Knight-Long Quipfest Is Highlight of Titan Banquet

Cal State Fullerton Athletic Director Bill Shumard looked extremely relieved late Saturday night as the department’s auction was winding down.

It wasn’t the look of someone who had received an unexpectedly large cash grant, and it certainly wasn’t the look of an athletic director whose president had just told him that this budget thing was overrated, so go ahead and spend, spend, spend.

No, this was the type of relief known to only a select few. Irascible Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight had finished his keynote speech earlier and had left the building, having stayed within the boundaries of good humor and good taste all evening, give or take a relatively tame handful of expletives.

Which meant Shumard wouldn’t have to spend the early part of this week apologizing to university administration and high-brow donors.

Knight delivered about a 40-minute speech in which he gave the obligatory plug for Fullerton, criticized university presidents, made fun of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State, and was very comfortable in his role as the intimidating, sexist, wise-cracking, sarcastic, arrogant Hoosier.

The estimated crowd of 1,000 gave Knight a hero’s welcome and, at times, it was akin to the Pope in a church full of Catholics. When Knight left, probably 40% of the room scurried for the exits in hopes of an autograph, a picture or simply a closer look.

Fullerton grossed a little more than $90,000 and will net somewhere around $75,000 once all expenses are tallied, according to Shumard.

“We’re extremely pleased,” said Shumard, who presided over last year’s auction that raised about $47,000. “We took the biggest event in school history and doubled it in one year.”

But those are the numbers. Here’s the color.

Knight, as unexpurgated as it gets:

--On taking the Indiana job 22 years ago:

“When I first went to Indiana, my first day on the job, April 1, 1971, I got a telegram from the Indiana alumni association in Indianapolis. I’ve got it framed behind my desk: ‘Dear Coach Knight: Congratulations on being named head coach at our alma mater. We’re with you all the way--win or tie.”

--On his coach at Ohio State, Fred Taylor:

“Fred Taylor described a game as five kids, most of them immature, running up and down in a confined space with your paycheck in their mouths.”

--On coming home to his wife, Karen, after games:

“A game is a damn tough thing. I like to go home after games and drink some iced tea or eat some ice cream. . . . My wife won three state (high school) championships in Oklahoma, her last team went 30-0 and she’s in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. When I come home, I don’t get iced tea or ice cream. Here’s what I get:

“ ‘Well, I didn’t think we rebounded tonight. I didn’t think (Matt) Nover blocked out and, you know, when Minnesota went to a zone, you never did bring it up the left side of the court.’

“I look at her, pat her on the butt and say, “Lady, why don’t you go bake a cake or something?”

--On how he likes to get fans involved during games:

“During a game, I’ll hear somebody say, ‘Let Calbert (Cheaney) shoot more, get him some more shots!’ So I’ll walk out and bring Calbert over and say, ‘Calbert, they want you to shoot more.’ I want people involved.

“Now, usually Calbert is good, but when he misses three or four in a row, someone will yell, ‘Let somebody else shoot!’ So I get up and go say, ‘Calbert, quit shooting for a while. Calbert, I’m not telling you to pass, I know you’re not going to do that. Just stay out of the way for a while.’

“Now, I know people are trying to suggest things I don’t hear and I feel badly when I go home.”

--On his celebrated chair-throwing incident several years ago:

“The reason I threw the chair is that I kept hearing this voice holler, ‘Bob! Bob! Coach Knight! Coach Knight!’ I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I finally spotted this little old lady across the floor, a spitting image of my grandmother. I was intrigued.

“She yelled, ‘If you’re not going to sit down anymore tonight than you did on Thursday, could you throw me your chair?’ So I did. How can you get upset with that kind of chivalry during a game?”

Knight even had some advice for the people who won the bidding on a trip back to Indiana next winter for a basketball game.

“When you come back to Bloomington, you’ve got to go to my furniture store,” Knight said. “If you buy a couch, I’ll throw in a chair.”

Knight also said he has a new idea to revolutionize college basketball. It includes everything from fan involvement to minority hiring.

“I’ve installed a new scoreboard at Indiana this year. This is really going to get my fans involved with the team in a good way. . . .

“There will be racks on the backs of the chairs with a tablet of a full-court diagram and a half-court diagram. I can’t hear every suggestion, so the ushers will all be in tune. Whenever a fan has a suggestion, he can write it out and give it to an usher. The usher will take it to my panel, behind our bench.

“Now, my panel will be three people--a black, a woman and some other kind of minority, somebody who feels they have been picked upon. In many cases, that person will be a white, Anglo-Saxon male. . . . You gals will appreciate this: Every night, the chair person of my panel is going to be a woman.

“The panel will look over the suggestion and, if it’s a 3-0 vote, the chairlady hits a button and a bell goes off on my chair--if it’s still there. I know I then call an immediate timeout, I walk over and get the suggestion. I come back and put it in to my players. . . .

“Now, the new scoreboard, all four sides, flashes the section, row and seat number of the person who has made the suggestion. If it doesn’t work, (fans) can get on his ass--not mine. I think this is a hell of a thing for athletics. That can be my mark on college athletics.”

Titan Notes

Gymnastics Coach Lynn Rogers will put in a bid to be host of the NCAA regionals at Fullerton next spring. He received the paperwork last week and will turn it in by the end of the month. Rogers said Arrowhead water, a big sponsor of Titan gymnastics, has agreed to become involved in the effort. “I think we have a shot,” Rogers said. “Oregon State has helped us out, and they bid on it last year. It would be good for our program.” . . . Julie Garcia, a former Fullerton All-American and assistant gymnastics coach at the school the past 10 years, is retiring to concentrate on being a mother. . . . Ceremonies before Saturday’s Fullerton-San Jose State baseball game will honor Coach Augie Garrido for his 1,000th victory and dedicate the new scoreboard.