COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S TOURNAMENT : Snappy Retort : Indiana’s Cheaney Uses Towel to Show That Whipping by Knight Was Mere Joke

Not often does an Indiana basketball player have the nerve to snap a towel at Coach Bob Knight from behind, much less during an NCAA tournament game, much less four times.

Calbert Cheaney did.

In a deliberate attempt to put an end to a developing controversy over Knight wielding a bullwhip during practice as a joke--a whip that the players themselves had presented to the coach as a joke--Cheaney towel-flogged Knight on the sideline near the end of Indiana’s 106-79 West Regional victory over UCLA here Saturday.

“Yeah, to pay him back for what he did to me at our shootaround,” Cheaney, a junior forward, said with a smile. “We’ve been getting a lot of static about that the past couple of days. I got a chance to get him back with my towel.”

Callers to television stations and newspapers that had captured Knight on film, posed with the whip in his hand over a bent-over Cheaney, had found the coach’s action offensive, citing a negative racial connotation. Knight, 51, is white; Cheaney, 21, is black.

A local chapter of the NAACP had notified national officers to ask whether Indiana’s game with UCLA should be protested by picketers. None were seen outside the arena.

Several UCLA players also had expressed their disapproval of Knight’s behavior. Said senior Darrick Martin: “If that incident had happened in L.A., there probably would have been riots by now.”

Dick Schultz, NCAA executive director who attended Saturday’s game, indicated no disciplinary action would be taken but that the coach could have used better judgment.

Knight was unapologetic.

“Don’t bother me with that (expletive),” he said.

His players argued that the joke was their idea in the first place, an extension of the coach’s running gag over being cruel to his players by actions such as canceling a team banquet.

Cheaney said black players and white players alike were in on the gag, and if it didn’t bother them, why should it bother anyone else?

UCLA senior Gerald Madkins had a different view. “Fear is what comes to my mind when I see a whip. Not motivation,” Madkins said.

And Bruin freshman Tyus Edney added: “That just shows, even though it’s a joke, what some people may think of (black players).”

The sports editor of the Albuquerque Tribune, John O’Rourke, apologized in print Saturday for publishing a photograph of Knight “threatening” Cheaney with the whip, saying it hadn’t occurred to anyone at the newspaper that the photo might be inappropriate.