College Basketball / Mark Heisler : Knight Hopes a Book Will Improve His Image

In the longshot of the year, Indiana’s Bob Knight has taken a journalist aboard. On first glance, this is like Attila the Hun agreeing to having an observer from the Red Cross.

There is more to Knight, of course, than blowups, even if he so often obscures it. It’s one reason he’s allowing John Feinstein of the Washington Post the run of his program: practices, meetings, the locker room, a seat on the bench.

Feinstein is writing a book that he intends to call, “A Season on the Brink, a Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers.”

On the brink of what?

“On the brink of everything,” Feinstein said from Bloomington, Ind., where he has taken up residence. “This is one of the great brinksmen of our time. He’s constantly testing. He always pushes everything and everyone--including himself.

“He really thinks that if people could see the real Bob Knight, they’d like him.”

Anyone worried that Knight might have gone on a public relations campaign designed to produce a saccharine image has the wrong enfant terrible . Posterity may be about to render judgment, but Knight has decided to let it see the real thing.

He has bawled out Feinstein for talking to one of the assistant coaches during practice--the assistant had called Feinstein over while Knight was out getting a drink of water. He has upbraided Indiana cheerleaders for distracting Steve Alford at the foul line. After a big comeback win over Purdue, he refused to discuss the game, burdening reporters with a long discourse on fishing and then taking his leave.

“I asked him why he did it,” Feinstein said. “He said he just felt like it.

“It had been a great win. They were down, 69-64, with 3:30 left. Ricky Calloway was hurt, and the other two starters on the front line had fouled out. They had no chance to win. Then they held Purdue to one point the rest of the way and in the overtime period. Everybody was happy. He was happy with the kids.

“I asked him if it was the (Quinn) Buckner thing. (Buckner had just been cut by the Indiana Pacers, and Knight had blasted them). A couple of Indianapolis guys had taken shots at him. He said no.”

On the other hand, Knight hasn’t thrown a folding chair, or benched his starting five, or thrown any starters off the team, or told any of them they couldn’t ride the team plane home, or said anything about the governor of Indiana for which he had to apologize.

He did all that last season--and went 7-11 in the Big Ten--while people wondered if he was thinking of quitting. Indiana beat Illinois, 61-60, Thursday night and took over the Big Ten lead at 10-3 as Michigan State upset Michigan.

“He seems this year to have re-focused,” Feinstein said. “He’s recruiting more. He acts like he wants to keep coaching.

“I’m going to start the book the night he won the Olympic gold medal. He was at the pinnacle. He’d done everything in coaching. He’d won the NCAA twice, the Pan-Am Games. He’d won 200 games before anybody, 300 before anybody. Now, he’d won the Olympics and he was 43 years old. He had half his life ahead of him.

“The thing about him, I think he really does care about his players. You can see that in the fact they all come back to him.

“The first person Buckner called when he was cut was Knight. The first person Jim Thomas called when he was cut was Knight. Same with Butch Carter and he wasn’t a Knight favorite. They call because they know he’ll try to help.”

Knight’s relationship with Isiah Thomas, perhaps his greatest player and the only one who turned pro early, is more precarious.

“It goes back and forth,” Feinstein said. “When Isiah played in the Olympic exhibitions in ‘84, I think he was saying, ‘All is forgiven, I still like you, I hope you still like me.’

“Knight still likes him, even if he still thinks Buckner invented basketball. Knight’s always saying, ‘If I started a basketball team, I’d have to have Buckner at guard.’ ”

Suggested alternate title for the book: “Pride Goeth Before a Folding Chair.”

News item: LSU Coach Dale Brown says he’s coming back.

Comment: Arghhh. . . .

It’s been another great season in Baton Rouge, La. For the second year in a row, Brown was involved to his eye teeth in a messy recruiting affair, this one involving Tito Horford. Brown subsequently threw Horford off the team, reportedly not long after Tito talked to an NCAA investigator.

Team captain Nikita Wilson got two F’s and took two correspondence courses to make them up. He needed two A’s, got an A and a B, and was ruled ineligible. When several department heads refused to consider a makeup exam, Brown railed, “LSU used Nikita Wilson.”

The LSU chancellor refused to comment.

The Tigers started 14-0 but have since gone 5-8. Brown dropped hints that he might retire.

Brown outlined more ways to clean up college basketball. If he really wants to make a contribution, let him resign.

Maryland has gone through some hard times this season, and even with its 77-72 overtime upset of No. 1-ranked North Carolina Thursday night, the Terrapins are faced with the possibility of missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in five seasons.

Once the demon recruiter of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Terrapin Coach Lefty Driesell now gets walked on by Dean Smith, Jimmy Valvano, Bobby Cremins, Terry Holland and Mike Kryzewski.

Lefty, in his 17th year at Maryland, made his only splash this season when he wrote a memo to his publicity department, asking that he be referred to as Charles, not Lefty. It leaked out, resulting in much laughter in the press.

Nevertheless, he gets high marks for last week. The Terrapins were 12-10, with ACC victories only over doormats Clemson and Wake Forest, when they upset North Carolina State at Raleigh, N.C. That night, Driesell caught his star, Len Bias, and two other players breaking curfew and sent them home. The rest of the team then lost at Clemson.

For refusing to look the other way with his season hanging in the balance, Lefty gets our coach-of-the-week award. As Lefty might say, winning ain’t everything.