Wimp Out-Toughs Bob Knight

Bob Knight probably will feel slighted. When Newsday polled 25 college basketball officials on whom they considered the toughest coaches to work for, Knight finished fourth.

The top 10: Wimp Sanderson of Alabama, Gary Williams of Ohio State, Billy Tubbs of Oklahoma, Knight of Indiana, Paul Evans of Pittsburgh, Norm Sloan of Florida, Jud Heathcote of Michigan State, Jim Brandenburg of Wyoming, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and John Thompson of Georgetown.

Said one official of Sanderson: “He screams about nonsensical things. He has no credibility at all.”

Another official said Sanderson once got so worked up over a call that he actually forgot what the call was.

“He asked me if I remembered what he was bitching about,” the official said. “Do you believe that?”

Add Knight: He surprisingly got support from some officials, but others said they actually were afraid of him.

One called him “rough and insufferable,” and another called him “a miniature Woody Hayes.” Said another: “You don’t know when he’s going to go off the deep end.”

Add Coaches: Knight, Williams and Heathcote, along with Purdue’s Gene Keady and Villanova’s Rollie Massimino, were named to Dick Vitale’s All-Mike Ditka team, “made up of guys who show tremendous intensity when coaching, guys you can tell are into every play by the looks on their faces.”

Vitale could have included Rick Pitino, the feisty second-year coach at Providence who almost got into a fight with Georgetown’s Thompson in a TV game this season.

Pittsburgh sportscaster Myron Cope said of Pitino: “Even before his first season got under way, he made himself known at a preseason meeting of Big East coaches. Massimino was holding forth, delivering a lecture to the effect that young coaches don’t seem to know their place anymore. Suddenly, Pitino leaped over a table, grabbed Massimino and told him, ‘Don’t you ever dare talk to me like that again.’ ”

Add Ditka: Testifying to his intensity is Gene Sobolewski, a former Pitt player who was Ditka’s little brother in their college fraternity.

Sobolewski, now a high school coach, told Bill Utterback of the Pittsburgh Press: “I was a freshman when he was a senior. Our freshman team was unbeaten and unscored upon, but we had never scrimmaged the varsity. At the end of the year, the freshmen ran the scout team for the Notre Dame game.

“I lined up across from Mike in practice, and he whispered to me, ‘Just take it easy. This isn’t supposed to be a contact drill.’ I took it easy, and he blasted me. I fell forward and rolled over a couple of times. He pointed at me and said, ‘You never take it easy on the football field.’ ”

Dominance Dept.: Even if you subtracted Wayne Gretzky’s 54 goals from his scoring total, he’d still have an eight-point lead in the National Hockey League scoring race.

Trivia Time: What part did the wind play in the 1961 baseball All-Star game at Candlestick Park? (Answer below.)

Ouch: Wrote Gary Pomerantz of the Washington Post, after the Washington Bullets lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 121-99, Monday night: “On the silver anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain’s majestic 100-point game, the Washington Bullets celebrated in symbolic fashion Monday night: They wilted.”

Trivia Answer: It blew San Francisco Giant pitcher Stu Miller off the mound, causing him to balk.

Quotebook

Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist: “It’s good to be a man of few words. You never know when you might have to eat them.”