NAACP Decries Photo of Knight Putting Whip on Black Player

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — About 150 calls complaining about a photograph showing Indiana Coach Bob Knight flipping a bullwhip toward the backside of bent-over black player Calbert Cheaney have been received by the NAACP.

“This phone has been ringing off the hook,” Alice Hoppes, president of the Albuquerque chapter of the NAACP, said Friday. “I’ve heard from people who said they thought it was an outrage.”

Kit Klingelhoffer, Indiana’s sports information director, said the incident was a joke and described the reaction as “absurd.”

Knight, mocking the media for its characterization of his disciplinary approach to coaching, brandished the bullwhip at a news conference Wednesday, then showed up with it at practice. “Probably no motivational device I’ve ever come across is as good as this,” he said.

Before practice ended, Knight ran the whip across Cheaney’s backside as the team’s leading scorer was bent over. On Thursday, the Albuquerque Journal published a photograph of the incident.