a university-owned vehicle
www.hjnews.com
So, essentially I had your bitter ass pegged right outta the gate…
