It Was a Sad Night Knight Took Flight

Washington Post columnist John Feinstein, who wrote a best seller on Bob Knight, thinks he knows why the Indiana coach pulled his team off the floor against the Soviet national team.

“First, he had put down the whole Soviet trip,” Feinstein said. “Then he scheduled the game. I don’t know why except that he thought he could win. He doesn’t like the Soviets, so any chance to beat them, he’ll take.

“The Soviets had lost to Arizona badly. Knight doesn’t like Lute Olson, the Arizona coach. His mind works this way. So he’s saying, ‘Olson’s team beat them, so we’d better beat them.’ That turns up the pressure a little bit more.

“Then Indiana goes out and doesn’t play well. They’re getting hammered. I know he was dying. They’re doing this in front of 16,000 people in their first game as defending national champions. The frustration got to him and he snapped.”

For the Record: Oklahoma football Coach Barry Switzer was quoted in this space as saying that no college team has ever gone through an entire season as No. 1 and capped it with a national championship on New Year’s Day.

Don Brogan of San Marino says USC pulled it off in 1972. The Trojans were voted No. 1 after beating Arkansas, 31-10, in the opener. They never surrendered the ranking and wrapped up the national championship with a 42-17 rout of Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.

From Lee Trevino, 48, saying he’s going to cut down on his NBC announcing commitments next year: “I want to play more. I’m trying to get ready for the Seniors’ tour.

“Wish I could find my birth certificate. I might be 50 now and not know it.”

Trivia Time: Who is the only player in National Basketball Assn. history to win the MVP of the All-Star game, the regular season and the playoffs in the same season? (Answer below.)

Jack Craig of the Boston Globe, on announcer Al Michaels: “While few broadcasters bask in so much praise, none seems to more resent even rare criticism.

“Two years ago, Michaels mailed me the nastiest letter I have ever received from a broadcaster, over an article in which I actually praised him, but placed him slightly arrears of Vin Scully and Bob Costas in that season’s postseason baseball broadcasts. He not only challenged my judgment but also my motives.”

From Shawn Burr of the Detroit Red Wings, claiming he’s not superstitious: “But I do have to be the first one on the ice after the goalie. Then I skate around and hit both goal posts, twirl my stick and hit the faceoff circle.”

After Jerry Rice had caught three touchdown passes for San Francisco Sunday night, veteran receiver Dwight Clark hugged him and said: “I used to think you were the best receiver I’d ever seen. Now I think you’re probably the best football player I’ve ever seen, known or talked to.”

The Boston Globe quotes Michael Cooper’s wife, Wanda, as saying that he still has the Volkswagen he drove in college mine years ago.

“He doesn’t spend,” she said. “He doesn’t want clothes. He got married in a T-shirt and jeans, and he has been that way ever since. He doesn’t have a credit card, and he has only has one gas card. That’s a tough way to live.”

Trivia Answer: Willis Reed of the New York Knicks in 1969-70.

Quotebook

General Manager Jim Frey of the Chicago Cubs, on how he helped George Brett with his hitting when he was managing the Kansas City Royals: “I used to tell him, ‘Attaway to hit, George.’ ”